Startups

Pam Kreuger Contributor Pam Kreuger is the founder and CEO of Wealthramp.com, a free online service that matches consumers with qualified, fee-only financial advisers, and the creator and host of the investor-education television series “MoneyTrack.” John Chapman Contributor John Chapman is a certified financial planner professional with WorthPointe Financial Planners in Newport Beach, California, and

João Graça Contributor João Graça is CTO and co-founder of Unbabel, an AI-powered language operations platform that enables any agent to communicate in any language. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology predicts that U.S. companies will spend upward of $100 billion on AI R&D per year by 2025. Much of this spending

Raj Yavatkar Contributor As CTO, Raj Yavatkar is responsible for charting Juniper Networks‘ technology strategy through the execution of the company’s innovations and products for intelligent self-driving networks, security, mobile edge cloud, network virtualization, packet-optical integration and hybrid cloud. Software developers and engineers have rarely been in higher demand. Organizations’ need for technical talent is

I learned about Yat in April, when a friend sent our group chat a link to a story about how the key emoji sold as an “internet identity” for $425,000. “I hate the universe,” she texted. Sure, the universe would be better if people with a spare $425,000 spent it on mutual aid or something,

This year, livestream viewers in China are projected to spend more than $60 billion on digital shopping experiences that let them interact with influencers in real time. Promoting everything from cosmetics to food, social media stars use Taobao, TikTok and other platforms to livestream products and take questions from the audience. On Taobao’s Singles Day

Jason Dressel Contributor Jason Dressel is president of History Factory, which helps companies use their history and heritage to enhance and transform strategy, positioning, marketing and communication. Every week over the past three and a half years, an average of three CEOs have exited tech companies in the U.S. That tally is higher — in

In the last decade, high-quality design has become a necessity in the software space. Great design is a commodity, not a luxury, and yet, designing beautiful products and finding great designers continues to be a struggle for many entrepreneurs. At Early Stage 2021, design expert Scott Tong walked us through some of the ways founders

The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has awarded Zūm, a startup that wants to upgrade student transportation, a five-year $150 million contract to modernize its transport service throughout the district.  Zūm, which already operates its rideshare-meets-bus service in Oakland, much of Southern California, Seattle, Chicago and Dallas, will be responsible for handling day-to-day operations,

Aron Solomon Contributor Aron Solomon, J.D., is the head of Strategy for Esquire Digital and the editor of Today’s Esquire. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was the founder of LegalX, a legal technology accelerator. More posts by this contributor If you don’t want robotic dogs patrolling the

Idan Plotnik Contributor Idan Plotnik is the CEO and founder of Apiiro, a code risk platform. DevOps is fundamentally about collaboration and agility. Unfortunately, when we add security and compliance to the picture, the message gets distorted. The term “DevSecOps” has come into fashion the past few years with the intention of seamlessly integrating security

There is no authoritative playbook for marketing these days. Every company must find its own voice, and as it grows and evolves, its marketing needs to evolve as well. Relying on proven tactics and measurable metrics isn’t enough — today, the most effective marketers constantly study and learn from innovative approaches while exploring new avenues.

Digital comics platform INKR’s team INKR is a digital comics platform that crosses cultural and language divides, enabling creators to reach global audiences with its proprietary localization technology. Previously bootstrapped, the company announced today that it has raised $3.1 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures, with participation from manga distributor TokyoPop

Bikram Singh Contributor Bikram Singh is the CEO and co-founder of EZOPS. He has built and managed operational services and technology solutions for banks, hedge funds, asset managers, fund administrators and custodians. Anomaly detection is one of the more difficult and underserved operational areas in the asset-servicing sector of financial institutions. Broadly speaking, a true

In Bangladesh, students often rely on after school learning centers for study help or test preparation, but many of the best ones are concentrated in major cities. Edtech startup Shikho was created to make supplementary education more accessible and affordable. The company announced today it has closed a $1.3 million seed round co-led by returning

