Lora DiCarlo, a sex tech startup that made headlines in 2019 after being blacklisted from the Consumer Electronics Show, seems to have shut down. The company’s website is offline and reportedly orders have gone unfulfilled for months. TechCrunch has reached out to the eponymous founder for confirmation, but it sure looks like the end of
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AWS today launched a new service that will help users inside an advertising or marketing organization share data with other employees inside their company or with outside partners, all without running the risk of inadvertently sharing personal data. This new service is part of Amazon’s new AWS for Advertising & Marketing initiative, which aims to
Carousell, a Singaporean consumer-to-consumer (C2C) service platform operating across Southeast Asia, is letting go of about 110 employees, or 10% of its total headcount, in an effort to reduce costs amid a challenging market condition for the tech industry. The announcement came from the company’s blog on Thursday, posted by co-founder and CEO of Carousell
On Wednesday, Erika Brodnock and Johannes Lenhard published their book, “Better Venture: Improving Diversity, Innovation, and Profitability in Venture Capital and Startups,” which serves as a guide for those looking to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the venture capital market. The authors conducted more than 80 interviews to gauge how much progress there has
GoStudent — the Austria-based late-stage Tutor marketplace which has raised $686.3 million (and attained a €3BN valuation) to date — has acquired Germany-based Studienkreis, a traditional tutoring company, founded in 1974, which is focused on the German-speaking ‘DACH’ region. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Studienkreis had previously been owned, since 2017, by the
Apple iPhone users with iOS 16.1 software can now share car keys in their Wallet with non-iPhone users, starting with Google Pixel devices. In the future, that capability will extend to other devices with Android 12+, according to Apple. Apple says it has been working with the Internet Engineering Task Force and other industry players
YouTube launched its first-ever official trends podcast today, the company announced. Hosted by popular content creator MatPat and produced by YouTube’s Culture & Trends team, the “Like & Describe” podcast will tackle lesser-known stories behind the biggest YouTube trends. Episodes will release monthly on YouTube’s main channel for viewers to watch, as well as all
Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow gives an update on tech layoffs from around the world, from Latin America’s Kavak startup to Amazon and Cisco in the US. “Bloomberg Technology” is our daily news program focused exclusively on technology, innovation and the future of business hosted by Ed Ludlow from San Francisco and Caroline Hyde in New York.
Africa’s beauty and personal care market is growing accelerated by its growing young and fashion conscious population, increasing spending power, and urbanization. The market’s potential has in recent years attracted major brands, with Fenty Beauty by Rihanna and LVMH being the latest entrants. Niche local brands are also emerging to offer tailored beauty and skin
Indian social media startup ShareChat, backed by Twitter, Tiger Global and Temasek, is shutting down its fantasy sports platform Jeet11 and has laid off some employees. People familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the startup sent an email to its affected employees last month. The platform was operational at the time of writing. ShareChat
Menstrual cups (sometimes known as “moon cups”) have been around since the 1930s, and it’s been a bloody long period since we’ve seen much innovation in that category. Emm just closed a $1 million round of funding to add some smarts. The company adds an applicator and an app tracking feature to help keep an
An automated status updater for Slack isn’t the only thing Mozilla acquired this week. On Wednesday, the company announced that it snatched up Active Replica, a Vancouver-based startup developing a “web-based metaverse.” According to Mozilla SVP Imo Udom, Active Replica will support Mozilla’s ongoing work with Hubs, the latter’s VR chatroom service and open source
Earlier today, we talked with Phil Haslett, the cofounder and now chief strategy officer of EquityZen, a 10-year-old, New York-based secondary marketplace that connects accredited buyers with privately held company shares that their owners — including founders, employees, and VCs — are looking to sell. It’s a tough business to be running right now, competing
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. There is officially only 8.3% left of the year. You know what that means! Holidays, cheer, and daydreaming about what shenanigans we’ll get ourselves into in 2024. Yes, 2024, because clearly we’re
A new report has shone a light on the impact that European and Israeli unicorns have had on the broader technology ecosystem since the global economic crisis 14 years ago. The report, titled “Europe and Israel’s Startup Founder Factories,” was produced by VC firm Accel with heavy support from startup and VC data platform Dealroom.
