Access to funding and lack of support systems are some of the greatest challenges faced by startup founders in sub-Saharan Africa. And while venture capital and founder support programs within the continent are growing, a lot still remains to be done to meet the financing, technology and social capital needs of the especially marginalized groups
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Devin Abbott Contributor Devin Abbott was founder of Deco (acquired by Airbnb) and specializes in design and development tools, React and web3 applications, most recently with The Graph. It’s too early to predict all the implications of the recent Ethereum blockchain Merge, but it definitely addresses the most frequent (and valid) criticism of web3 regarding
It’s time to accept that cloud gaming is the future of gaming. At least for some people and even though Stadia failed. But that group of people is becoming larger every year. For the past few weeks, I have been playing video games on a brand new device — the Logitech G Cloud. But my
Tesla Inc. reported third-quarter sales that fell short of Wall Street estimates, citing the US dollar’s growing strength, along with production and delivery bottlenecks. Profits rose to $1.05 beating estimates of $1.01. Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow has a first look at earnings.
Valuations have been top of mind for the entire venture industry this year as many VCs try to navigate their overvalued portfolios and founders scramble to conserve cash and grow into their lofty valuations. So one might have predicted that valuations would fall off a cliff this year. But that hasn’t happened because venture investing
Tech giants are increasingly looking for tech talent in Africa, where the number of developers reached 716,000 last year, up 3.8% from 2020, according to Google. In the last six months, Microsoft and Amazon have been on a recruitment drive that came along with enticing offers including relocation to their hubs in the U.S. and
Maro has developed a platform that helps families and schools navigate tough conversations about mental health. The company, which exhibited as part of the Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt, launched its first product, Maro Parents, in 2020. Now, the company is gearing up to launch Maro for Schools next week to help schools screen students
After seeing a ton of venture capital investment flow into independent beverage startups recently, it was time to take a step back and see if this kind of company actually made sense as a venture investment. For one, the competition for space on grocery store shelves is fierce, eclipsed only by the fact people are
Wire has retracted its reports on Meta after discovering “certain discrepancies” in its news pieces, the Indian outlet said Sunday, marking what should be an end to the high-profile drama with the social juggernaut that captured the interest of newsrooms and tech companies globally for two weeks. The move follows Wire, a small but gutsy
Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Should early-stage founders ignore the never-ending debate on server infrastructure? Up to a point, yes: Investors we talked to are giving entrepreneurs their blessing
Hey, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, where every Saturday we recap a handful of the top TechCrunch stories from the past seven days. Want it in your inbox? Get it here! This week marked the in-person return of TechCrunch Disrupt, with our team taking the show back into the real world after two
Beating expectations is worth something again Anna Heim 4 days I don’t know if anyone’s really noticed, but Netflix had a pretty great third quarter, thank you very much. The streaming platform added 2.41 million subscribers when it only expected 1 million. It also beat analysts’ financial expectations, with $7.93 billion in revenue rather than
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As far as weeks go, this one was as disruptive as they come. TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 has officially come to a close after an iconic
In the midst of the pandemic, Pantheon Design, a maker of industrial 3D printers from Vancouver, BC, suddenly found itself getting orders from factories in the Midwest, the center of heavy industries. The reason? These manufacturers were having a hard time getting parts out of China as COVID-19 restrictions in the country squeezed global supply
Battery technology has made significant strides in recent years, but there’s one place they haven’t changed much — they’re still as stiff as a board. The era of inflexible portable power may be coming to an end, though, if Anthro Energy can bring its bendy batteries to market. It’s getting some help with that courtesy
Popular podcast platform Pocket Casts has released its mobile clients under an open source license. WordPress parent company Automattic acquired Pocket Casts last July, having been acquired by a group of public radio companies, including NPR, back in 2018. Pocket Casts is one of the most popular “podcatcher” apps outside the big tech ecosystems of
Champ Suthipongchai Contributor Champ Suthipongchai is founder and GP at Creative Ventures, a deep tech firm that invests in early-stage companies. If you’re hiring for your startup, you need to understand one thing: This is arguably one of the worst times to be looking for talent. While inflation continues to skyrocket and the Fed pumps
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. Christine is in an airport lounge and Haje is perched on the corner of a cafe bench, as the TechCrunch team is in transit post-Disrupt today. We miss our work besties already
The Biden-Harris administration, through the Department of Energy (DOE), announced Wednesday that 20 battery companies will receive a combined $2.8 billion to build and expand commercial-scale facilities in 12 states. This is the first phase of $7 billion in total from President Biden’s Infrastructure Law that aims to strengthen domestic battery supply chains and reduce
Lionel Messi (pictured, right), the Argentine professional soccer/football player who is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, is to make a push into technology investing via a new vehicle that will be shepherded by two Silicon Valley veterans. Play Time is the name given to a new partnership between the
A new startup wants to help online media outlets make money by making it easier for consumers to access paywalled content without being locked in to multiple subscriptions. Demoing as part of the Battlefield 200 cohort at TC Disrupt this week, Zette is trying to achieve something that others before have tried. Since the dawn
Jan.28 — Tesla Inc. heads into earnings after meeting key deliveries and setting stock records. Bloomberg’s Taylor Riggs reports.
Sathya Elumalai was finding it hard to manage his mother’s health after she was diagnosed with four chronic conditions. Rather than guess her health status for the day, he decided to co-found Aidar Health to get that information directly and reliably. In founding Aidar, Elumalai also created and launched MouthLab, a device it claims tracks
After attempting to sell its tech to large food service companies, cooking automation startup Jasper has shifted to direct-to-consumer. In a recent conversation, CEO Gunnar Froh told TechCrunch about the pivot and gave a general update on the company, a member of this year’s Battlefield 200 at Disrupt 2022. When Gunnar founded Jasper several years
Born inside the Technical University of Munich, the engineers behind Reverion say they’ve had their heads down for seven years developing a way to get more electricity out of biogas and existing fuel-cell technology. Biogas comes from decomposing waste and is mostly made up of methane. It’s a form of chemical energy that must be
Last month, on International Equal Pay Day, the International Labour (ILO) Organization revealed that on average, women globally are paid about 20% less than men. This pay gap is even bigger for Black and Hispanic women, where Black women were found to earn over 63% less than white men, and Hispanic or Latina women 57.3%
Taylor Swift’s latest album “Midnights” has dropped, and it might be setting a new standard for China’s digital music industry. Within a day of its release, the 13-track album, priced at 35 yuan, or $4.83, has racked up nearly 200,000 copies on Tencent’s QQ Music, one of the largest music streaming platforms in China. While
Cloud cost optimization startups have become ubiquitous, and they’ve found a friendly ear among enterprise clients looking to cut costs amid the downturn. But should younger startups similarly scrutinize their cloud spend? According to several cloud investors, startups should prioritize building over optimization — unless it’s going to save them a big chunk of money.
The amount of capital raised by Black entrepreneurs continues to decrease. The latest Crunchbase numbers show that Black founders raised $187 million in Q3, a staggering decline from the nearly $1.1 billion they received in Q3 2021 and a sizable drop from the $594 million the cohort raised in Q2. Black founders raised just 0.12%
Over the last 10 years startups in Africa’s off-grid solar sector have attracted over $2.3 billion in funding. However, the largest share of the financing has gone to just seven pay-as-you-go (pay-go) Africa-based scaleups, leaving hundreds of others in the early-stage struggling to fundraise, according to the newly released biennial Gogla-World Bank report. The seven