In a VC ecosystem that has now looked up long enough to embrace the Black Lives Matter affirmation and the diversity conversations that have followed, firms are thinking creatively about how they access investment opportunities by underrepresented talent.
The 2020 class of Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator is graduating with an official demo day on Wednesday at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT), and you can watch all the teams present their startups live via the stream above. This year’s class includes 10 companies building innovative new solutions to challenges either directly or indirectly […]
Hasura, a service that provides developers with an open-source engine that provides them a GraphQL API to access their databases, today announced that it has raised a $25 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Previous investors Vertex Ventures US, Nexus Venture Partners, Strive VC and SAP.iO Fund also participated in this round. […]
Google today is introducing a new feature for Android phones that will help legitimate businesses reach their customers by phone by having their brand name and reason for calling properly identified. The feature, known as “Verified Calls,” will display the caller’s name, their logo, a reason why they’re calling, and a verification symbol that will […]
We’re just days away from Disrupt 2020, a tech summit of (literally) global proportions. It’s our biggest Disrupt ever, stretching over five days — September 14-18. We’ve packed the conference agenda with experts, insight, trends, tools and connections designed to help early-stage startups meet their potential. We know many startup budgets are under duress, and […]
Sennheiser just released a new on-camera, directional microphone. The compact MKE 200 ($99.95) puts a lot of convenience and performance into a small, portable package — one that’s great for go-anywhere vlogging once that’s a reasonable option again, and one that provides a fantastic, but affordable, upgrade for your at-home video conferencing setup in the […]
Last Thursday and Friday’s public market sell-off has stretched into this week, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite off 2.5% this morning. But while tech shares are down broadly to start the holiday-shortened week — and are taking stick for bringing down even broader indices — some well-known technology, and technology-ish companies are suffering even more. […]
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 […]
Disney’s live-action remake of “Mulan” skipped theaters to instead stream on Disney+ over the weekend, for the added fee of $30. According to early data, the launch helped grow Disney+ mobile installs by 68%, compared with one week prior. Consumer spending in the app also grew by 193% during the same time period. This data […]
The real estate industry — like so many other sectors — was forced to adapt this year. Now, investors are ready to pour capital into the startups they believe are best-positioned in this new era, from companies tackling construction tech, financing and digital workflow tools to those finding ways to monetize vacant spaces, flex offices […]
Nikola and General Motors today announced a strategic partnership. Through the deal, GM gets 11% ownership in startup Nikola, and will, in turn, produce Nikola’s wild fuel cell pickup truck by the end of 2022. Both companies’ shares jumped on the news, with Nikola trading up 45% and GM up 11% in pre-market trading. The […]
Progress, a Boston area developer tool company, boosted its offerings in a big way today when it announced it was acquiring software automation platform Chef for $220 million. Chef, which went 100% open source last year, had annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $70 million from the commercial side of the house. Needless to say, Progress […]
Unlike some of its competitors, Google Cloud has recently started emphasizing how its large lineup of different services can be combined to solve common business problems. Instead of trying to sell individual services, Google is focusing on solutions and the latest effort here is what it calls its Business Application Platform, which combines the API […]
Peloton has launched two new products for its home smart gym lineup, the Bike+ ($2,495) and the Tread ($2,495). While both carry the same price tag, the new exercise bike joins as the premium version of Peloton’s original stationary cycle, which will remain on sale at $1,895, and the Tread is the new entry-level Peloton […]
As tensions between the U.S. and China heighten over data security issues, Beijing took a proactive step to unveil a “data security initiative” that it believes can serve as “a global standard for data security.” The Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, appearing in a video during a closed-door meeting in Beijing on […]
Microsoft has confirmed via its official Xbox Twitter account that a discless, tiny Xbox called the Series S will be released alongside its forthcoming Xbox Series X. The Series S was initially leaked late Monday, first by Brad Sams on Twitter, and also by Walking Cat. The Xbox account tweeted an image fo the same […]
Diffblue, a spin-out from Oxford University, uses machine learning to help developers automatically create unit tests for their Java code. Since few developers enjoy writing unit tests to ensure that their code works as expected, increased automation doesn’t just help developers focus on writing the code that actually makes a difference but also lead to […]
TikTok, the popular short video sharing app, has joined the European Union’s Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech. In a statement on joining the code, TikTok’s head of trust and safety for EMEA, Cormac Keenan, said: “We have never allowed hate on TikTok, and we believe it’s important that internet platforms are held […]
Thunes, a Singapore-based startup developing a cross-border payments network to make financial services more accessible in emerging markets, announced today it has raised a $60 million Series B. The round was led by Africa-focused firm Helios Investment Partners, with participation from Checkout.com, and returning investors GGV Capital and Future Shape. Thunes launched in 2019 when […]
Skin Analytics, a U.K.-based startup that has developed a skin cancer screening service that uses artificial intelligence, has raised £4 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Hoxton Ventures, with participation from Nesta and Mustard Seed Ventures. Skin Analytics says it will use the injection of cash to expand its focus to […]
