EU lawmakers are moving in on the metaverse and making it plain that, whatever newfangled virtual world/s and/or immersive social connectivity that tech industry hype involving the term may refer to, these next-gen virtual spaces won’t escape one hard reality: Regulation. There may be a second metaverse certainty too, if the Commission gets its way:
admin
Amazon wants Alexa owners to buy more things. That’s the clear impetus behind the new Alexa feature announced today at Amazon’s Accelerate conference, called Customers Ask Alexa, which lets brands submit answers to common questions like “How can I remove pet hair from my carpet?” and “How to eliminate odor from soil stains?” Previously, Alexa
Yet another round of layoffs at Netflix has unfortunately affected 30 Netflix Animation employees. Deadline first reported the news, and Netflix confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is downsizing the department. Earlier this year, Netflix brought on Karen Toliver as vice president of Animation Film Content and Traci Balthazor as vice president of Animation Film
Groundcover, a performance monitoring platform for cloud apps, today announced that it raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Zeev Ventures with participation from Angular Ventures, Heavybit and Jibe Ventures. The new capital brings the startup’s total raised to $24.5 million, which CEO Shahar Azulay says will be used to “raise awareness”
The global cultured meat market is poised to reach half a billion dollars by 2030; however, this kind of technology is still very much in the R&D phase for a lot of companies that have emerged over the past five years. Cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat, is animal meat, but instead of slaughtering
Enverus, a company specialized in energy-focused software-as-a-service products, has announced that it has acquired RatedPower, a Spanish startup that helps you plan, design and optimize solar power plants. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed. Enverus works with all sorts of customers in the energy ecosystem focused both on renewables and oil and gas. In particular,
There is a fight emerging in Central and Eastern Europe, and all the way down into the South Eastern regions. Investors such as Inovo, Credo, LauncHUB, Vitosha, Venture Friends, Marathon VC, are all VCs of varying sizes who are – as we speak – roaming everywhere from Eastonia and Poland all the way down to
This year marks GoPro’s 20th year. It’s been an interesting journey for a company that has become synonymous with a specific product category for well over a decade. I’d venture to guess that – to this day — more people are familiar with the GoPro name than the term “action camera,” which may have proved
The New York Shipping Exchange (Nyshex), a platform that connects shippers with ocean carriers, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series B funding round led by Collate Capital with participation from Blumberg Capital, Goldman Sachs, and NewRoad Capital. The infusion brings the company’s total raised to $69 million, which CEO Gordon Downes
If you’re a university- or college-level student who believes the future of finance is crypto — or even if you’re just crypto curious — pack a bag and head to Miami for TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17. Why? Well, for starters, TechCrunch (of Disrupt and Startup Battlefield fame) brings its considerable talent for attracting
AC Ventures (ACV), a venture firm focused on early-stage startups in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia, has reached the first close of its fifth investment fund (Fund V). The fund is targeting $250 million and has raised 65% of that capital so far, mostly from limited partners who invested in ACV’s previous funds.