Boundary Layer, which was gunning for local air freight, and announced a slew of launch partners earlier this year, today announced a shift in strategy, with some high-performance foiling personal watercraft. Think low-flying SeaDoo, and you’ve got the right idea. The new product is called Valo, and will be able to carry a couple of
Disney announced today the long-awaited third season of “The Mandalorian,” which will debut on March 1 on Disney+. The company had previously said that the third season would debut in February, so fans will have to wait a little longer than expected to see the upcoming season. The third season will take place following the
X1, a consumer fintech startup which recently launched an income-based credit card to the public, has raised an additional $15 million in funding. This round caught our attention for a few reasons. For one, a consumer fintech raising in this environment is a bit counter to the narrative that startups in the space are generally
So much software is dedicated to helping businesses improve interactions online, whether it be aimed at sales, marketing or customer service. But despite the prevalence of the internet and an increase in digital commerce, the fact remains that over 85% of commerce still happens offline in the United States. Enter Rillavoice, a new startup with
Zoe, a startup founded by doctors and researchers out of London and Boston, made its name during the pandemic with a popular — dare we say viral? — self-reporting Covid-19 app. Embraced both by consumers and researchers, it provided early data into how Covid-19 spread and the symptoms associated with the initial infection and its
Content is king for streaming services, and Netflix may be going the extra mile to ensure its content is up to par with subscribers. According to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix’s prerelease screening program will soon enlist tens of thousands of subscribers to preview new movies and shows and provide their feedback. Netflix declined to
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. Heeeeeey! Couple of fun things we have in the pipeline at the moment… Did you know we’re looking for you and your expertise for our TechCrunch founder summit? Join us for a
Badili, a Kenya-based smartphone re-commerce startup, has raised $2.1 million pre-seed funding to scale its operations within Africa; one of the fastest-growing mobile phone market in the world. The Venture Catalysts, V&R Africa, Grenfell holdings, and SOSV, participated in the round, as did family offices and angel investors from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and India.
The U.K. government has completed a major revision to controversial but populist online safety legislation that’s been in the works for years — and was finally introduced to parliament earlier this year — but has been paused since this summer following turmoil in the governing Conservative Party. In September, new secretary of state for digital, Michelle Donelan,
According to Corning in-house research, “84% of consumers across three of the largest smartphone markets – China, India, and the United States — cite durability as the number one purchasing consideration behind brand itself.” I suspect that things like battery life and camera rank pretty highly, as well, but at the very least, it’s safe
Netflix released nine more mobile games this month, the company announced on Tuesday. The addition of games brings Netflix’s total to over 40 titles, keeping the streamer on track to have more than 50 titles in its mobile games catalog by the end of 2022. Newly added games include Country Friends, the FarmVille clone developed
DeHaat, a startup that offers a wide-range of agricultural services to farmers in India, has raised $60 million in a new funding round as it looks to deepen its penetration in the country and reach break-even profitability within two years. Sofina Ventures and Temasek co-led the Patna and Gurgaon-headquartered startup’s Series E funding, it said,
“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone, I was shocked by what happened this month,” Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder and former chief executive of the fallen FTX, said at The New York Times’ annual DealBook summit in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin. One of the biggest questions around this debacle is
The built environment is responsible for nearly 40% of carbon emissions worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency. While a portion of that is from the energy and materials required to construct buildings, the lion’s share — nearly 90% on an annual basis — comes from their use. Decarbonizing the grid could go a long
European Union regulators have fired another warning shot at Elon Musk over his erratic piloting of Twitter since his takeover last month — saying he has “huge work” ahead if the social media site is to avoid falling foul of major new governance rules for digital services which entered into force earlier this month. Reminder: