Samsung Electronics announced today that its blood pressure monitoring app for Galaxy Watches has been approved by South Korean regulators. Called the Samsung Health Monitor, the app will be available for the Galaxy Watch Active2 during the third quarter, at least in South Korea, and added to upcoming Galaxy Watch devices. TechCrunch has contacted Samsung
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Disruptor Beam, the mobile gaming startup behind Star Trek Timelines, has a new name and a new business. It’s now calling itself Beamable, and it’s selling a set of tools to help game developers add commerce and social functionality to their titles. The company’s direction became clear earlier this year when it sold Timelines to
The best founders seek out great mentors and guidance from folks who know best, but during the coronavirus pandemic, asking for help when it’s needed is critical for all entrepreneurs. Ureeka, a startup founded by Melissa Bradley, David Jakubowski and Rob Gatto, is looking to provide that mentorship and guidance through their platform, which just
Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a brief jumpstart for your week. Regular Equity episodes still drop each and every Friday morning, so if you’ve listened to the show over the years, don’t worry — we’re only adding. In fact, last week’s show (with Danny Crichton and Natasha Mascarenhas) was a blast,
Facebook Avatars, which lets users customize a virtual lookalike of themselves for use as stickers in chat and comments, is now available across Europe, the company said today. The social giant’s Avatars, a clone of Snapchat’s popular Bitmoji, was first unveiled last year. The feature, which Facebook sees as an expression tool, is aimed at
For better or worse, digital identity management services — the process of identifying and authenticating users on networks to access services — has become a ubiquitous part of interacting on the internet, all the more so in the recent weeks as we have been asked to carry out increasingly more of our lives online. Used
As people move into months of sheltering in place, many are doubling down on cooking at home. But not everyone is always happy about it. Today, a company that makes products that can help them bypass at least some of that effort but still eat nutritiously is announcing a fundraising to continue growing its business.
VanMoof is releasing a new generation of its electric bike. In many ways, the VanMoof S3 and its smaller version the VanMoof X3 are refined versions of the VanMoof Electrified S2 and X2. It features an updated motor, hydraulic brakes and a familiar design. If you’re not familiar with VanMoof bikes, the company has been
After being forced to quickly shift plans and stage a remote demo day last month following the outbreak of COVID-19 stateside, Y Combinator announced today that they will officially be fully moving their next batch to a remote format. In a post today on Y Combinator’s site, YC CEO Michael Seibel announced the move. “We
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Late last week a Chinese company called Kingsoft Cloud filed to go public in the United States. The cloud infrastructure business intends to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “KC,” with J.P. Morgan, UBS
Levi’s is leveraging its advertising partnership with TikTok to connect online shoppers with the denim brand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced retailers to close their doors — including most of Levi’s own stores. The company announced today its success as one of the first retailers to use TikTok’s “Shop Now” buttons that allow consumers
Vestiaire Collective just closed another big round of funding in the middle of an economic crisis — the round closed in early April. The startup raised $64.2 million (€59 million) and the company has raised more than $240 million over the year, according to Crunchbase. Vestiaire Collective operates a marketplace of pre-owned fashion items. Users
A lot of startups have answered the call for more personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essentials to support healthcare workers in their efforts to curb the spread and impact of COVID-19. One of those is direct-to-consumer 3D-printed eyewear brand Fitz, which is employing its custom-fit glasses technology to build protective, prescription specs to frontline
Building a startup is hard enough. But COVID-19, our generation’s worst plot twist, gives new meaning to uncertainty and stress. No one had “pandemic” on their early-stage startup’s radar, which begs the question: How do you move your business forward in unprecedented times? It’s a huge challenge, and we’ve worked hard to find a way
Movie ticketing company Fandango has agreed to buy Walmart’s on-demand video streaming service, Vudu, for an undisclosed sum. The video service today reaches more than 100 million living room devices across the U.S., including smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles and other over-the-top streaming devices, as well as Windows 10 and Mac computers, and iOS
