Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Before we get into this week’s show notes, some programming notes: OK, now to the show. This week, Natasha, Mary Ann and Rebecca took the mic, with Theresa on production duty, to talk
Month: September 2022
Are you ready to rumble, TechCrunch style? Twenty of the most promising and creative early-stage startups — chosen from the elite Startup Battlefield 200 — will bring the heat for $100,000 in the world-renown Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–20 in San Francisco. We have an outstanding cohort of VCs ready to
Virtual reality (VR) has struggled to transition too far beyond gaming circles and specific industry use cases such as medical training, but with the burgeoning metaverse movement championed by tech heavyweights such as Meta, there has been a renewed hope (and hype) around the promise that virtual worlds bring. Just yesterday, Los Angeles-based AmazeVR announced
The inquest into the death of British schoolgirl, Molly Russell, has concluded that social media was a factor in her demise, the BBC reports. The 14-year-old had viewed thousands of pieces of content about self-harm and suicide on online platforms, including Instagram and Pinterest, prior to her death in November 2017. Reaching a conclusion on
Amazon showed its Eero Wi-Fi lineup some love this morning during a hardware event, announcing the Eero PoE 6, a Wi-Fi 6 Power over Ethernet (PoE) access point that can provide up to 2,000 square feet of coverage and support up to 100 devices. A complementary new product, the Eero PoE Gateway, delivers up to
YouTube TV launched a new option that allows subscribers to purchase add-ons without subscribing to the full channel offering in the service’s Base plan. With this new à la carte plan, subscribers can access more than 20 add-on channels, from Showtime and HBO Max to NBA League Pass, MLB.TV and Starz, among others. This confirms
It’s demo day season. This morning marked the kickoff of VC firm 500 Global’s Fall 2022 Demo Day, which saw over a dozen startups give their best pitches to prospective investors — and customers. Participants ran the gamut from fintech and sustainability to edtech and developer tools, and several stood out from the rest of
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Today we are mostly listening to acoustic covers of songs we love (a surprise Iron and Wine cover, perhaps?), and mentally preparing ourselves for TechCrunch Disrupt. Which reminds us — did you
Paul Huelskamp and Alex Meek were hiking near Mount Tamalpais in Marin County a few years ago when the peaceful quiet of the woods began to give way to the clatter of a diesel generator. When they came upon it, they saw it “spewing black smoke” into the otherwise cool, crisp air, Huelskamp recalled. The
The Vision Fund, a venture capital arm of SoftBank, has launched a sweeping layoff process, cutting at least 30% of its workforce globally, or approximately 150 of the 500 employees, according to a report by Bloomberg. The news comes nearly two months after SoftBank chief executive officer and founder Masayoshi Son said the company would
Away from the premium smartphone feature-utility hyperbole swirling around dynamic islands, mobile devices remain much of a muchness. But ethical mobile brand Fairphone has always done innovation differently — applying attention to supply chain conditions and novel modularity to support repairability and lifespan longevity, with a dual mission to make consumer electronics more ethical and
In a bid for the TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels crowd, Adobe today announced updates to Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements — its lightweight photo and video editing software bundle — that focus on improving the audio track selection and adding artistic effects to videos. Photoshop Elements 2023 and Premiere Elements 2023 also add
May.21 — The U.S. Treasury is calling for stronger tax compliance within the cryptocurrency space. Kailey Leinz explains.
