Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Danny and Alex were on deck this week, with Grace on the recording and edit. Natasha will be back with us starting next week. So, it was old times on the show with just two of our team to vamp on the […]
Robots have a hard time improvising, and encountering an unusual surface or obstacle usually means an abrupt stop or hard fall. But researchers have created a new model for robotic locomotion that adapts in real time to any terrain it encounters, changing its gait on the fly to keep trucking when it hits sand, rocks, […]
A new biometrics privacy ordinance has taken effect across New York City, putting new limits on what businesses can do with the biometric data they collect on their customers. From Friday, businesses that collect biometric information — most commonly in the form of facial recognition and fingerprints — are required to conspicuously post notices and […]
Online grocery startups around the world continue to pull in major investment, underscoring how much they have all grown especially in the last year of pandemic living. In the latest development, Kurly — a startup in South Korea that provides next-day grocery delivery services across the country — has closed $200 million in funding, a […]
Seed investment firm Hummingbird VC, which previously invested in Deliveroo, Peak Games, MarkaVIP, and Kraken has a new Managing Partner. Firat Ileri, previously a Partner – who at 28 became one of Europe’s youngest VCs when he joined in 2012 – takes over from Founding Partner Barend Van den Brande, who will now take on […]
Germany is choking on bureaucracy, which threatens innovation. Bureaucratic processes slow everything down and reforms on employee stock option plans are needed so workers benefit from their startups.
Temasek and an affiliate of Warburg Pincus are investing $500 million in Indian ride-hailing giant Ola, the Bangalore-headquartered startup said in a short statement Friday. Ola co-founder and chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal is also participating in the new investment, the startup said. This is the first time SoftBank-backed Ola, which leads the market in India, […]
DN Capital, one of Europe’s most active VCs has launched its latest $350 million (£220m, €300m) fund off the back of a pretty stand-out year when the firm saw four of its portfolio companies hit billion-dollar-plus valuations. DN’s ‘Fund V’ will invest across Europe, the UK and the US, but with strongly European LPs, DN […]
As environmental issues really came of age in the 1990s, certain German automakers were meeting in secret groups to make sure their cars would continue to industriously contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. According to the European Union, Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler have been illegally colluding to restrict competition in emission […]
5G technology has generated a lot of hype for its potential to power driverless cars using a remote operator, but for the past few years that’s all it’s been — hype. Las Vegas-based startup Halo and telecom giant T-Mobile are teaming up to change that, with a driverless electric car service in Las Vegas powered […]
The Gang spends a lot of time these days on the streaming wars, so it seems appropriate that Congress wants to get into it. With Netflix’s success at overturning the structure of Hollywood’s broadcast television production and advertising processes, consumers are taking advantage of a Golden Age of choices. Senator Elizabeth Warren is resuscitating her […]
In 2013, eight tech companies were accused of funneling their users’ data to the U.S. National Security Agency under the so-called PRISM program, according to highly classified government documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Six months later, the tech companies formed a coalition under the name Reform Government Surveillance, which as the name would […]
Peter Boyce II has left General Catalyst to start his own firm, a little over a year after the venture capital firm promoted him to partner. His new firm is called Stellation Capital, and filings indicate that he is looking to raise up to $40 million for the debut investment vehicle. Sources say that most, […]
Instacart has appointed Facebook executive Fidji Simo as its new CEO, just seven months after she joined the grocery delivery company’s board of directors. Simo, formerly the vice president and head of the Facebook app, will replace Instacart founder and current CEO Apoorva Mehta on August 2. Mehta will transition to executive chairman of the […]
The term muscle car has always been a euphemism for concessions. Want the most power for the money? Forget about a sports car from Porsche or Lotus. Buy a muscle car and just take corners a bit slower. Today Dodge announced it’s making an electric muscle car and it will be available in 2024. The […]
Stellantis, the global automaker born out of a merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and French automaker Groupe PSA, will invest €30 billion ($35.5 billion) in electric vehicles and new software over the next four years as part of a major push to transition away from internal combustion engines. The world’s fourth-largest automaker joins rivals such […]
