In June of this year, as more of the world began to awaken to the many ways that people of color are systematically discriminated against amid months of protest, a wide number of companies announced initiatives aimed at improving the representation of underrepresented groups within their own ranks and as recipients of their investment dollars. […]
Last night, 10 disruptive mobility companies pitched on the virtual TechCrunch stage for a spot at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. Each company pitched for one minute followed by a Q&A with our expert panel of judges – Shahin Farshchi (Lux Capital), Natalia Quintero (Transit Tech Lab) and Rachel Holt (Construct Capital). The judges heard each […]
Mobility enthusiasts from around the world, welcome to Day One of TC Sessions: Mobility 2020! Get ready for two days of programming dedicated to the people and technology behind the transformation of transportation. Mobility’s a rapidly evolving revolution, and we’re thrilled to have the community’s best founders, investors and technologists standing by ready to help […]
Facebook announced this morning it’s bringing a number of new features and services to its family of Portal devices, including support for Netflix and Zoom. The company will also introduce easier ways to launch Netflix and other video streaming apps via one-touch buttons on its new remote, in addition to expanding its selection of its stories […]
A new company called Scribe Therapeutics founded by two former members of CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna’s UC Berkely genetics lab (alongside Doudna herself) launched on Tuesday, debuting a platform designed specifically to help develop and engineer new thereapeutics based on CRISPR for addressing specific diseases, with permanent treatments in patients. Doudna is part of the […]
One of the broader trends of the pandemic has been the unbundling of Zoom with startups pulling out a feature or two and designing entire products centered around a specific vision of remote work. One of the more tempting product ideas has been the development of the omnipresent always-on video workspace where managers can always […]
No matter the industry, the coronavirus pandemic has absolutely rocked the way that we work. Work from home is the new norm. But many are anxious to get back into the office and startups are looking to help with that transition in the safest way possible. One such startup is Envoy, a company that launched […]
Last night, Root filed to go public, adding a second name to the insurtech IPO rolls in 2020. Lemonade was first out the gate this summer, taking its rental and home insurance business public at an attractive valuation, compared to its revenues and margins as we traditionally understand them. Wall Street was enticed by its […]
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which invested $750 million in Indian telecom giant Jio Platforms in June this year, has returned to invest just as much capital in Mukesh Ambani’s other venture. Reliance Retail, India’s largest retail chain, said on Tuesday that it is selling a 1.2% stake in the business to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority for […]
One thing that annoys sales people is entering data into a CRM like Salesforce because it’s time spent not selling. Part of the problem is Salesforce is a database and as such is not necessarily designed for speed. Scratchpad wants to simplify that process by creating a workspace on top of the CRM to accelerate […]
Chargebee, which helps businesses set up and manage their billing, subscription, revenue operations and compliance, said on Tuesday it has raised $55 million in a new financing round as it looks to accelerate its expansion in global markets. The new financing round, a Series F, for the San Francisco and Chennai-based firm was led by […]
Thirdverse, the virtual reality game developer behind “Swords of Gargantua,” has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by JAFCO, with participation from Presence Capital, Sisu Ventures and Incubate Fund, and will be used for hiring, co-founder Masaru Ohnogi told TechCrunch. Based in Tokyo, Thirdverse was started four years ago as […]
SpaceX has launched yet another flight of 60 of its Starlink broadband internet satellites. The launch took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:29 AM EDT (4:29 AM PDT) this morning, after having been delayed three times earlier due to scrubs – twice because of weather, and one because of an unusual sensor […]
Digital transformation has been one of the big enterprise themes of 2020: organizations are doubling down on cloud services both to link up suddenly remote teams and centralize apps, documents and data in a more efficient way. Today, one of the startups that has filled out that story with a cloud-based suite of accounting services […]
Acquired in 2017, Soundtrap more or less serves a similar role as Anchor under the larger Spotify banner — albeit largely focused on music creation, instead of podcasting. The company’s software of the same name is a cloud-based service designed to let musicians remotely collaborate on a song, track by track. It is, honestly, a […]
UK-based robotic rover startup Spacebit has booked a second payload delivery to the Moon, aboard the Nova-C lander that Intuitive Machines is planning to send in 2021 as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Spacebit already has a berth aboard the Astrobotic Peregrine lander that’s set to go to the Moon in […]
Just because almost every gadget or appliance can be connected to the internet, doesn’t mean they should be. Outages can render these “smart” devices useless, and many use weak security that can make them easily hackable. And as security researchers recently found out, the consequences of having a major security flaw in one popular sex […]
Dialpad, the business-centric voice, video and contact-center service, today announced that it has raised a $100 million Series E funding round led by OMERS Growth Equity. Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, ICONIQ Capital and Work-Bench also participated. The company says its valuation is over $1.2 billion after it has now raised a total of $245 million. […]
Europe’s top court has delivered another slap-down to indiscriminate government mass surveillance regimes. In a ruling today the CJEU has made it clear that national security concerns do not exclude EU Member States from the need to comply with general principles of EU law such as proportionality and respect for fundamental rights to privacy, data […]
Ÿnsect, the startup building the world’s most high tech bug colony, have added $224 million in equity and debt to an already impressive $148 million cash haul as it looks to commercialize its business. Investors backing the company include the Los Angeles-based investment firm Upfront Ventures and the FootPrint Coalition, an investment vehicle financed by […]
