The news that funding for Black founders is falling was no shock to the Black community, much of which was raised with the aphorism, “when white America catches a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.” U.S. startups received VC funding of around $75 billion in Q1 and about $50 billion so far in Q2, despite investors pulling back and
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Buy now, pay later (BNPL) products have become incredibly popular with users, and both startups and tech behemoths such as Apple have taken notice. But BNPL companies have attracted some controversy, too, for encouraging people who are less financially secure to take on debt without fully explaining the associated risks. Kasheesh, a fintech startup that’s
The co-founder and CEO of Solana, Anatoly Yakovenko, had a Steve Jobs moment when he stood in front of an auditorium in New York City and announced the launch of Saga, an Android web3-focused smartphone. “This is something that I fundamentally believe the industry needs to do,” Yakovenko said. “We didn’t see a single crypto
As a veteran startup worker who has been laid off during economic downturns, it’s dissonant to hear investors say this is a good time to launch a software company. They’re not wrong, however. An analogy: In California, nearly 10,000 wildfires burned more than 4 million acres two years ago, causing billions of economic damage and
A federal appeals court froze the FDA’s ban on Juul products Friday after the company sought an emergency administrative stay. On Thursday, the U.S. regulator took sweeping action against the e-cigarette maker, effectively killing its access to the U.S. market. The temporary stay will be in place essentially to buy time until the case can
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. Hey, folks, and welcome to the Friday edition of Daily Crunch. As you might’ve seen, the Supreme Court issued a major decision on abortion today, effectively overturning Roe v. Wade in declaring
Zomato has acquired Blinkit, a struggling 10-minute grocery delivery startup, in a $568.1 million all-stock deal as the loss-making food delivery firm looks to broaden its offerings at a time when its shares are trading far below last year’s debut price and less than half of the all-time highs. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm — which reached
OSOM and Nothing have quickly become two of the most fascinating companies operating the smartphone space in recent years. Nothing is the latest project from OnePlus cofounder, Carl Pei, while OSOM is largely composed of former Essential employees looking to launch their own own thing in the wake the company’s messy dissolution. That Pei purchased
Zendesk this morning agreed to sell itself to an investor consortium for $10.2 billion in cash, or $77.50 per share. The deal comes months after the U.S. software company declined a $17 billion offer. The Zendesk saga of 2021 and 2022 has been complicated, full of twists and turns. That it is closing out its
Hello from America, where we are digesting some pretty big news. Given the portent and weight of what’s going on today, it may feel a bit weird to sit down and read about billions of dollars of someone else’s money. But this is a technology startup and financial news site. So, to work. Just know
Deon Nicholas is the CEO and co-founder of Forethought, the AI company whose mission is to transform customer experiences with human-centered AI. Forethought has raised over $100 million in venture capital, including from NEA, which led Forethought’s $9.52 million Series A. Hear from NEA’s Vanessa Larco on what convinced the firm to invest in Forethought,
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today Natasha and Alex were on the mics, kicking back and riffing through the biggest technology stories of the week. Our dear Mary Ann was off this week, but will be back in short order. What did we
Vibrant Planet — which is creating an “operating system for forest restoration” — comes as a pleasant surprise, and not one I expected. Climate tech, while relatively new, has settled into two camps: hardware and software. And while Vibrant Planet is definitely a software play — from its cloud focus to its per-seat licenses, it’s
Last year we covered how “&Open” (yes, “ampersand open,” pronounced “And Open”) had raised a raised $7.2 million seed to make it easier for brands to send gifts to customers to boost loyalty and engagement. According to one study customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand after receiving gifts have a 306% higher lifetime
As Google works on reconfiguring its adtech stack to move away from cookie-based ad targeting to something else that’s not yet fixed but which it claims will be better for individual web users’ privacy — and after Apple’s move last year to lock down third party tracking of app users on iOS, also on a
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman joins Emily Chang for more on Apple’s plans to release a much-anticipated Tap-to-Pay feature on the iPhone later this year, giving merchants an alternative to Block’s Square technology.
Brex’s announcement last week that it would stop serving small-to-medium-sized businesses shocked — and upset — many in its suddenness and delivery. The fintech decacorn, which started its life as a provider of cards to startups and SMBs, began notifying customers last week that they would be cut off from Brex’s services as of August
For nearly all fintech startups, lending has long been the end game. A notice from India’s central bank this week has thrown a wrench into the ecosystem, scrutinizing just who all can lend. The Reserve Bank of India has informed dozens of fintech startups that it is barring the practice of loading non-bank prepaid payment
For those of us who’ve been a little bit wobbly on the mental health front over the past couple of years, there are a bunch of options starting to crop up. The on-demand chat-based therapy options are one, and at-home ketamine-assisted treatments are another. We’ve seen Mindbloom and Fieldtrip Health taking pole position, and recently,
Evinced is on a mission to make as many web properties accessible as possible, and to do that means getting that work done as early as possible — which means integrating with the development process from the beginning. The company is continuing this “shift left” mentality with $38 million in new funding that it plans
Einride, the Swedish startup that wants to electrify the autonomous freight industry, will begin operating its purpose-built, self-driving pods on public roads in the U.S. this year as part of an existing partnership with General Electric Appliances (GEA). Einride’s pods are built without a front cabin for a human safety operator, which the company says
As companies grow they expose more of themselves online and become harder to defend in terms of cybersecurity. One report estimates that 30%-40% of a company’s IT infrastructure isn’t even known about by the security team. So startups have appeared with an ‘offensive’ profile in order to similate cyber attacks. One such is Amsterdam-based Hadrian,
As part of a broader update to its Chrome web browser, Google announced today a handful new features coming to the latest build of Chrome on iOS. Among the key additions, the Chrome app is gaining access to Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing feature which proactively warns you about dangerous web pages. Other updates include user
Ro, a healthcare unicorn that last raised $150 million just months ago at a $7 billion valuation, has cut 18% of its staff to “manage expenses, increase the efficiency of our organization and better map our resources to our current strategy,” leadership wrote in an e-mail obtained by TechCrunch and confirmed by multiple sources. “Due
Any given year, the real unsung highlight of re:Mars are the dozen or so startups and researchers who show off their wares on the show floor. There are always a couple of cool projects that have somehow managed to escape our radar, thus far. Los Angeles-based Airrow jumped out with a clever product offering. 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. Hey, folks! Me again. As I’m sure it had you on the edge of your seat, I’m pleased to report that the team wasn’t completely dissatisfied with my inaugural work (it’s here
We have quite a unique pitch deck on our hands today. A few years ago, AR car hardware company WayRay raised $80 million at a half-a-billion valuation in a Series C round led by Porsche, and I’m super excited to show off their pitch deck today! Yes, it’s a little bit older than some of the
For Allison Wolff, the 2018 wildfire season in California marked a turning point. During that record-breaking year, she started asking a lot of questions. “We were in the middle of the 2018 wildfire season, with the Carr Fire, and what I thought at the time was the worst season ever,” Wolff said. “I started asking
Europe has no shortage of buy now, pay later startups and a quick search is revealing. Berlin-based fintech startup Mondu has taken in €39.9 million to expand its B2B BNPL solution. Madrid’s RITMO scored over €184 million. Tranch in the U.K. is launching BNPL to a B2B market with €4 million. Berlin-based Billie raised about
Mobile well-being apps topped 1.2 billion downloads last year, while leading meditation app Calm alone pulled in $118.2 million in revenue, data from Sensor Tower indicates. That may leave some to believe the digital well-being market is essentially solved, but a new startup, Lumi Interactive, believes the opposite is true. The Melbourne-based, women-led company has