Startups

New York-based fintech startup Wahed (meaning “One” in Arabic) describes itself as a digital Islamic investment platform and as the world’s first “halal robo adviser.” It has now closed a $25 million investment round led by Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Ventures (also known as Wa’ed Ventures), a venture capital investment arm of oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Like many working parents, Vlada Lotkina, the founder and CEO of ClassTag, wanted to be more involved in her daughter’s preschool education. A paper notice about an upcoming field trip, squeezed between messy folders in a backpack, begged for smart technology around parent-teacher communication, she recalls. Lotkina turned to other parents in the preschool class

A month after TechCrunch watched, discussed and parsed the startups from Techstars’ April batch of virtual demo days, we’re back with the handy May edition. Over the past few days, TechCrunch has been catching up by watching the shared video pitches from the five presenting demo classes, including the Lisbon demo day, its Seattle batch,

Scott Orn Contributor Scott runs operations at Kruze Consulting, a fast-growing startup CFO consulting firm. Kruze is based in San Francisco with clients in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York. More posts by this contributor 15 things founders should know before accepting funding from a corporate VC What should startup founders know before

Scott Orn Contributor Scott runs operations at Kruze Consulting, a fast-growing startup CFO consulting firm. Kruze is based in San Francisco with clients in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and New York. More posts by this contributor How to approach (and work with) the 3 types of corporate VCs Bill Growney Contributor Bill Growney, a

The tech industry has generally wished that structural discrimination would go away, while pretending that it already has. But technology can be used by anyone for anything. And so, the world has watched video after video of police brutality against Black people in a real-time stream that plays through the closing days of quarantine, culminating

When Larry Liu moved to the U.S. in 2003, one of the first challenges he experienced was the lack of Chinese ingredients available in local groceries. A native of Hubei, a Chinese province famous for its freshwater fish and lotus-inspired dishes, Liu got by with a limited supply found at local Asian groceries in the

If you own your home, how much do you pay for property taxes? Too much? Sounds about right. If you disagree with how much you’re paying in property taxes, you can appeal the assessment. Most people don’t, though — perhaps because they are unaware they can, or because they just don’t have the time to

A startup called Portobel is working to help food producers shift their businesses so they can support direct-to-consumer deliveries. Portobel is backed by Heroic Ventures and led by Ranjith Kumaran, founder or co-founder of file-sharing company Hightail (acquired by OpenText) and loyalty startup PunchTab (acquired by Walmart Labs). Kumaran told me that he and his co-founders

The world feels as fragile as ever, and those with any options at all are looking to get away this summer. For many, planes and hotel rooms won’t be an option they consider owing to continued concerns about the coronavirus (not to mention the expense, which 40 million fewer Americans can likely afford). That leaves

Corporate harassment training is often defined by mandatory annual workshops, stock photo-ridden curricula and, often, outdated scenarios. Harvard graduates Roxanne Petraeus and Anne Solmssen think there’s a business in doing better than that. The duo co-founded Ethena, a software-as-a-service startup that sells anti-harassment training software that is more comprehensive and flexible than the status quo.

It was perhaps not until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the planet that most of us had ever heard or uttered the phrase “supply chain”. But in a global economy that had become drunk and lazy on ‘just in time ordering’ and similar, the threat to supply chains of things like, oh, food, from that pesky

Homage, the Singapore-based startup that matches families and caregivers, has launched a new service that provides home medical visits, telehealth consultations and medication delivery. Called Homage Health, the service was already being developed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but co-founder and CEO Gillian Tee told TechCrunch that its launch was accelerated because many of the company’s

RiskIQ, a startup providing application security, risk assessment and vulnerability management services, has added National Grid Partners as a strategic investor.  The funding from the investment arm of National Grid, a multinational energy provider, is part of a $15 million new round of financing designed to take the company’s technology into critical industrial infrastructure —

Adam Guild Contributor Adam Guild is a growth marketing expert and the founder of Placepull. Imagine going from zero followers to 10,000,000+ followers in less than five months. I have watched somebody do exactly that. My brother Topper Guild is already reaping the benefits of fame: People stop him in the street for photos and

French VC firm Idinvest has compiled some data about the European tech ecosystem. The firm has decided to focus on consumer tech in general, and there are some interesting trends that I’m going to break out here. You can read the full report here. The team has analyzed and surveyed 1,500 companies over multiple months.

