There was a brief, beautiful moment for a few months in 2021 when it felt like robotic investments might be immune from broader market forces. We all fundamentally and implicitly understood this to not be the case, but it was a nice moment nevertheless. Truth is, there was a bit of insulation in there. There
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The growth keeps coming for Tesla’s energy storage business. On Wednesday, the automaker said its home and utility-scale battery deployments reached 6.5 gigawatt hours (GWh) during its fiscal 2022, calling it “by far the highest level of deployments we have achieved.” That’s up from about 4 GWh in 2021. For context, the average American home
Twitter owner and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist“, Elon Musk, is facing a legal challenge in Germany over how the platform handles antisemitic hate speech. The lawsuit, which was filed yesterday in the Berlin regional court by HateAid, a group that campaigns against hate speech, and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS), argues that Musk-owned
Amazon is deepening its ties to hit Dungeons & Dragons actual play series Critical Role, entering a multiyear deal with the growing role-playing content empire that will see any new adaptations spring up under the Amazon Studios umbrella. The company will also bring Critical Role’s second campaign to life, showcasing the ragtag fantasy group of
Working with, microservices-based development environments presents a unique set of testing challenges. Richard North developed an open source solution called Testcontainers in 2015 to help ease this problem for developers. Today, the open source project is used by companies like Uber, Netflix, Spotify and Capital One. North and co-founder Sergei Egorov (who was a co-maintainer
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter
Chances are you used a toilet at some point today, and you didn’t think much of it. But if you used a port-a-potty, you probably did think about it. Maybe a lot. And it probably wasn’t pleasant. “No one likes the port-a-potty,” said Brophy Tyree, co-founder and CEO of Wasted. “It’s embedded into a really
Madrid has renewed the operating licenses for scooter-sharing services in the city. The city council has chosen three operators for the next three years — Dott, Lime and Tier. This trio of companies will sound familiar as these companies also won tender processes in several European cities in recent years. Madrid even says that it
When Shutterstock and OpenAI announced a partnership to help develop OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 artificial intelligence image-generating platform with Shutterstock libraries to train and feed the algorithm, the stock photo and media giant also hinted that it would soon be bringing its own generative AI tools to users. Today the company took the wraps off that
Terra Drone said today it has raised $14 million in Series C funding from Wa’ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Aramco, marking the VC firm’s first investment in Asia. The Japan-headquartered company, which builds drone software, hardware and uncrewed aircraft traffic management software, said the new capital brings its total raised to $97
In 2016, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states signed the Value Added Tax (VAT) agreement paving way for the introduction of the general levy on consumption across the region. The United Arabs Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia became the first member states to adopt the treaty in 2018, and its implementation meant that for
Meet Oneleaf, a new startup that wants to make hypnosis mainstream. The startup has designed an app that helps you get started with hypnosis and follow various programs to quit smoking, reduce anxiety or lose weight. Oneleaf raised $4.6 million (€4.2 million) from Frst, Kima Ventures, Raise Ventures and several business angels. Bpifrance also contributed
Netflix received 15 Oscar nominations this year, putting the streaming service ahead of most other media companies. Warner Bros. was close behind with 13 nominations, and Disney+ earned 12. Combined with Disney-owned Searchlight, which had 10 nominations, Disney received 22 total noms. Netflix’s German war movie “All Quiet on the Western Front” was nominated nine
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is calling an electric-vehicle battery plant planned by Ford Motor Co. and a Chinese partner a “Trojan horse” for China that would undermine policy efforts to strengthen the US auto industry. He speaks to Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow. Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg Watch the latest full episodes of “Bloomberg Technology”
One of the most remarkable things about construction robotics is the sheer breadth of tasks that can potentially be automated. As I’ve noted before, the entire category is a prime target for robotics startups, given that it fills all of the big Ds of automation — dull, dirty and (quite often) dangerous. It’s also one
