An arena. A hype tunnel, the kind through which NBA players typically streak. A competitor dressed in a jersey patterned with a six-pack abs. In a new piece, The New York Times takes readers to an event that organizers call the Microsoft Excel World Championship, a 40-minute, Las Vegas-based competition featuring 12 contestants — all
Month: January 2025
Friend, a startup creating a $99, AI-powered necklace designed to be treated as a digital companion, has delayed its first batch of shipments until Q3. Friend had planned to ship devices to pre-order customers in Q1. But according to co-founder and CEO Avi Schiffman, that’s no longer feasible. “As much as I would liked to
At a recent investor meeting, early-stage African investor Oui Capital informed limited partners that it had returned its $4 million debut fund following the sale of some shares in the business banking platform Moniepoint. The African fintech unicorn has so far proven to be a standout investment for five-year-old Oui Capital. When it launched its
Barely more than 12 hours after TikTok went dark in the United States, the video-sharing app is coming back online. “In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service,” the company said in a statement. “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers
As if losing your job when the startup you work for collapses isn’t bad enough, now a security researcher has found that employees at failed startups are at particular risk of having their data stolen. This ranges from their private Slack messages to Social Security numbers and, potentially, bank accounts. The researcher who discovered the
TikTok went dark for users in the US on Saturday night, but it may not be gone for long. President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday morning that he will issue an executive order Monday that will “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a
Many proptech startups, born and funded during the low-interest-rate heydays, are in the throes of struggle. With investments into U.S.-based real estate startups falling from $11.1 billion in 2021 to $3.7 billion last year, according to PitchBook data, some are selling themselves off, while others are closing shop. The two most recent examples are the
With a TikTok ban looming in the United States, Perplexity AI is the latest bidder hoping to give the video app a new corporate home. CNBC first reported on Perplexity’s interest. A source with knowledge of the offer confirmed to TechCrunch that Perplexity (whose CEO Aravind Srinivas is pictured above) has submitted a bid to
The process of getting screened for cervical cancer is quite intimidating. It’s the once-a-year, sometimes life-changing treatment that involves the bright lights of a doctor’s office and an uncomfortable insertion that always seems to last too long. It’s no wonder Kara Egan and Dr. Avnesh Thakor saw the potential to make this process more comfortable
The clock is set to run out on TikTok over the weekend, following the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the ban. So, what’s next for the video-sharing app’s 170 million U.S. users? On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Margaux MacColl, and Anthony Ha dive into the week’s biggest stories, including where
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week’s newsletter is about startups, but it is also about Big Tech companies expanding their reach, both through acquisitions and through investments. Most interesting startup stories
Character AI, a startup that lets users chat with different AI-powered characters, is now testing games on its desktop and mobile web apps to increase engagement on its platform. The games are available to Character AI’s paid subscribers and a limited set of users on the free plan. For this initial release, the company developed
Surprise! Donald Trump’s big, audacious ambition to buy Greenland from Denmark has a tech angle. Ken Howery, named as U.S. President-elect Trump’s pick to be the next ambassador to the country (and thus chief broker of any deal), is one more part of the rich seam of tech people running through Trump’s upcoming administration. Part
Read.cv, a social media platform for professionals that competed with LinkedIn, has been acquired by AI-powered search engine Perplexity. As part of the deal, Read.cv will begin to wind down operations Friday. Users will be able to export their data, including their profiles, posts, and messages, until May 16. “We’ve long admired Perplexity and believe
Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents and a major reason why auto insurance premiums are expected to increase in 2025. For commercial fleets, that’s a nightmare. But for California-based startup Netradyne, it’s a tailwind. Netradyne provides fleet owners, including big names like Amazon, with AI-enabled dashcams that collect vehicle data
