Few consumer electronics categories matured as quickly as wireless earbuds. We went from the first good implementation of the technology to near ubiquity, seemingly overnight. Suddenly a good pair is cheap and they seem to be everywhere. It’s precisely for this reason that it’s become nearly impossible to distinguish yourself from the masses of companies
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LG officially pulled the plug on its smartphone division in April of last year. It was another signpost in a dramatically changing mobile market that had left the electronics giant behind. HTC tends to be lumped into that conversation, though the Taiwanese manufacture has – in spite of everything – continued to press on, even
Summer is whipping right along with Memorial Day and the Summer Solstice already in the rear-view mirror. We’re rounding the corner into the next long holiday weekend here in the U.S., and here at TechCrunch, that can mean just one thing. It’s time for our July 4th, two-for-one flash sale! Starting today you can buy
Vezeeta, a healthtech startup operating in the Middle East and Africa, reportedly laid off about 10% of its staff last week. The number of affected employees isn’t known; however, multiple sources who posted the news on LinkedIn, including affected employees, revealed that up to 50 people were let go. Vezeeta has almost 500 employees, according to
NASA’s CAPSTONE mission, which will chart a new orbit around the Moon which will hopefully be used for a future crewed lunar space station, is underway after a successful launch on Tuesday morning. Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle delivered the CAPSTONE satellite, which is roughly the size of a large microwave oven, to Earth orbit
Last week I wrote about an AI startup that’s building technology that can alter, in real time, the accent of someone’s speech. But what if the AI goal instead is to make it possible for people speaking in whatever way they do, to be understood just as they are, and to remove some of the
Google has invested in Progcap, an Indian startup that provides working capital to small and medium-sized businesses, the firms said Tuesday, making a new push into a category that has attracted the attention of Facebook and Amazon in recent years. The investment is part of a $40 million fresh funding Progcap has raised, it said.
Edtech up-skilling platform Degreed has acquired Learn In, which creates talent resource hubs for employers to better spin up education services for their teams. While we’d nearly always cover a notable acquisition in a relevant tech sector, the extra interesting bit here is a personnel one: both companies were co-founded by the same entrepreneur, David
Waymo, Aurora, UPS and Luminar are among a group of 34 autonomous vehicle developers, California business organizations, and automotive and logistics companies that have signed an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom asking him to revisit the California Department of Motor Vehicles’s 2015 prohibition on the operation of autonomous trucks in the state. California began
Until recently, Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise, and Sten Tamkivi, co-founder of Teleport, had banded together as a sort of “mini Angel brand” known as “Taavet+Sten.” Tamkivi has done around 50 angel deals, Hinrikus has, reportedly, done as many as 150. But they were effectively pooling their personal capital as angel investors. However, evidently this
Consumers are ditching their current period tracking apps in favor of what they perceive to be safer options in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that allows individual U.S. states to criminalize abortion. The app switching trend is impacting all manner of period tracking apps, including leading app Flo, which owns
David Campbell Contributor David Campbell is the CEO and co-founder of Tropic, an infrastructure platform that helps companies better optimize SaaS purchasing. With a recession looming and economic headwinds showing no sign of abating, many companies are scrambling to cut costs. Software is a prime category for optimization, and many organizations are paying 50% more
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. This week we are not recording on a Tuesday as it’s a regular week. Though we would add that Equity will
The Cadillac Celestiq, the brand’s halo EV set to debut during Monterey Car Week in August, will reportedly start around $300,000, pushing it well above the top variants from other luxury EVs, including the Lucid Air Dream Edition, Porsche Taycan Turbo S and Tesla Model X Plaid. While Cadillac would not confirm the eye-popping price
It’s not news that times have changed in the world of fintech. After financial technology startups saw their fortunes rise during the venture capital boom that loosely wrapped as 2021 came to a close, they’re now suffering from a slump of a similar scale. The damage is not unidimensional. Instead, pain around the fintech sphere
Google Engineer Blake Lemoine joins Emily Chang to talk about some of the experiments he conducted that lead him to think that LaMDA was a sentient AI, and to explain why he is now on administrative leave.
Africa-focused venture capital firm TLcom Capital has appointed Eloho Omame as a partner six months after announcing the first close of TIDE Africa Fund II, its $150 million second fund (it expects to reach a second close later this year, according to its partners). appoints TLcom Capital is known for investing from seed to Series
Global plastic waste has more than doubled, and 40 percent of that waste comes from packaging. Luckily there are no shortage of sustainable packaging startups in Europe. Just take a look: Circleback (Germany), Recup (Germany), Sourceful (UK), one • five (Germany), Shellworks (UK), Woola (Estonia), Papkot (France), Biotic (Israel), FunCell (France) and Traceless (Germany). The
Incredibuild, an Israeli startup that has picked up a lot of traction in the worlds of gaming and software development for a platform that drastically speeds up (and reduces the cost of) the shipment of code and related collateral during building and testing — has raised some capital to speed up its own development. The
Paul Fifield Contributor Paul Fifield is the CEO and co-founder of Sales Impact Academy. If you’re still thinking of a four-year degree as a requirement for your revenue teams, you’re missing out on a huge talent base. The reality is that when it comes to sales, the vast majority of the skills and knowledge one
Backstage Capital has downsized its staff from 12 to three people, managing partner and founder Arlan Hamilton said during her “Your First Million” podcast that was published Sunday. The layoff comes nearly three months after Backstage Capital narrowed its investment strategy to only participate in follow-on rounds of existing portfolios. This workforce reduction further underscores
Logistics in much of Southeast Asia is not only complicated, but also expensive. Deliveree wants to solve that problem with a platform that not only lets clients book trucks, but also uses algorithms to determine the best route based on location, trucking loads and even the weather. The company announced today that it has raised
Kelsey Mellard Contributor Kelsey Mellard is the founder and CEO of Sitka. The news of Emily Weiss moving to the role of chairwoman of Glossier from her former position as CEO was riddled with gender biases in how it was covered by the media. Even the more balanced coverage still highlighted that she is currently
Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of
An older, cheaper and safer battery technology already dominating China’s electric vehicle industry is now poised to reshape battery manufacturing worldwide and boost EV sales in the United States — if the global lithium supply remains stable. A slew of patents for lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) chemistries due to expire in 2022 could shift the face of
Frederik Mijnhardt Contributor Frederik Mijnhardt is the CEO of Secfi, an equity planning platform for startup executives and employees. Last year was a great one for startups. It was a record year for companies going public, valuations for pre-IPO companies were skyrocketing, and fundraising also shattered records. But 2022 is going to be quite different.
This week on the TechCrunch Podcast I talk with Jacquelyn Melinek about the power and pitfalls of crypto communities and Devin Coldewey about why Pornhub’s COO and CEO have unceremoniously stepped down. And as always, you’ll get a rundown of the week’s top news on TechCrunch. Articles from the episode: Other news from the week:
Payments giants and fintech startups in India on Saturday requested the central bank to treat widely used prepaid payment instruments on par with bank accounts for customers who have undertaken certain verifications, days after the monetary authority signalled industry-wide crackdown. The Payments Council of India, a unit of influential industry body IAMAI, said in a
Spotify is introducing a new feature that will allow users to better discover nearby events and concerts. The streaming service today announced it’s replacing its in-app Concert Hub with a new Live Events Feed that will allow you to find favorite artists’ events in your area in a way that’s personalized to your own interests.
Hello and welcome back to Week in Review, your one-stop spot for the biggest stories from the week. Greg Kumparak is off enjoying the beginning of summer and has entrusted me to keep you updated in his absence. If you want this in your inbox every Saturday, sign up here. And while you’re at it,