Hala Hanna Contributor Hala Hanna is Managing Director, Community at MIT Solve, a marketplace for social impact innovation. In today’s new world completely engulfed by COVID-19, all sorts of innovations are emerging to help the world overcome this difficult time: 3D printers are cranking out medical supplies; rapid advancements in testing have been made — now providing

Like many parents, Zigazoo founder Zak Ringelstein worries about his children’s screen time. His worries only grew when COVID-19 led to school shutdowns and kids came home to a world of remote learning. Now, as lockdowns extend, Ringelstein is learning to embrace screen time as a way to sneak education and entertainment into his kids’

Pollen, the U.K.-headquartered travel and events marketplace, describes its company culture as built on principles of “freedom” and openness, including a well-publicised pay transparency policy. However, that doesn’t appear to always be the case with regards to the treatment of recently departing employees. When the word-of-mouth marketing company laid off 69 staff from its various

Roger Hurwitz Contributor Roger Hurwitz is a founding partner at Volition Capital. He focuses primarily on investments in software and technology-enabled business services. More posts by this contributor The don’ts of debt for fast-growing startups COVID-19 quickly put the stock market in the ICU, with signs of unprecedented volatility and declines. However, the market’s resilience

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a brief jumpstart for your week. A big thanks to start to the whole Equity crew for doing a stellar job last week with the show while I was on vacation, especially to Danny for taking on this particular installment of the podcast. Equity Monday is still

As tech companies like Twitter and Facebook gear up for longer-term remote work solutions, the future of work is becoming one of the more exciting opportunities in venture capital, Charles River Ventures general partner Saar Gur told TechCrunch. And as loneliness mounts with shelter-in-place orders implemented in various forms across the world, investors are looking

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here. Most tech companies base compensation on an employee’s local cost of living, in addition to their skills and responsibilities. The pandemic-era push to remote work seems to be reinforcing that — if

Steve Tan Contributor Steve Tan is a Singapore-based serial entrepreneur and full-stack digital marketer with over 14 years of hands-on experience who is also the CEO and founder of Super Tan Brothers Pte. Ltd, which operates e-commerce, software, logistics, marketing, educational and investment companies around the globe. Intuitively, stores that sell online should be making

Daniel Wu Contributor Dan Wu is a Privacy Counsel & Legal Engineer at Immuta, an automated data governance platform for analytics. He’s advocated for data ethics, inclusive urban innovation, and diversity in TechCrunch, Harvard Business Review, and FastCompany. He’s helped Fortune 500 companies, governments, and startups with ethical & agile data strategies. He holds a

Edtech is booming, but a short while ago, many companies in the category were struggling to break through as mainstream offerings. Now, it seems like everyone is clamoring to get into the next seed-stage startup that has the phrase “remote learning” on its About page. And so begins the normal cycle that occurs when a

Ready to take advantage of every opportunity to keep your startup on track and moving forward? Yes, yes you are. Exhibiting in Startup Alley during Disrupt SF 2020 is nothing but opportunity. It offers founders beaucoup benefits, but there’s one more whopper waiting for two standout startups. We’re talking about the Wild Card entry to

Emmanuel Bamfo is used to fighting uphill battles. Still, his latest fight, with the city of San Francisco, may well destroy his business if he doesn’t win it, and quickly. Bamfo is the co-founder and CEO of Globe, a year-old, six-person startup that connects customers with rooms in people’s mostly urban homes. Think Airbnb, except

Ximena Aleman Contributor Ximena Aleman is co-founder and chief business development officer at Prometeo, an open banking platform that serves Latin America. It may have entered the game later than other leading regions such as Europe and North America, but Latin America’s fintech industry is dynamic and growing fast. The sector was recently given a

Amanda Milligan Contributor Amanda Milligan is the marketing director at Fractl, a prominent growth marketing agency that’s helped Fortune 500 companies and boutique businesses alike earn quality media coverage, backlinks, awareness and authority. More posts by this contributor What we’ve learned from building 40,000+ links for clients We’ve talked a bit publicly about our ideation