If you’re a regular reader of the tech and business press, it’s been painting a pretty gloomy economic picture recently, with a tendency to accentuate the negative. There’s inflation and layoffs and supply chain problems, oh my! None of that seems to be affecting Salesforce though, which just had itself a fine quarter along with
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From black swan memos and heart-to-hearts to not-so-subtle emails asking for on-the-record confirmations that your startup does, indeed, have revenue, investors have a lot to say about the downturn. Yet, it’s a quieter and more realistic truth that has landed my attention as of late: For diverse founders, the downturn is nothing new. Some investors,
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. Last April, Alex and I reported CB Insights data showing that venture investment into mental health startups had dropped sharply in Q1 2022 compared
Amazon today announced that Dave Clark, CEO of the company’s worldwide consumer division, will step down after 23 years in the position. In a note to leadership, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Clark’s last day in the office will be July 1. “[W]e still have more work in front of us to get to
Well, this is straight from the desk of “didn’t see that coming,” but search engine toolkit company Ahrefs just told me they’ve been working on their very own search engine on the sly, plowing $60 million of resources into its own search engine, called Yep. It’s a unique proposition, running its own search index, rather
Whenever pro-rata rights are involved, you can always smell some drama. When a company raises a financing round, new and old investors often battle it out for the largest stake they can get. While this process can be competitive enough to be considered cutthroat, during the last decade’s bull market, it’s become more or less
All startups must grow, but as markets contract, conserving resources is a higher short-term priority. Crypto exchange Coinbase is in the headlines this morning after news broke that it is rescinding some candidates’ outstanding job offers. Yesterday, we reported that IRL, a social app, was laying off 25% of its staff a year after raising
With a heritage that goes back to the fabled times of 2000 A.D. (since when it has backed 160 European teams) Paris-based early stage fund Alven, has something of a reputation to keep up. After investing in unicorns such as Qonto, Dataiku, Algolia, Stripe and Ankorstore, it now has €2B in assets under management. But
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 Fri-yay the 3rd of June 2022. Or, as this cursed pandemic is still doing its thing, perhaps it’s March 824, 2020, who knows. Whatever is happening in your world, we hope
The rest of the startup universe may be struggling to bring in funds, but it’s still a good time to get a robotic raise. Agtech is high on that list. The median age of farmers is 55 years old in the United States, and finding human help is increasingly more difficult of late. FarmWise has
Snapchat is partnering with restaurant review website The Infatuation to enable users to find local eats on the Snap Map, the company announced today. The social media app is adding a new Map Layer from The Infatuation to give users access to restaurant recommendations for places near them. Users in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,
There’s an idea floating in the ether (or at least in my ether) that there’s enough sunny federal land in Nevada to power the entire United States with solar. Some very rough back-of-the-envelope math suggests it’s possible, requiring just over 11% of Nevada’s federal land. None of that includes room for batteries for storage or
Saket Modi Contributor Saket Modi is the co-founder and CEO of Safe Security, a cybersecurity and digital business risk quantification platform company. Today’s cybersecurity landscape requires an agile and data-driven risk management strategy to deal with the ever-expanding third-party attack surface. When a business outsources services by sharing data and network access, it inherits the
E-learning — whether it’s in the form of a supplement to physical materials or live lessons; or the primary or even only medium being used — is now an indelible part of the educational experience; and now a startup out of Spain that’s built a platform to help deliver e-learning in more places is announcing
Ring announced new features for its Ring Protect Basic plan, such as more alert options, exclusive discounts (10%), up to 50 video downloads (up from 20) and 180 days of video (up from 60), plus a ton of “coming soon” features (smart alerts for cars, animals, alerts for breaking glass and open doors). However, with
As a child, Marceau Michel always asked for a quarter. He knew if he kept asking for a quarter, he’d have a dollar one day. Then he’d be well on his way to having two — a slow but purposeful build toward amassing his own little fortune. Today, at the helm of the Black Founders Matter venture
During the pandemic, delivery startups — whether focused on groceries, essentials, or takeout — became the darling children of venture capital firms. Early on, mandates and closures put up barriers to physical shopping, but as time went on, customers became more used to the idea of shopping for everything from toilet paper to rotisserie chicken
TikTok is launching a live subscription comedy series in partnership with social media collaboration company Pearpop and creator Jericho Mencke. Pearpop told TechCrunch that episodes will run twice a week in June, with eight 30-minute episodes in total. The new series, which is called “Finding Jericho,” will stream exclusively on TikTok Live. It will cost
Gia Schneider raised $65 million on the road to unlock distributed hydro resources. In July 2021 Libby Wayman from Breakthrough Energy Ventures led Natel Energy’s $20 million Series B, and on June 8, 2022, the two industry leaders are speaking on TechCrunch Live. We’ll take a look at Natel Energy’s early pitch deck, and hear
Reco, a company using AI to map a company’s data sharing, today announced that it raised $30 million in a Series A round led by Insight Partners, with participation from Zeev Ventures, BoldStart, Angular Ventures, Jibe Ventures, CrewCapital and Cyber Club London. CEO Ofer Klein said the proceeds will to toward product development and supporting
Traditional venue photography providers like DEI Global, MagicMemories, Picsolve and Sharingbox are reliant on fixed equipment, permanent staffing costs, and on-site printed products. So Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Smiler came up with a different approach. Freelance photographers can simply use the platform to roam around events, selling event photography formally attached to the venue and allowing customers
Global venture capital firms are pouring money into the semiconductor startups developing the next generation of chips. Semiconductors, which have become a valued asset, are used in virtually almost every industry, including 5G networks, automation, the Internet of Things, financials, smart homes, smart cities, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality and self-driving cars. Sunghyun Park, a
Daniel Faloppa Contributor Daniel Faloppa founded Equidam after completing his M.Sc. in Finance and Investments at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, with the goal of making valuations less problematic for entrepreneurs and investors. In an analysis of the market, Justin Kahl and David George of Andreessen Horowitz showcase data on how public companies have
Meta is rolling out a new Calls tab for Messenger, the company announced this week. The company says the new tab will make it easier to connect with friends and family through the app in one tap. The new Calls tab is now available globally on iOS and will roll out to Android users in
Bosch’s venture arm just announced its fifth fund, saying it’s on the lookout for startups with the “potential to improve quality of life and conserve natural resources.” The new, $295 million (€250 million) investment vehicle ups the stakes from Bosch VC‘s prior fund by about $53 million, yet the German firm’s global focus on deep
Blackbaud, which bills itself as the “leading cloud software company powering social good,” counts the National Rifle Association as a customer receiving its highest level of care and engagement, raking in more than $1 million yearly from the infamous firearms industry lobbyist. The two have been in business since 1997, according to internal documents viewed
Ofcom, the UK’s soon-to-be social media harms watchdog under incoming Online Safety legislation, has warned tech platforms that they are failing to take women’s safety seriously. Publishing new research (PDF) into the nation’s online habits today, Ofcom said it has found that female Internet users in the UK are less confident about their online safety
As it continues to chase TikTok, Meta today announced a series of updates and new features for its Reels products across both Facebook and Instagram. Most notably, it’s offering a Sound Sync feature on Facebook Reels and adding support for longer Instagram Reels of up to 90 seconds, instead of 60 seconds, previously. The expansion
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 June 2, 2022. Where we are sitting, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and we are celebrating adding Becca Szkutak to the TechCrunch team. She’ll be
Biologists and other scientists are confronted these days with a deep sea of data and a bewildering panoply of tools to apply to it — many of which require a specialist to operate. Hiring one is a challenge and farming out the work may take months… but LatchBio offers an option that can have you