Before the 2016 election, Vice Ventures founder and general partner Catharine Dockery was bullish about the future of recreational cannabis in the United States. “We saw quite a bit more optimism around national legalization, with the feeling that a wave of states legalizing recreational use would be the final push needed” to see drug reform, […]
This has been a long time coming, but the OpenStack Foundation today announced that it is changing its name to “Open Infrastructure Foundation,” starting in 2021. The announcement, which the foundation made at its virtual developer conference, doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Over the course of the last few years, the organization started adding […]
Like countless other sectors of the entertainment industry, movie theaters have been devastated by a global pandemic with seemingly no end in sight. Initial closings stretched on for months, as distributors have delayed their biggest films, or simply cut out the middle man by skipping straight to video-on-demand services. Even as theaters have begun to […]
Apple is expanding its investment in music with today’s launch of “Apple Music TV.” The new music video station offers a free, 24-hour live stream of popular music videos and other music content, including exclusive video premieres, curated music video blocks, live shows, fan events, chart countdowns and guest appearances. The service doesn’t have its […]
U.K.-based Pimloc has closed a £1.4 million (~$1.8 million) seed funding round led by Amadeus Capital Partners. Existing investor Speedinvest and other unnamed shareholders also participated in the round. The 2016-founded computer vision startup launched a AI-powered photo classifier service called Pholio in 2017 — pitching the service as a way for smartphone users to […]
After a steady stream of successful product launches and Kickstarter campaigns, Peak Design is back with a new one — Mobile by Peak Design. The startup that created a rich ecosystem of photography and packing gear is tackling mobile devices, and has devised a clever interconnect system that seems to have anticipated Apple’s new MagSafe […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can […]
Following the updates to Instagram and Messenger that delivered cross-app communication and other features, Facebook today announced its Messenger API has also been updated to allow businesses to manage their communications across Instagram, in addition to Messenger . Before today, businesses could only respond to customer inquiries through the Instagram app and through Facebook’s unified […]
Google Cloud today announced the launch of Lending DocAI, its first dedicated service for the mortgage industry. The tool, which is now in preview, is meant to help mortgage companies speed up the process of evaluating a borrower’s income and asset documents, using specialized machine learning models to automate routine document reviews. Some of this […]
Propseller, a Singapore-based real estate agency that combines a tech platform with in-house agents to close transactions more quickly, announced today it has raised $1.2 million in seed funding. The round included investment from Iterative; Hustle Fund; XA Network; Rapzo Capital; Lazada co-founder Stein Jakabo; and Dot Property founder Ben Neve. Propseller also said “three […]
In 2018, Leslie Feinzaig, the founder of Female Founders Alliance, launched a free, equity-free accelerator for women called Ready Set Raise. The goal was to provide under-networked female founders the coaching and connections needed to raise money. This year, as funding for female founders drops to 2017 levels, Feinzaig realized why accelerators, hers included, might […]
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said on Monday it has lifted the ban on TikTok, 11 days after the South Asian nation’s telecom authority blocked the popular short video app in the country over problematic videos on the platform. The authority, however, warned that TikTok needs to actively moderate content on its app or else it will […]
SpaceX on Sunday launched another batch of 60 of its internet-beaming Starlink satellites, growing its constellation even further. That makes 835 Starlink satellites launched thus far, though not all of those are operational (some were test satellites that were intentionally decommissioned). The launch, from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, also included a successful controlled landing and […]
Facebook’s lead data regulator in Europe has opened another two probes into its business empire — both focused on how the Instagram platform processes children’s information. The action by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), reported earlier by the Telegraph, comes more than a year after a US data scientist reported concerns to Instagram that its […]
Alibaba Group said today it will spend about $3.6 billion to take a controlling stake in Sun Art, one of China’s largest big-box and supermarket chains. After the transaction is complete, Alibaba Group will own 72% of Sun Art. As in other countries, COVID-19 lockdowns increased demand for online food orders in China, drawing in […]
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment. There was a steady drumbeat of bullish news for unicorns this week.
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day […]
“Emily in Paris,” a new series on Netflix, has provoked skeptical responses from actual Parisians who are happy to point out the abundant clichés in its story of a young American (played by Lily Collins) who takes a last-minute transfer to a marketing agency in Paris. Some fairly obvious culture clash moments ensue, along with […]
The Equity crew this week chewed through a trio of media stories, each dealing with private companies and their successes. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Axios was growing rapidly and near profitability. The paper also broke news that Morning Brew might exit to Business Insider for a hefty $75 million potential payout. Meanwhile, […]