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. What’s up, Crunchers? Good to see you again! We’re so glad to have you with us. It’s been a really busy day on the site today, and Haje has been busy getting
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. In this week’s episode Darrell and Becca are joined by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the co-founder and CEO of Klarna. Sebastian talks about what led him to found the startup and how it has navigated multiple market cycles since. He also dives into how Klarna
“May I suggest respectfully that Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m the problem, it’s me,’” Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said on the Senate floor Tuesday, referencing Taylor Swift’s latest hit “Anti-Hero.” In a hearing on consumer protection and competition in live entertainment, senators grilled Live Nation CFO and president Joe Berchtold
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry is facing budget constraints and reductions in headcount as a result of the pandemic and the broader slowdown in tech. Companies have tightened up their budgets for SaaS purchases, looking to keep cash on hand while growing more efficiently. That’s why Kush Kella and Ahmed Sharif founded Vartana (which my colleague
Paris Heymann Contributor For the tech community, the rallying cry in 2022 was about moving from the growth-at-all-costs mindset toward emphasizing profitability. We believe that in turbulent times, startups and scaleups alike need to ensure: They have sufficient runway to ride out a downturn without relying on large amounts of external funding. They are developing
Karthee Madasamy Contributor Karthee Madasamy is the managing partner at MFV Partners, a deep tech-focused venture firm. Like nearly every other sector, deep tech faced significant headwinds in 2022. As interest rates skyrocketed, deep tech deals, which inherently take more capital than other kinds of software businesses, became less attractive to many VCs and their
Another penalty for Spain’s homegrown on-demand delivery app and dark store operator, Glovo — which has been fined close to €57 million (~$62M) for breaching local labor laws by falsely classifying 7,800+ of its delivery couriers in Madrid as self-employed, per local newspaper El Diario. Citing sources familiar with the Labor department’s investigation of Glovo,
Electric vehicles accounted for nearly 6% of all new cars sold in the U.S. in 2022, an increase from 3.1% the year before, and that number will continue to grow over the coming years. While it’s still a young industry, the ecosystem surrounding EVs — from EV charging and installation to insurance products and parking
Solar-powered electric vehicle maker Lightyear said it’s halting production on its flagship Lightyear 0, its premium EV with a sticker price of €250,000. Despite only starting production on the vehicle three months ago, Lightyear is restructuring to focus on building a more affordable model, the Lightyear 2 for around €40,000, reports Electrek. The news comes
Pasqal, a Paris-based quantum computing startup, today announced that it has raised a $100 million Series B funding round let by Singapore’s Temasek. In addition to Temasek, existing investors Quantonation, the Defense Innovation Fund, Daphni and Eni Next, as well as new investors European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Wa’ed Ventures and Bpifrance (through its Large
Bumble is putting the phrase “Netflix and Chill?” to the test with the launch of a weekly in-app Netflix-themed question game called “Netflix Nights In” that asks users questions about a popular Netflix show. Users can play against their match to see who can answer all the questions correctly. According to a recent Bumble survey,
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman joins Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow to discuss Apple’s plan to unveil its first mixed-reality headset this year, and how its lightweight augmented-reality glasses have been postponed due to technical challenges. #apple #amazon #gadgets #technology
The same day Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI, McKinsey snatched up an enterprise-focused AI firm, Iguazio, for a relative steal. The consulting giant reportedly paid around $50 million for Iguazio, a Tel Aviv-based company offering an MLOps platform for large-scale businesses — “MLOps” referring to a set of tools to deploy and maintain machine learning
Today, baby registry and product discovery platform Babylist announced that it has acquired health and wellness tool Expectful for an undisclosed price. The deal, announced today, brings together two companies focused on parental support, now helping people navigate everything from eco-friendly diapers to mental wellness around fertility. The overlap, however, is in more than the mission.
The M2 Air is as close as Apple has ever come to the perfect MacBook. It’s a kind of platonic ideal for the category, and the culmination of key updates to the product line, including the arrival (and upgrade) of Apple silicon and the company’s acceptance that some things (bad keyboards, Touch Bar) simply weren’t