Starting today, TechCrunch readers can send an Extra Crunch annual membership as a gift to a friend, family member or co-worker. For a limited time we’re offering the gift at a discounted rate of $99/year (plus tax). The gifting feature can be found here. Extra Crunch membership is designed for startup teams, entrepreneurs, investors and […]
SoftBank Investment Fund and WeWork Labs say they’ve officially kicked off the first session of Emerge, an accelerator program designed for underrepresented founders. In their press release, the companies describe Emerge as “launched by SoftBank with support from WeWork Labs” (that’s the co-working company’s global accelerator program), with a goal of bringing more equality to […]
Amazon-owned game-streaming site Twitch announced today the formation of a new group that will guide decision-making around new policies and products: the Twitch Safety Advisory Council. The eight-person council consists of both online experts and Twitch creators, who have a deep understanding of the Twitch platform, its content and community, the company says. “When developing […]
A little over a year after its graduation from Y Combinator’s demo day, the on-demand construction materials delivery service Curri is beginning to offer its services in all 50 states. Co-founded by Matt Lafferty and Brian Gonzalez, Curri aims to solve one of the major hurdles for local construction suppliers who miss out on sales because […]
With the global economy still sorting itself out in the face of the pandemic, we’re hearing about fewer new venture capital funds these days. However, today is an exception, as Cathay Innovation has raised a $550 million second fund, which is about double the size of its first fund and, according to its leader Denis […]
Back in March, Headspace announced that it would offer free content to all COVID-19 front-line responders. Now the meditation app is expanding the offer to include all unemployed people in the U.S. You can go here to sign up, by entering information on your most recent job, including the employer’s name and the date you […]
In the age of digitization, we are lucky enough to be able to reach our audiences and co-workers despite worldwide lockdowns, but people are selective about how they spend their time.
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. The resilience of the American stock market in the face of near-record unemployment (there were nearly three million more unemployment claims reported this morning) has become a regular topic of conversation. The disconnect between what […]
Just as the electrification of America brought the nation out of the Great Depression, the Wi-Fi-cation of the nation can ease us out of the COVID-19 collapse.
It seems that we are in the middle of a mini acquisition spree for Kubernetes startups, specifically those that can help with Kubernetes security. In the latest development, Venafi, a vendor of certificate and key management for machine-to-machine connections, is acquiring Jetstack, a U.K. startup that helps enterprises migrate and work within Kubernetes and cloud-based ecosystems, […]
Most companies don’t have the personnel to do AI well, so they turn to platform vendors like Adobe for help. Like other platforms, it has been building AI into its product set for several years now, but wanted to give marketers a set of tools that take advantage of some advanced AI capabilities out of […]
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo are showcasing a new composite material with self-healing properties that take cues from lizard tails and starfish arms. MWCNTs-PBS — a composite of polyborosiloxane (PBS) and material multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) — is at the heart (so to speak) of the “Self-healing UI.” When cut in […]
“I spend a lot of time being angry — but I’m still hopeful. Gender bias in medicine is systemic,” says Carine Carmy, the fast-talking CEO and co-founder of Origin, during a condensed chat about her startup mission to make physical therapy for women and mothers accessible and affordable across the US, both online and through […]
Austin-based company Homeward was founded by a former real estate agent with a deceptively simple premise. Homeward, which has just raised $20 million in equity funding from Adams Street Partners and another $85 million in debt from undisclosed lenders, pitches a plan where the company will loan money to would-be homebuyers equal to the amount […]
Google Cloud today announced the next step in its partnership with VMware: the Google Cloud VMware Engine. This fully managed service provides businesses with a full VMware Cloud Foundation stack on Google Cloud to help businesses easily migrate their existing VMware-based environments to Google’s infrastructure. Cloud Foundation is VMware’s stack for hybrid and private cloud […]
Nvidia announced today that its NVIDIA A100, the first of its GPUs based on its Ampere architecture, is now in full production and has begun shipping to customers globally. Ampere is a big generational jump in Nvidia’s GPU architecture design, providing what the company says is the “largest leap in performance to date” across all […]
As COVID-19 swept across the globe, no sector lay untouched, but perhaps no industry was more disrupted than transportation. Airlines slashed routes, public transit use plummeted, ridership on Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing platforms dropped and shared scooter companies pulled products from city streets. Meanwhile, e-bike sales bloomed and on-demand delivery, including services using autonomous […]
Global satellite operator Intelsat has voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company announced late on Wednesday. Intelsat has attempted to position this as a positive moment that sees it embark on a “financial restructuring” project to enable its future growth, but a bankruptcy filing is seldom cause for celebration. The company cites a […]