Truepill, a platform that helps other companies offer diagnostics, telehealth services and prescriptions, has conducted its fourth layoff of the year. Sources say the layoff impacted around 65% of the existing staff across the engineering, human resources, design, IT and finance teams. The layoff comes around two months after its last round, which impacted about
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. When Phil Libin co-founded Evernote he spent tons of money making the perfect working environment with chic offices, a shuttle bus and headphones to block out all of his employees’ distracting co-workers. He’s since seen the work-from-home light and co-founded mmhmm to make working remotely more efficient
All new passenger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs sold in New York state must be zero emissions by 2035, Governor Kathy Hochul announced Thursday. “By revving up our clean transportation transition and making major investments to make EVs more accessible, we’re supercharging our fight against climate change,” Hochul tweeted. NEW: All new vehicles sold in
Since E-bike manufacturer Ride1Up closed a $6.5 million Series A led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund, the San Diego-based company has seen steady sales growth since its launch in 2018, especially as consumers switched to ebikes during the pandemic over public transit. Indeeed, last year ebikes reportedly outsold EV and plug-in hybrid automobiles. So it was
Two and a half years after unveiling Stadia on stage at GDC, the game streaming service is officially done. Subscribers will have access to the games library through January 18 of next year, after which point, it will shut down for good. Google adds in a blog post that it expects to have all refunds
Meta’s researchers have made a significant leap in the AI art generation field with Make-A-Video, the creatively named new technique for — you guessed it — making a video out of nothing but a text prompt. The results are impressive and varied, and all, with no exceptions, slightly creepy. We’ve seen text-to-video models before —
In sub-Saharan Africa, only 33% of the urban population has access to public transportation, compared to 75% in Europe and North America, according to UN statistics. That means that most of the continent faces challenges chasing new job opportunities, going to school, accessing healthcare and just having a night on the town. This lack of
When it comes to the decentralized world of crypto, few single entities loom larger or carry more weight in the industry than exchange behemoth Binance. The blockchain giant processed $34 trillion in trading volume in 2021, it says, and the exchange shows few signs of resting on its laurels as it pursues bold new bets
Anyone who has followed global news events of late will have noticed the devastating floods that have engulfed pretty much every corner of the world, from the U.S. and Europe, to Africa, Australia, and Asia, where India and Pakistan have been hit by some of their worst floods in recent memory. By pretty much all
Financial institutions have struggled to develop their own technologies, hence the rise of neo-banks which used Open Banking regulations to build their own Fintech stacks. That has led to a wave of innovation, and startups have hungrily devoured the opportunities to ‘platformise’ the financial work. The latest is fintech SaaS provider Toqio which has now
A new letter penned by Senate and House Democrats accuses Amazon of “anticompetitive” practices in its bid to purchase Roomba-maker, iRobot, for $1.7 billion. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is leading the charge to convince the Federal Trade Commission to reject the deal, according to a report from Axios. “Rather than compete in a fair marketplace
Today, Nielsen announced that Roku plans to enable four-screen measurement across desktop, mobile, connected TV, and traditional TV. This is the first time Roku will use the digital methodology, Nielsen One, the data measurement firm’s cross-media measurement tool, which launches in December. In the age of streaming, it’s becoming more challenging for companies to measure
On the same day that Lionsgate renamed Starzplay to Lionsgate+, MGM’s Epix announced it would also get a “+” in its brand title. Epix, the ad-free streaming service, announced today that it will relaunch as MGM+ in early 2023. While the new name is hardly original, mainly the plus sign, the rebranding comes as streaming
Una Brands, an e-commerce aggregator focused on brands in the Asia-Pacific region, announced the first close of its Series B round at $30 million today. The funding was led by White Star Capital and Alpha JWC Ventures. Headquartered in Singapore, Una Brands has a presence in Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, China and the United
French startup Pigment has raised a new round of funding less than a year after raising a $73 million Series B round. If you’re not familiar with Pigment, the company develops a business planning and forecasting platform. For small companies that are growing up, it can replace Microsoft Excel as it’s more secure and more
Google is adding several new sustainability features for Search, the company announced today at its Search On event. The search giant will start showing the annual fuel cost for cars in search results to help people who are in the market for a new car. Google will also show emissions estimates for cars, so you
Meet Solvo, a new mobile app that wants to make it easier to invest in cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency-related financial products. The two founders Ayelen Denovitzer and Shailendra Sason met while they were working for Revolut, in the crypto team more specifically. Earlier this year, Solvo raised a $3.5 million seed round from Index Ventures with
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