For fleet managers, managing shipping crew changes across different countries is an elaborate process even in the best of times—and now is definitely not the best of times. Greywing, a Y Combinator-backed platform for automating maritime operations, launched a new solution today that it describes as an industry-first. Called Crew Change, it is used to

Three digits, so little time. Numbers can take on profound cultural significance, but few numbers have quite the resonance as 911, the emergency number for the United States. Few want to dial it, but when they must, it works — every single time. One industry trade association estimates that 240 million 911 phone calls are

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute heavily to the economic success of many countries, particularly those in the developing world. They are the backbone of most economies: Globally, SMEs represent about 90% of existing businesses and create more than 50% of employment. In South Africa, these businesses contribute around one-third of the country’s GDP. Last

Reusable rocket startup iRocket has entered into a new partnership with NASA in its quest to reach commercialization in just two years. The partnership will give iRocket access to testing facilities and engineering support, chiefly at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The company is hoping that it will conduct its first

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You

Rui Ma Contributor More posts by this contributor Factories Aren’t Dying To Take Your Order And Other Hardware Startup Follies Working With A Chinese Factory, Hardware Entrepreneur Edition China’s e-commerce and industrial ecosystem is as different from the Western world as its culture. The country took decades to earn its reputation as the Factory of

Startups developing so-called deep tech often find it challenging to raise capital for various reasons. At TechCrunch Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising, two experienced investors spoke on the subject and advised startups facing a challenging fundraising path. Pae Wu and Garrett Winther are both partners at SOSV and run the fund’s programs around biotech and

“It’s about focusing on the metric that directly reflects the value that your company and products bring to your customers,” growth marketer Maya Moufarek told us in an interview for one of our most popular marketing articles of the week. “For Airbnb, that may be the number of nights booked; for Spotify, minutes listened to.

Rivian announced Friday that it has closed a $2.5 billion private funding round led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Ford Motor and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Third Point, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Dragoneer Investment Group and Coatue also participated in the round, according to Rivian.

Alex Ruzh Contributor Alex Ruzh is the CEO and co-founder of memoryOS, an edtech startup developing AI-powered gamified software teaching people how to remember anything. Here at memoryOS, we have a saying we repeat often: “Most of the Kickstarter happens before the actual Kickstarter.” Preparation is the key. But even if you understand that most

Early-stage startups tend to claim that their go-to-market strategy is fully operational. In reality, GTM is a stark numbers game, and even with a solid plan in place, it can be easily foiled by common problems like turf battles and poor communication. Finding GTM fit is a milestone for any startup that includes everything from

We know how much you love a good startup pitch-off. Who doesn’t? It combines the thrill of live, high-stakes entertainment with learning about the hottest new thing. Plus, you get to hear feedback from some of the smartest folks in the industry, thus learning how to absolutely crush it at your next pitch meeting with

Your startup might rely on clever growth tactics to get off the ground, but you need more than spreadsheets if you want to turn viral spikes into a real business. You need a qualitative growth model to guide the strategy that you can use to tell your story to your team and investors. Growth marketing

Earlier this month, Cowboy Ventures’ Ted Wang joined us at TechCrunch Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising, where he spoke about executive coaching and why he encourages founders in his portfolio to have a CEO coach. Wang, who has an executive coach himself, sees coaching as a key way to drive sustained personal growth, a factor

The global pandemic highlighted inefficiencies and inconsistencies in healthcare systems around the world. Even co-founders Mayank Banerjee, Matilde Giglio and Alessandro Ialongo say nowhere is this more evident than in India, especially after the COVID death toll reached 4 million this week. The Bangalore-based company received a fresh cash infusion of $5 million in seed

Obé Fitness’ co-founders/co-CEOs Mark Mullett and Ashley Mills toss around the word “entertrainment” a lot. For the record, it’s not a reference to the Butler County, Ohio-based amusement park that serves as the home of the “world’s largest train display,” but rather one of those industry portmanteaus like infotainment or webinar. Here it’s meant to