As shutdown orders extend indefinitely, online shopping has become a lifeline for people forced to avoid the outside world. Often times opting to shop with a mega corporation like Amazon, Walmart or Target is the path of least resistance, but there are plenty of reasons to patronize an alternative. There are the ethical questions currently […]
Facebook acquires a popular GIF search engine, video game sales see major growth and Sorrentino reports promising results for a COVID-19 treatment. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 15, 2020. 1. Facebook to acquire Giphy in a deal reportedly worth $400 million Facebook will acquire Giphy, the web-based animated GIF search engine and platform provider. […]
By March 16, founder Janine Yancey was tired of playing the waiting game. After watching the stock market take yet another unprecedented nosedive due to coronavirus, she called up a potential investor. “If this isn’t going to happen, let’s call it now,” Yancey said, referring to the close of her Series A round, the first […]
2020 is a nightmare year by most metrics, and it’s also a worst-case scenario emerging out of a best-case scenario for Joe Biden . After trailing in early primary states, Biden came crashing back on a stunning wave of Super Tuesday support. Now the presumptive Democratic nominee in the midst of a global health crisis […]
In a memo titled “The Course Ahead,” Vice Media Group CEO Nancy Dubuc announced a large round of layoffs to staff. The number includes 155 workers — 55 of whom will lose their jobs today. The remaining 100, meanwhile, will be let go in the coming weeks. The figure comprises around 5% of the company’s […]
Facebook will acquire Giphy, the web-based animated gif search engine and platform provider, Facebook confirmed today, in a deal worth around $400 million, according to a report by Axios. Facebook said it isn’t disclosing terms of the deal. Giphy has grown to be a central source for shareable, high-engagement content, and its animated response gifs are […]
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. After spending perhaps more time than we should have recently trying to figure out what’s going on with the public markets, let’s return to the private markets this morning, focusing in on venture capital itself. […]
There has been a steady drumbeat of news on the U.S.-China trade front since the start of the Trump administration. President Trump has made decoupling from China’s economy on on-again, off-again proposition. There was the trade conflict with weekly changes in American tariff policy, the threats against ZTE and Huawei, the responses from China against […]
Products and services that have material impact on basic needs and livelihoods and address a core draw on a consumer’s time, money or energy present great opportunities.
As earnings season winds down, we’re getting a solid picture on just how profoundly the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted corporations’ bottomline. Taiwan-based manufacturing giant Foxconn is among those companies that were utterly walloped over the previous quarter. Plant shutdowns — particularly in China — led to a 90% year-over-year drop in profits for the quarter. […]
Chris and Alex Naoumidis came to hypnotherapy through dresses. As The New York Times reported last year, the two brothers initially started their careers as startup entrepreneurs with a peer-to-peer dress-sharing app for women. The Australian natives were overcome with doubt about their ability to succeed in startupland; when apps didn’t work, their father suggested […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Are you a regular Equity listener? Take our survey here! We talk about it on the show, and it’s embedded below in case you don’t want to click a link. From home once again this week, Danny, Natasha, […]
Therapeutics company Sorrento has made what it believes could be a breakthrough in potential treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that leads to COVID-19. The company released details of its preclinical research on Friday, announcing that it has found an antibody that provides “100% inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 virus infection of healthy cells after four days incubation.” […]
New numbers from NPD confirm what we’ve known for a while: The first quarter of 2020 was a very good one for gaming companies. The new report notes that sales hit a record $10.86 billion in the States between January and March of this year, marking a 9% increase over a year prior; $9.58 billion […]
Zomato, an India-headquartered food delivery startup, is cutting 13% of its workforce and enforcing a pay cut for remaining employees. The moves come as it looks to reduce costs and survive the coronavirus crisis that has made many cautious about ordering food online. The 11-year-old firm did not disclose the exact number of people it was […]
Taking care of your emotional well-being is as important as physical health, but in Asia, the topic is often stigmatized. Intellect, a Singapore-based startup, wants to make the idea of mental health more approachable with an app that offers self-guided exercises based on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. The company develops consumer and enterprise versions of […]
Months into this global pandemic, many questions remain about whether and when companies of all sizes will return to their offices and what will be required of the move. The future is so unclear that even people steeped in the real estate industry don’t have all the answers — though they’re starting to make educated […]
Opera’s Africa fintech startup OPay remains committed to building a multi-service super app in Nigeria as the foundation to expand on the continent. OPay also continues to operate ORide for limited passenger service — though the company is shifting the motorcycle ride-hail operation toward logistics businesses. These were some of the updates offered by Opera’s […]
The Luckin saga continues as the Chinese coffee challenger seeks solutions to the undesirable consequences of a $310 million fraud. On Tuesday, the company announced sacking chief operating officer Liu Jian, the alleged mastermind behind the fraud, and chief executive officer Qian Zhiya, a rare female leader of a Chinese internet firm. Despite the scandal, the […]
