Deciding how to go about getting your initial funding is always a tricky subject, as the wrong move could adversely impact your young company. At Disrupt 2020 this September 14-18, we’ll showcase three amazing investors and experts who’ve shepherded multiple companies during their earliest stages. The process of raising your first dollars looks simple from […]
In the two years since Chinedu Eleanya founded Mulberry to be the warranty service for direct-to-consumer brands, business has boomed. Already riding a shakeup in consumer behavior brought by the emergence of startup brands selling just about everything to just about everyone, Mulberry brought a much-needed new spin on the warranty service that retailers had […]
India has banned more than 100 additional apps with linkage to China including popular mobile game PUBG citing cybersecurity concerns as geopolitical tensions escalate at the two neighboring nations’ disputed border. On Wednesday, India’s IT Ministry ordered to ban 118 apps that it said were “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security […]
Point72 Ventures, the early stage investment firm that’s now solely investing the personal wealth of the multi-billionaire hedge fund magnate Steven A. Cohen, is getting into healthcare investing. The firm has hired Scott Barclay, a former partner at the life sciences and frontier technology investment firm, DCVC, to run its new healthcare practice. Since the […]
India has a new unicorn startup. On Wednesday, Bangalore-based online learning startup announced it has raised $150 million in a new financing round that valued the Facebook-backed firm at $1.45 billion (post-money). SoftBank Group — through its Vision Fund 2 — led Unacademy’s Series F financing round while existing investors Facebook, Blume Ventures, Nexus Partners, […]
Microsoft has added to the slowly growing pile of technologies aimed at spotting synthetic media (aka deepfakes) with the launch of a tool for analyzing videos and still photos to generate a manipulation score. The tool, called Video Authenticator, provides what Microsoft calls “a percentage chance, or confidence score” that the media has been artificially […]
French startup Klaxoon is currently testing a new product called Board. The company expects to launch Board at some point during the second half of September. Board is a new visual interface that connects directly with video-conferencing services, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet. If you’re not familiar with Klaxoon, the startup wants […]
E-commerce has brought in a logistics boom in China over the last decade, transforming small-town delivery businesses into multinational corporations. One leading player, YTO, is gearing up for international expansion after it secured 6.6 billion yuan or $970 million from its long-time ally and client, Alibaba. 20-year-old YTO announced this week it will sell 379 […]
3one4 Capital, a venture capital firm in India, today announced a $100 million fund as the young investment firm looks to back more early-stage startups in the world’s second largest internet market. The new fund, third for the five-year-old Bangalore-headquartered investment firm, has already secured $40 million from new and existing investors. 3one4 Capital, which […]
PasarPolis, the Indonesian-based startup focused on making insurance policies more accessible in Southeast Asia, has closed a Series B round totaling $54 million. Investors include LeapFrog Investments and SBI Investment, both firms that focus on financial services; AlphaJWC; Intudo Ventures; and Xiaomi. Gojek’s venture capital arm, Go-Ventures, which participated in PasarPolis’ Series A two years […]
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread to the United States, a number of automakers and other manufacturers announced plans to retrofit factories to help ease the shortage of personal protective gear and ventilators. Now, two U.S. automakers have fulfilled their separate multi-million-dollar ventilator contracts — together delivering 80,000 of the devices to the U.S. government. General […]
As Slack ramps up its investment in Asia, Toss Lab, the South Korea-based creator of enterprise collaboration platform JANDI, is preparing to become a more formidable rival. The startup announced today that it has raised a $13 million Series B led by SoftBank Ventures Asia, the early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. Participating investors also […]
Apple and Google are adding support for app-less exposure notifications, Facebook says it might block news sharing in Australia and Samsung has a new foldable phone. This is your Daily Crunch for September 1, 2020. The big story: Apple launches ‘Exposure Notification Express’ for COVID-19 Apple and Google are introducing new tools that should make it […]
Launch provider Rocket Lab has gained a key clearance from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration that should mean it’ll be launching from its U.S.-based facility at Wallops Island, Virginia relatively soon. As it had done before for its LC-1 launch pad in New Zealand, Rocket Lab gained a Launch Operator License for its LC-2 pad […]
The Amazon app is getting a makeover. You may have already spotted the refreshed version of the Amazon shopping app with its new color scheme and revamped navigation if you’re an iPhone user. The changes began rolling out earlier this summer to iOS users in the U.S. and are on track to reach 100% of […]
Dell has long garnered high esteem for the quality of its displays, and that hasn’t changed with its more recent models. What has changed is that more and more, people are looking for external monitors to complement their work laptops as they shift to more remote work — and settle in for more permanent home […]
Wish, the San Francisco-based, 750-person e-commerce app that sells deeply discounted goods that you definitely don’t need but might buy anyway when priced so low — think pool floats, guinea pig harnesses, Apple Watch knockoffs — said yesterday that it has submitted a draft registration to the SEC for an IPO. Because it filed confidentially, […]
Last week TechCrunch sat down virtually with Jeff Lawson, the CEO and co-founder of Twilio as part of our long-running Extra Crunch Live series. As I expected, the chat was a good use of time. Why? Lawson was early on the idea that software companies could deliver their features not through a web app, but […]
India, the world’s second most populated nation, sees more than 20% of the global flood-related fatalities each year as overrun riverbanks sweep tens of thousands of homes with them. Two years ago, Google volunteered to help. In 2018, the company began its flood forecasting pilot initiative in Patna — the capital of the Indian state of […]
Google launched a few updates to its Contact Center AI product today, but the most interesting one is probably the beta of its new Custom Voice service, which will let brands create their own text-to-speech voices to best represent their own brands. Maybe your company has a well-known spokesperson for example, but it would be […]
