Fake news, and the identification and eradication of it, has long been thought of as the purview of social media platforms, where a lot of that tends to be shared. Today, one of the more ambitious tech startups in the field of fighting fake news is getting acquired — not by a social media platform,
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week, Alex and Natasha discussed the latest and greatest of this consuming news cycle. Our goal with the episode, as always, is to go beyond what you may see in a 140-character-take
When the downturn began, many VCs urged founders to slash their marketing spending. On its face, that’s an effective way to extend runway while cutting costs. Several months later, we’ve since learned that cutting marketing budgets doesn’t make early-stage startups healthier, but it is a great way for VCs to reduce burn rates across their
Electric vehicle startup Nio is accelerating its expansion in Europe. The premium EV maker just launched its first power-swapping station in Varberg, Sweden, the company said in a LinkedIn post. When it comes to charging, Nio differentiates itself from its rivals by offering swappable batteries, which are upgradable and charge a monthly subscription fee, on
Ticketmaster is facing more scrutiny from politicians after its chaotic presales for tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour. Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti said he is looking into whether Ticketmaster violated consumers’ rights and antitrust regulations. Skrmetti is the latest politician who has called attention to Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s hold on the ticketing market. This
President Joe Biden said Elon Musk’s relationships with other countries are “worthy of being looked at.” that it’s worth being looked at.” Last month, people familiar with the matter said the Biden administration was discussing whether the US should subject some of Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including his deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to
A new bankruptcy filing, first reported by CNBC, shows that FTX’s corporate funds were used to purchase homes in the Bahamas among other personal items. The details arise less than a week after the now infamous crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy — a decision that founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said he regrets. FTX’s
Today at TechCrunch’s crypto-focused event in Miami, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer discussed his business and the future market for non-fungible tokens. The digital assets, better known by the acronym “NFTs,” saw their stock rise during the 2021-era crypto boom. NFTs became synonymous with neo-wealth bubbling up from the blockchain economy, as a number of image
Back on April 8, 2021, Index Ventures, one of the very few “original gangsters” of the European VC scene, said it was kind’ve going “back to its roots.” It announced the launch of a new $200 million dedicated seed investing vehicle dubbed “Index Origin.” Now, if you cast your minds back, this was during the
Anime streaming service Crunchyroll has partnered with Discord. Starting today, users will be able to display the movie or TV show they’re currently watching on their Discord profile. Crunchyroll is the latest media company to add “Rich Presence,” the “Now Playing” functionality that automatically displays the video you’re watching, the game you’re playing, the song
Jack Selby, a former PayPal exec and the longtime managing director of Thiel Capital who attracted some attention years back for his low-key largesse, has a new, $110 million venture fund that he intends to invest mostly in his adopted state of Arizona, where Selby has lived since 2002. The debut vehicle of the firm,
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. Hello! You’ve got one more day of just me before I take a well-deserved Friday off and Kyle fills in, so I have decided to make an extra-large version of Daily Crunch.
All electric, everywhere, all of the time; that’s one of the many climate mantras. Induction stovetops take a lot of power, however — they can pull 40 amps at 240 volts. That’s the same as an at-home Level 2 EV charger. Needless to say, a lot of older houses aren’t wired to plug in a
As the world moves into economic headwinds and geopolitical uncertainty, European founders must get used to taking tough decisions to ensure the survival of their startups. This will include getting used to “flat” or “down rounds” of funding, after experiencing the high valuations of the last couple of years. That was the message today at
It’s that time of year again. It can drop 20 degrees on any given day, and we’re stuck indoors watching people watch Qualcomm announce new chips and reference designs in sunny Hawaii. The Snapdragon Summit is the component-maker’s annual opportunity to map out its big plans for the next year, ahead of the holiday scrum
When Stable Diffusion, the text-to-image AI developed by startup Stability AI, was open sourced earlier this year, it didn’t take long for the internet to wield it for porn-creating purposes. Communities across Reddit and 4chan tapped the AI system to generate realistic and anime-style images of nude characters, mostly women, as well as non-consensual fake
If someone offers you a seat on a rocket, you don’t ask which seat. So goes one of Silicon Valley’s favorite platitudes, one that you can trace back (at a minimum) to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. The idea is that if you are given a shot at working
Narwhal, the company behind the popular monorepo-focused open source Nx build system for JavaScript code, today announced that it has raised an $8.6 million seed funding round co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz. A number of angel investors, including GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, also participated in this round. Founded by two former Google
Let’s face it: Most people aren’t early adopters, especially when it comes to their homes. Take the kitchen, for example, where many people still buy gas cooktops despite induction’s superiority. It’s not because everyone’s busy charring peppers over an open flame — it’s because they’re slow to adopt changes. When it comes to heating and
Venture-backed startups have had to make myriad spending cuts this year in an attempt to either live up to a high valuation, minimize their burn rate or both. But new data from fintech Capchase shows that many startups — especially venture-backed ones — seem to be getting the wrong advice concerning where to downsize. Capchase,
Roku wrote in a new SEC filing that it plans to cut 200 jobs in the U.S. as it braces for economic headwinds. Thanks to the workforce reduction, the company expects to incur a non-recurring charge of between $28 to $31 million, mainly because of severance payments, employee benefits contributions, other related expenses and notice
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong joins Emily Chang to discuss the news of Binance buying rival FTX.com after a bitter feud between the two crypto exchange owners, and whether Coinbase would consider buying FTX US. ——– 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” with Emily
In a major first, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just offered its safety blessing to a cultivated meat product startup. It completed its first pre-market consultation with Upside Foods to examine human food made from the cultured cells of animals, and it concluded that it had “no further questions” related to the way Upside
If you follow #beautytok, #beautytube or any beauty content on social media platforms, you know that popular product trends are hard to keep up with. Summer International stays ahead of the game by identifying the most influential content creators, and working with them to incubate new brands. Founded in Singapore and based in Los Angeles
Two years ago, South Korea unveiled a plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Getting there will be another story. Although Korean manufacturers say they are trying to change their ways, the country’s GDP is linked to some uniquely pollutive industries, including petrochemical producers, automakers and shipbuilders. Though some businesses may never be truly sustainable,
French startup Virgil has raised a $15.6 million funding round (€15 million). The company invests in apartments alongside home buyers before they even get the keys for their new home. This way, future homeowners can buy a bigger place in exchange for an equity stake in their apartment. Home equity is a much more fluid
Disney+’s adorable new short film, “Zen – Grogu and Dust Bunnies,” premiered on Saturday, November 12. From Lucasfilm and Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, the hand-drawn short film will excite many fans as it features Grogu — a.k.a Baby Yoda or The Child — from the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian” and the coal dust
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. Hello, and welcome to your…checks the top right of the screen…Wednesday. Several of our TechCrunch colleagues headed to Miami today for the TC Sessions: Crypto event tomorrow. Given the past week, it
Proteins are the molecules that get work done in nature, and there’s a whole industry emerging around successfully modifying and manufacturing them for various uses. But doing so is time consuming and haphazard; Cradle aims to change that with an AI-powered tool that tells scientists what new structures and sequences will make a protein do
For all its promise, the current state of solid-waste recycling leaves a lot to be desired. Plastic waste is among the worst: It represents about 12% of solid waste in the U.S., but only about 4.5% of what gets recycled. There are plenty of reasons why we’re terrible at recycling plastics. For one, not all