Amazon bought renewable power at a rapid clip last year, adding around 100 new projects and bumping its portfolio to over 33 gigawatts of generating capacity. That’s over 10 gigawatts more than its nearest competitor, Apple. The additions made Amazon the largest corporate purchaser of renewable power, according to BloombergNEF. The company’s total portfolio is
Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents and a major reason why auto insurance premiums are expected to increase in 2025. For commercial fleets, that’s a nightmare. But for California-based startup Netradyne, it’s a tailwind. Netradyne provides fleet owners, including big names like Amazon, with AI-enabled dashcams that collect vehicle data
On Thursday Anduril announced it is building its massive weapons factory, Arsenal-1, in Columbus, Ohio, confirming TechCrunch’s earlier reporting. In a blog post, the company said that it will invest close to $1 billion of its own money into the project and that the factory will be five million square feet. The post also claims
Bench, the accounting startup that imploded over the holidays, filed for bankruptcy in Canada on January 7 revealing massive debts, documents seen by TechCrunch show. The filings — one for Bench and another for 10Sheet, Bench’s original name — show that Bench had $2.8 million in cash on hand by the end of its life
After two years of relatively muted investment activity, it seems that VCs are starting to pour capital into startups at pandemic-era levels once again. But a closer look shows that they aren’t really. In the fourth quarter of last year, investors funneled $74.6 billion into U.S. startups, a substantial increase from the average of $42
Climate tech may have had a down year in 2024, but new data also shows a maturing sector with larger deal sizes. Venture investment in the climate tech sector was down 7% to $12.9 billion, $1 billion shy of 2023’s tally, according to data in a new PitchBook report. The report found that round size
Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest investment banker “book runners” for IPOs – where banks are paid many millions of dollars for each listing they underwrite. Yet CEO David Solomon told attendees of the Cisco AI Summit in Palo Alto that startups should reconsider the idea of going public, reports the Financial Times. Solomon
Entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban is ready to fund a TikTok alternative built on Bluesky’s AT Protocol, he shared in a TikTok video posted on Wednesday. In anticipation of the coming U.S. TikTok ban, which will go through on Sunday unless paused by the Supreme Court, users have been fleeing to other video platforms, including
Critical minerals are the new oil: Everyone needs them, but not every country has them. That’s led some to search for them in some pretty wild places. And few places are as outlandish as the ocean deep. But deep-sea mining appears poised to get a boost from the incoming Trump administration, according to The Wall
Donald Trump will take the presidential oath of office on Friday in front of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., once again. The event takes place at noon ET and is expected to attract considerable attention from both supporters and opponents. How to stream Trump’s inauguration You can watch the inauguration live with cable or
Colossal Biosciences, the company that’s famously on a mission to bring back the woolly mammoth and two other extinct species, has raised a $200 million Series C at a $10.2 billion valuation from TWG Global, the investment company of Guggenheim Partners co-founder Mark Walter and the billionaire Thomas Tull. The funding comes two years after
French startup Hyperline wants to build the next-generation Chargebee. Over the past two years, the startup has built a new billing platform that can be used for recurring subscriptions, one-off purchases, usage-based billing and more. Hyperline raised an initial €4 million funding round from Index Ventures back in 2023 ($4.1 million at today’s exchange rate).
Google has agreed to purchase 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide removal credits from Indian startup Varaha, its first such deal with a carbon project in India and the largest involving biomass-produced biochar (also called horticultural charcoal or “black gold” for soils). The offtake agreement credits will be delivered to Google by 2030 from Varaha’s industrial
OpenAI is getting into the local news game. Newsletter-based media organization Axios announced a partnership with OpenAI on Wednesday. As part of this three-year deal, the AI giant will fund Axios’ expansion of its local newsletters into four new cities: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; and Huntsville, Alabama. While OpenAI has inked content-sharing
Y Combinator alum Stoke Space just raised a $260 million Series C, bringing its total raised to $480 million. This follows $100 million raised in October 2023, and $75 million in December 2021. The company was founded in 2019 by Blue Origin veterans Andy Lapsa and Tom Feldman, who launched his career as a SpaceX
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