Helping Americans get their 40 winks has never been more necessary as the country faces what some health experts have called a sleep epidemic, and Snoop Dogg’s cannabis-focused firm Casa Verde Capital wants to help. The firm is leading a $9.5 million investment into a company called Proper, which is launching with a combination of […]
On day one of TechCrunch’s Early Stage virtual conference, Ali Partovi joined us to discuss best practices for startups looking to hire engineers. It’s a subject that’s near and dear to his heart: Partovi is co-founder and CEO of Neo, a venture aimed at including young engineers in a community alongside seasoned industry vets. The […]
Rivian has started to run a pilot production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois, as the electric vehicle startup prepares to bring its pickup truck and SUV to market in summer 2021. In an email sent to prospective customers, Rivian said deliveries of its R1T electric pickup truck will begin in June 2021. Deliveries […]
European data watchdogs have issued updated guidance in the wake of last week’s landmark ruling striking down a flagship transatlantic data transfer mechanism called Privacy Shield. In an FAQ on the Schrems II judgement, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) warns there will be no regulatory grace period. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is dead, and […]
Have you ever taken something apart, like a clock or a motor? The method is particularly useful when it comes to learning how things work — or how they don’t, in some cases. During TechCrunch’s Early Stage event, two venture capitalists took pitch decks and evaluated them with a critical eye on content, presentation and […]
Whether you’re an early-stage startup founder, investor, enthusiast or another integral member of the community, you can’t afford to miss Disrupt 2020 — THE tech conference at the epicenter of the startup ecosystem. Here’s something else you can’t afford to miss — early-bird pricing. Buy your pass before July 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT and […]
Fintech startup Revolut just announced that it has raised $80 million as part of its Series D round that it announced in February. The new influx of funding comes from TSG Consumer Partners. In February, Revolut raised a $500 million led by TCV at a $5.5 billion valuation. Today’s new funding extends that funding round […]
Online shopping service Instacart says reused passwords are to blame for a recent spate of account breaches, which saw personal data belonging to hundreds of thousands of Instacart customers stolen and put up for sale on the dark web. The company published a statement late on Thursday saying its investigation showed that Instacart “was not […]
The manufacturer of a vegan collagen, Geltor, has raised a new round of financing — $90 million, according to people familiar with the company. It’s another sign of the newfound viability of sustainability and cell-based, vegetarian replacements for animal products. Sustainable bio-products, whether plant-based, genetically modified or cell-cultured, are having a big year. In the […]
For anyone interested in the contested question of how much ‘value’ — or, well, how little — publishers derive from the privacy-hostile practice of tracking web users to behaviorally target them with ads, pro-privacy browser Brave has published some interesting data, obtained (with permission) from the Netherland’s public broadcaster, NPO. The data shows the NPO […]
Scores of online learning startups have emerged in India in recent years to serve school-age students. More than 250 million students are enrolled across schools in urban and rural parts of the country. Whether one is in kindergarten, or preparing to join a college to pursue an undergraduate course, there are several startups offering a […]
Gaming has always been one of the world’s most massive niches, but as game-streaming and esports have drifted to the forefront of mainstream culture, it’s clear that there’s plenty of room left for the industry to expand. One harbinger of this shift has been the widespread adoption of esports leagues in high schools and colleges […]
On the heels of Hippo’s funding round and our exploration of how the private markets appear to be more conservative than public investors at the moment, we’re asking a new question: are a bunch of insurtech startups undervalued? Hippo — an insurtech startup focused on home insurance — put together a $150 million round at a […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Up top the crew this week was the regular contingent: Danny Crichton, Natasha Mascarenhas and myself. As a tiny programming note, we’re going back to posting some videos on YouTube in a few weeks, so make […]
NASA’s latest mission won’t actually reach space — but it will come very close, with a massive observation craft made up of a football stadium-sized high-altitude balloon, along with a special stratospheric telescope instrument that can observe wavelengths of light cast from newly formed stars but blocked by Earth’s atmosphere. The mission is called the […]
Apple’s contract manufacturing partner Foxconn has started to assemble the current generation of iPhone units — the iPhone 11 lineup — in its plant near Chennai, India, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. A small batch of locally manufactured iPhone 11 units has already shipped to retail stores, but the production yield is […]
The Not Company, Latin America’s leading contender in the plant-based meat and dairy substitute market, is about to close on an $85 million round of funding that would value it at $250 million, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. The latest round of funding comes on the heels of a series of successes […]
One little-known home and retail automation startup might seem like an unlikely candidate to help combat the ongoing pandemic. But its founder says its technology can do just that, even if it wasn’t the company’s original plan. Butlr, a spin-out of the MIT Media Lab, uses a mix of wireless, battery-powered hardware and artificial intelligence […]
The state of New York voted this week to pause for two years any implementation of facial recognition technology in schools. The moratorium, approved by the New York Assembly and Senate Wednesday, comes after an upstate school district adopted the technology earlier this year, prompting a lawsuit in June from the New York Civil Liberties […]
HBO Max, the AT&T-owned streaming service that combines HBO with WarnerMedia content, now has 4.1 million subscribers who have activated their Max accounts, since its launch on May 27. Combined, HBO and HBO Max reached a total of 36.3 million U.S. subscribers by the end of the second quarter, according to statements made by AT&T […]