The energy transition is just getting warmed up. For proof, see Our Next Energy. The Michigan-based startup is developing a trick dual-chemistry battery pack that’s the sort of innovation that’ll likely come to define the climate tech economy. The heart of ONE’s technology is a battery management system that allows an EV to use two
French biotech company WhiteLab Genomics has raised $10 million in funding for an AI platform designed to aid the discovery and development of genomic therapies. Founded out of Paris in 2019, recent Y Combinator (YC) graduate WhiteLab Genomics provides gene and cell therapy companies with predictive software simulations to expedite the design of gene and
Sonos has a new Sub in its lineup, and this one isn’t quite as prohibitively expensive: The $429 Sub Mini comes in at almost half the price of the more expensive existing $749 Sub — and is also roughly half the size. The Sonos Sub Mini is specifically recommended by the company to accompany its
HBO and its streaming service HBO Max cleaned up at last night’s Emmy awards, pulling in a dozen wins in the Primetime Emmys, compared with its next nearest rival, Netflix, which had just three. Overall, Netflix also fell behind in terms of the total number of awards it won, including the recently aired Creative Arts
Payroll is one area of business that’s been ripe for innovation and disruption for a while now. On the surface, it may not look like something that really requires any major changes. After all, it’s worked well enough so far: You work your hours and you get paid every fortnight or month. The machines kept
It always feels good to get paid, so it’s no surprise that a payroll model like earned wage access (EWA), which lets employees withdraw their accrued wages at any time, has exploded in popularity. The pandemic certainly played a big role in helping people understand the benefits of being able to treat their accrued salaries
What can today’s founders learn from the 2000 dotcom bubble burst? Image Credits: Chris Hondros (opens in a new window) / Getty Images The late 1990s were a fascinating time to work in startups and live in San Francisco. I didn’t need to be an economist to realize that many of the companies I worked
In the new era of remote and hybrid working, companies need to manage people who either relocate to join, or work remotely. For obvious reasons, that has created a huge headache for HR directors. Back in 2014, FlatClub had an apartment rental platform. But a chance encounter encouraged them to pivot in 2017 to become
French startup Devialet has raised a new $50 million (€50 million) funding round from two existing investors — Crédit Mutuel Equity and Bpifrance’s Large Venture fund — and a new mysterious Asian investor. Devialet doesn’t want to share the name of this new investor. All I know is that it’s an industrial company based in
Today, Apple released Safari 16, a major point release that’s debuting ahead of Ventura. The browser update is mostly focused on things users can’t see, like security and performance. But there’s one new user-facing feature that’s been on my wishlist for nearly a decade — sidebar tabs. Sidebar tabs aren’t a new idea, of course.
As hiring remains challenging in an economy where jobs are plentiful (depending on the sector), venture capitalists continue to pump money into HR startups focused on assessing and onboarding candidates. According to PitchBook, companies focused on tackling hurdles in payroll and people management and recruitment raised $12 billion last year. For example, Velocity Global, which
Opus Security, a cloud security orchestration and remediation platform, today emerged from stealth with $10 million in seed funding led by YL Ventures, with participation from Tiger Global and angel investors. CEO Meny Har tells TechCrunch that the proceeds will be put toward launching Opus’ platform in general availability, expanding the startup’s footprint in the
Runa Capital, which launched there in 2010, says it has raised $55 million towards its fourth fund, aiming for a hard cap of $250 million. And after 12 years in the US, the normally Palo Alto-based VC says it is now relocating its HQ to Luxembourg, to re-focus its attention on the European market, as
Following this week’s closing of the Ultimaker/MakerBot merger, the combined company is announcing a new name. The entity will be known as [drumroll please] UltiMaker. As far as merged names go, it’s not a particularly exciting one. The new company name is UltiMaker, with a camelcased “M” to acknowledge MakerBot’s place in all of this.
Alongside its fall hardware update, which included new streaming and audio devices, Roku today unveiled the features it has in store for the next version of its media software, Roku OS 11.5. This time around, the platform maker is looking to advance its own offerings, like its Live TV experience. It also wants to better
GM’s self-driving technology unit Cruise will launch commercial robotaxi services in Austin, Texas and Phoenix — two hot spots for autonomous vehicle development — “in the next 90 days and before the end of 2022,” Cruise CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt said Monday, The services will initially be small scale, but from the outset the
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. Happy new week, startup nerds! Tomorrow (Tuesday), we have not one, but two Twitter Live events happening, and we’re excited about both of ’em. At 8:00 a.m. PDT / 11:00 a.m. EDT,
The days of European startups relocating to the U.S. if they want to grow (and raise money to do so) have been receding in the rearview mirror for a while now, so much so that even in these leaner times — where all fundraising and tech bets are tightening up — we’re still seeing some
As exercise demands shifted away from the gym amid pandemic-related shutdowns, Peloton hit heights experienced by precious few tech firms. That made the connected fitness company’s crash down to Earth all the more jarring. In February, co-founder John Foley stepped down as CEO amid a 2,800-person layoff. Spotify CFO Barry McCarthy stepped into the leadership