Startups

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

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

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

Magna International, a Canadian mobility technology company that builds sensor-based systems for cars like driver monitoring systems and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), is entering the micromobility market. The company invested $77 million in Yulu, an Indian shared micromobility operator, and plans to jointly launch a battery swapping service company. Magna’s investment is part of

In 2017, three entrepreneurs — Chris Hazard, Mike Resnick and Mike Capps — came together to launch a platform for building AI and machine learning tools geared toward the enterprise. Hazard and Resnick had been working on various AI and game projects for the U.S. military, while Capps had recently retired as president of Epic

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 the previous

Alex Circei Contributor Alex Circei is the CEO and co-founder of Waydev, a development analytics tool that measures engineering teams’ performance. More posts by this contributor Insider hacks to streamline your SOC 3 certification application 4 lessons I learned about getting into Y Combinator (after 13 applications) The move to remote working is creating tensions

Toby Russell is a veteran entrepreneur and helped to found Shift. The company was among the first online-only used car marketplaces and pioneered many of the services now standard across the industry. Long-time DCM partner Kyle Lui invested in several of Shift’s fundraising rounds, and he’s now at Bling Capital as the fund’s second general

Last September, Egyptian startup Capiter raised $33 million in Series A funding to compete in the country’s growing B2B e-commerce and retail space. Fast-forward a year later, the startup has laid off multiple employees and now its CEO and COO have been relieved from their duties after allegedly mismanaging funds. Here’s what we know so

Technology innovation often comes in waves, but the restaurant industry saw its surf get bigger and stronger due in part to the pandemic. Startups stepped up across the industry to help restaurants quickly change their operations to keep up with, for many, new areas of their business, like accepting online orders, making deliveries and having

Do bigger checks lead to bigger swings? Y Combinator’s latest participants are the second batch to land a $500,00 check as part of the accelerator’s recently refreshed standard deal. And while the accelerator says it only looks at founders when investing in startups, not sector, category or idea, more money in the pipeline may be

And we’re back! Yes, today was the second day of pitches from Y Combinator, a U.S. startup accelerator with global outreach that conducts demo days twice a year. This year’s Summer 2022 cohort gave us hundreds of batch companies to consider. For participating founders, it’s a critical day; for investors, it’s a buffet; for us

Last month, Y Combinator said that it had intentionally reduced its summer cohort by 40%. According to the accelerator, the decision to downsize the S22 batch — significantly smaller than its most recent batches — was a result of the economic downturn and changes to the venture funding environment this year. It was the latest

Cloud storage is expensive (especially in this economy), but many companies often over-provision, cutting their full return on investment. Lucidity was created to help them manage block storage more efficiently with a set of automated tools. The startup announced today that is has raised $5.3 million in seed funding. The round was led by AlphaWave

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. It’s Wednesday, which today is known as Apple iPhone 14 (here’s all our stories from the Apple event) and Y Combinator Demo Day…day. As you can see, our team was at one

Y Combinator’s latest cohort of founders have opinions on the future of fintech. One-fifth of the accelerator’s Summer 2022 batch, which spans 240 companies, is working on solving issues in the financial space. The pitches range from building the Square for micro-merchants in Latin America to creating a way to angel invest in your favorite

Hamburg-based Localyze is gearing up to launch in North America in the coming months — powered by a fresh raise of $35 million in Series B funding that’s being announced today, a little over a year after it disclosed a $12M Series A. The Series B is led by US VC fund, General Catalyst. Other

A lot of important data gets lost along the sales pipeline because sales teams use multiple tools, including email, Zoom and WhatsApp, to talk with buyers. Nektar.ai wants to solve the problem of data leakage with its sales productivity platform, which helps SaaS revenue teams manage information across different channels by integrating with different apps

Sam DeBrule Contributor Sam DeBrule is co-founder and head of marketing of Heyday, the AI-powered research assistant that helps you retain more of what you learn. Whether you’re building a product at an early-stage startup or fine-tuning an already built-out product at a larger company, there is a straightforward process that can help you improve

When I was an early-stage founder, I bristled at the idea of making a five- or even three-year financial projection of my business. I can promise you one thing: It will be dramatically wrong. But as part of your fundraising, you need to make them anyway, and there are a couple of great reasons for

Jag Lamba Contributor Jag Lamba is the CEO and founder of Certa, a no-code supplier lifecycle management platform. It’s not just a feeling: risk across the geopolitical spectrum has been higher than usual in recent years. For businesses with supply chain operations across the world, these risks are hard to avoid. Issues of resiliency and

Ever traveled on a cruise ship? Pre-COVID, most journeys started with a shipwide safety drill where passengers assembled, donned life vests and learned what to do in an emergency. The ocean has an average depth of 2.3 miles, yet these rehearsals were always a calm affair. You’re starting a vacation; what could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday’s tech stock rout was not evenly distributed; some companies and technology sectors fared better than others. The same can be said about tech sectors in 2022 more generally. For example, the basket of cloud stocks that we track was off 45% year to date before the open today, while cybersecurity index funds ($IHAK, $CIBR,

Kuda, the challenger bank based in Nigeria and the U.K., has joined the ranks of tech companies in Africa that are pruning their workforce. The news of the layoffs, which was first disclosed to TechCrunch by sources, was confirmed by Kuda via email, saying it laid off less than 5% of its 450-strong workforce, or

Companies tend to divide their procurement spending into two main buckets. The first is large purchases over $500,000 with some starting $1 million, depending on the size of the organization. Anything below that figure falls under a category known as “tail spend.” Boston-based startup Fairmarkit has been working on a tail spend procurement solution for

In its own words, Front is a customer communication hub that keeps teams focused on what technology can’t replace: ensuring every conversation strengthens the customer relationship. The company recently raised $65 million at a $1.7 billion valuation, which is a hell of a funding round. Uniquely, the company has actually published all of its past

Alternative protein startup SIMULATE, known for its NUGGS and TENDERS, is introducing two new versions of its plant-based, simulated chicken product aimed at restaurants. STRIPS are similar to grilled chicken, while CUTLETS mimic the kind of product you’ll find on fried chicken sandwiches that have become so popular on restaurant menus. The new products are

You know the feeling; you’re on a dating app, and you start a conversation with someone, and things don’t seem like they add up completely. You’ve seen The Tinder Swindler on Netflix, and you’re suddenly wondering: Is someone about to ask me for money? The team at video dating site Filter Off decided to take

When it comes to types of venture capital instruments, party rounds are as controversial as they come. A party round is an early-stage financing round, usually occurring between the pre-seed and Series A stages, that includes a laundry list — or “party” — of individual investors. It’s different from a more traditional round, which may

The process of finding job candidates often entails a lot of tedious manual work for recruiters, like sending versions of the same email over and over again. That’s why Kula was created. The platform not only automates tasks like sending introductory messages, but also surfaces promising leads from the first-degree connections of an organization’s existing