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 […]
It was all supposed to be so different. When Rocket Internet IPO’d in 2014 it was the largest tech company floatation in Europe for seven years. A year later it had lost $46 million and its valuation had dropped by 30%. Since then the German startup factory behind internet companies such as Delivery Hero, Zalando […]
Digital locker service Movies Anywhere is today officially launching its movie-sharing feature dubbed “Screen Pass,” which lets you lend out one of your purchased movies to a friend or family member. The feature was rushed into beta testing this March, followed by a more open public beta trial in April, thanks to increased demand from […]
What do you get when you combine six early-stage startup founders with a panel of top VCs and savvy TechCrunch editors? It’s Pitchers & Pitches, a rapid-fire pitch competition with a hefty side of advice to turn your 60-second pitch into a key that unlocks opportunity. Grab a snack, bring your questions and tune in […]
Want to save $100 on your pass to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Silly question, right? Of course, you do. Here’s the thing. You have just four days left to buy in at the lowest price. Knock this easy task off your to-do list and buy your pass before the early-bird savings disappear on September 4 […]
The world of retail has been absolutely rocked by the coronavirus pandemic. Stores closed across the country, and at the same time, online sales went through the roof. Direct-to-consumer brands, many of which are masters of both online and brick-and-mortar channels, experienced unprecedented change in a matter of weeks and months. To unpack all of […]
Apple and Google are continuing to make good on their planned roll-out of exposure notification technology for helping with COVID-19 contact-tracing efforts. The two partners are introducing new tools that make it much easier for public health authorities to implement digital exposure notification, without the need for developing and maintaining their own individual apps. Apple […]
Back in early July, TechCrunch covered the Envision Accelerator. The program was put together by a group of students and recent graduates, often with some early venture capital experience, to help give some young startups a boost, and to shake up industry diversity metrics at the same time. Now on the other side of their […]
TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe. Our survey of VCs in Madrid & Barcelona will capture how the cities are faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. We’d like to know how your city’s startup scene is evolving, how […]
A few months ago, Plaid unveiled Plaid Exchange, a product that helps financial institutions build and maintain an API that other developers can use. The company is iterating on that product and now updates account activity in near real time. Plaid is better known for its universal banking API that lets you connect an app […]
Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s IT and Law and Justice minister, has accused Facebook India’s leadership team of suppressing the reach of pages that support and promote right-leaning ideology, in what is the latest turn of events for the social giant in its biggest market by users where it has also been accused of showing favoritism […]
In January, Amazon announced a new feature that would allow Alexa users to pay for their gas at the pump using voice commands via Echo Auto and other Alexa-enabled mobility devices. Today, the company says the feature is now live at moer than 11,500 Exxon and Mobil gas stations across the U.S., allowing customers to […]
Tesla said Tuesday it will sell up to $5 billion in new stock as the company seeks to take advantage of an unprecedented run up in its share price. Tesla will sell the shares from “time to time,” through an “at-the-market” offering program, the company said Tuesday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and […]
Sumo Logic filed an S-1/A this week, updating the world to its latest financial results ahead of its IPO pricing. Today, just over a week after we first looked at Sumo Logic’s recent financial performance when it filed its first S-1 document, let’s explore what’s new in the document and what the numbers tell us. […]
Netflix just announced its plans to turn Cixin Liu’s “Three-Body Problem” trilogy into an original, English-language science fiction series. The show will be executive produced and written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (the “Game of Thrones” showrunners signed a multi-year deal with Netflix last year that is reportedly worth more than $200 million), along with […]
2020 was going to be the year 5G went truly mainstream. Things obviously haven’t gone according to plan these past several months, but this is undoubtedly the year Samsung went all-in on the next generation technology. After being one of the first to market with a 5G device, it’s since made its way across the […]