Facebook confirmed this week that it will be pulling down a number of posts promoting stay-at-home protests. CNN was the first to report the news, which finds the social media giant pulling down events in a variety of different states, including California, Nebraska and New Jersey. The news follows a spike in events across the
It would be easy to assume that Verizon’s purchase last week of video-conferencing tool BlueJeans was an opportunistic move to capitalize on the sudden shift to remote work, but the ball began rolling last June and has implications far beyond current work-from-home requirements. The video-chat darling of the moment is Zoom, but BlueJeans is considered
Research institutes Inria and Fraunhofer have shared details on their contact-tracing protocol that could be used by the French and German governments in the coming weeks. It is named ROBERT for ROBust and privacy-presERving proximity Tracing protocol. Inria and Fraunhofer are members of the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) project. On Friday, PEPP-PT said that
Facebook has expanded Fundraisers to India and is working with several additional state governments to provide authoritative information about the coronavirus to more people in the country, it said today. Fundraisers, which was available in the U.S. and Europe prior to Monday’s announcement, allows people to collectively contribute towards the community. The social juggernaut, which
Meet Leverice: A team messenger and collaboration platform that’s aiming to compete with b2b giants like Slack by tackling an issue that continues to plague real-time messaging — namely, ‘always-on’ information overload. This means these tools can feel like they’re eating into productivity as much as aiding it. Or else leave users stressed and overwhelmed
French startup Alan has raised a $54.4 million (€50 million) Series C funding round. Temasek is leading the round with existing investors (such as Index Ventures) also participating. Overall, Alan has raised $136 million (€125 million) over the past four years. Alan has built a health insurance product for the French market. The company first
After mounting pressure from the U.K. tech startup ecosystem, and much debate, the British government today unveiled plans for a new “Future Fund” designed to ensure high-growth companies — namely, startups — across the U.K. receive enough investment to remain viable during the coronavirus crisis. Initially, the U.K. government is pledging a total of £250
Welcome to a look back at the past week in security and what it means for you. Each week we’ll look at the big news of the week and why it matters. What will the world look like after the coronavirus pandemic subsides? Some of us are now in our fifth week of sheltering in
One of the best tools we have to slow the spread of the coronavirus is, as you have no doubt heard by now, contact tracing. But what exactly is contact tracing, who does it and how, and do you need to worry about it? In short, contact tracing helps prevent the spread of a virus
Continuing our coverage of Utah-based startups, this morning we have our second big round of the year from the state. Lucid Software, best known as the parent company of Lucidchart, announced today that it has raised a $52 million Series D. All that’s interesting enough, but more fun is that the company’s new revenue milestone.
A leaked Santander internal memo in 2017 likely set wheels in motion. Reportedly written by the bank’s head of innovation, the missive warned that a large chunk of the Spanish incumbent’s profits were at risk — specifically, those generated via international money transfers – because of the growing success of fintech challengers, such as London-headquartered
Forget the calendar invite. Just jump into a conversation. That’s the idea powering a fresh batch of social startups poised to take advantage of our cleared schedules amidst quarantine. But they could also change the way we work and socialize long after COVID-19 by bringing the free-flowing, ad-hoc communication of parties and open office plans
Vox Media is making a number of cutbacks in response to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to Vox itself, the digital media company owns properties including Curbed, Eater, Recode, SB Nation and The Verge — and it acquired New York Magazine last year. In a staff memo obtained by TechCrunch (as
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. This morning we’re adding a number of companies to the $100 million ARR club, a collection of private companies that have reached material scale. Over time, this series has gone from noting that a few
The European Commission has published detailed guidance with Member States on developing coronavirus contacts tracing and warning apps. The toolbox, which has been developed by the e-Health Network with the support of the Commission, is intended as a practical guide to implementing digital tools for tracking close contacts between device carriers as a proxy for