Startups

There is no shortage of coverage about the sprawling entertainment industry. There is a shortage of coverage for die-hard fans of reality TV shows, according to Kate Ward and Lindsay Mannering. That opening in the market is why the two — former colleagues at the women’s website Bustle, where Ward was the founding editor-in-chief and

The pandemic may feel all-encompassing at the moment, but Confluent announced a $250 million Series E today, showing that major investment continues in spite of the dire economic situation at the moment. Today’s round follows last year’s $125 million Series D. At that point the company was valued a mere $2.5 billion. Investors obviously see

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

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

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

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

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

Airbnb has ended its contracts with contingent workers early and postponed summer internships, Protocol reports. Contractors at Airbnb serve as property inspectors, home consultants and more. Contractors will reportedly receive no less than two weeks’ pay after receiving notice from their temp agencies. Airbnb will also reportedly delay hiring undergraduate students until next year. TechCrunch

Bradley Tusk has carved a unique path in the VC investment landscape: A longtime political and communications operative, he has built a track record for Tusk Ventures by going after highly regulated industries, rather than shying away from them. Whether it is ride-hailing, sports betting, cannabis or myriad other regulated sectors, Tusk takes the approach

Does working from home have to mean sitting in a chatroom all day or always being available for a video call? Real-time chat and video platforms are great for building camaraderie and maintaining a sense of connection with remote teams, but when you need to focus for a few hours, it can be tough to

Starting tomorrow, 777 supermarkets in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Nevada will begin stocking the Impossible Foods plant-based meat substitute. Fueling the increased distribution and a push to expand its product suite and geographic footprint domestically and internationally is a $500 million round of funding the company closed in March. Some of that money is

Whenever a platform breaks out, companies emerge to seize on its reach by building their services or products atop it. It happened with Facebook and Twitter and Slack. Now, it’s happening with Zoom, the video conferencing company that took the world by storm earlier this year as the coronavirus sent people around the globe indoors

In today’s grim economic climate, companies are looking for ways to automate wherever they can. Bridgecrew, an early-stage startup that makes automated cloud security tooling aimed at engineers, announced a $14 million Series A today. Battery Ventures led the round with participation from NFX, the company’s $4 million seed investor. Sorensen Ventures, DNX Ventures, Tectonic

Food delivery — be it ready-made restaurant meals, groceries, or anything in between — has seen a huge surge of activity in the last few weeks as people have sheltered in place to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus. Today, one of the startups that’s built a business specifically in meal-kits in the

Airwallex, a Melbourne-based cross-border financial startup that achieved “unicorn” status last year, announced today that it has raised a $160 million Series D. The round included ANZi Ventures, the investment arm of ANZ Bank, and Salesforce Ventures, along with returning investors DST Global, Tencent, Sequoia Capital China, Hillhouse Capital and Horizons Ventures. Founded in 2015,

Israel-based Pileus, which is officially launching today, aims to help businesses keep their cloud spend under control. The company also today announced that it has raised a $1 million seed round from a private angel investor. Using machine learning, the company’s platform continuously learns about how a user typically uses a given cloud and then

Labster, a virtual science lab edtech company, today announced that it is partnering with California’s community college network to bring its software to 2.1 million students. California Community Colleges claims to be the largest system of higher education in the country. The Labster partnership will provide 115 schools with 130 virtual laboratory simulations in biology,

The well-funded Japanese space startup Synspective has tapped launch provider Rocket Lab to take its first Earth observation satellite to orbit. Launch is planned for late 2020, and the company’s StriX–α craft will be the sole payload. Synspective was founded in 2018 and by mid-2019 had raised about $100 million, making it one of the

With a lot of towns instituting shelter-in-place orders to restrict how people physically interact in order to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus, fitness has come into its own. In places where people are still allowed outdoors to exercise, we’ve seen an explosion of independent exercising like walking, running and cycling — often

Mighty Jaxx, which makes licensed collectibles, has raised 4.5 million Singapore dollars (about $3.2 million) in funding for MightyVerse, its platform for tech-enabled figures. Led by the investment arm of KB Financial Group, one of South Korea’s largest banks, the round also included participation from Greycroft Partners’ gaming fund GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund and

Layoffs have struck the startup world swiftly, hurting hospitality and travel startups, as well as recruitment and scooter companies. New data shows that some of those layoffs, brought on by COVID-19, might be disproportionately impacting satellite campuses. By nature, satellite offices are secondary to a startup’s headquarters. Opening smaller offices is a strategic move when

There are early signs that media will be one of many industries to take a huge blow from the COVID-19 pandemic, with sharp declines in ad revenue and significant layoffs. Podcasting is unlikely to be an exception; Podtrac recently reported that downloads have fallen 10% since the beginning of March, while unique listeners fell by

[Editor’s note: Want to get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that startups can use by email? Subscribe here.]  While consumer tech has matured as a startup category in recent years, many investors continue to be bullish on specific trends like online gaming, voice, and the unbundling of platforms in favor of focused social networks. That’s

More than six dozen startup founders, venture capitalists, and lobby groups in India have requested the government to grant them a “robust relief package” to help combat severe disruptions their businesses face due to the coronavirus outbreak. In a joint letter to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, startups requested the government to bankroll 50% of their

As domestic and global economies grapple with the COVID-19 era, its impact on startups is coming into focus: All will be impacted, many will suffer and some will close. Boston, a city that TechCrunch keeps tabs on, has seen a number of well-known startups struggle in recent weeks. Their misfortunes come quickly after companies in

Instacart is adding more support roles to help its shoppers, customers and retail partners as the company faces unprecedented demand for its grocery delivery services due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders. Today Instacart announced that it has doubled its Care team, from 1,200 agents to 3,000 agents. Care team employees will work on answering

We’re entering a dangerous phase and you’ll need to get creative to survive Joe White 8 hours Joe White Contributor Joe is general partner of Entrepreneur First, a Greylock-backed early-stage deep tech fund; co-chair of GBx, a curated network of British entrepreneurs in the Bay Area; and a former co-founder of Moonfruit.com, a website and

Kate Farms, the supplier of a plant-based liquid meal formula used by hospitals and healthcare providers around the country as a nutritional supplement for patients who cannot process solid foods, has raised $22 million in a round of funding. The new money will allow the company to ramp up its production as it looks to

Seeqc, a startup that is part of a relatively new class of quantum computing companies that is looking at how to best use classical computing to manage quantum processors, today announced that it has raised $5 million from M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck, the German pharmaceutical giant. Merck will be

Esports One is a startup betting that there’s a big opportunity in bringing a fantasy sports approach to the world of esports — particularly at a time when traditional pro sports are on pause. Co-founder and COO Sharon Winter told me that the company’s platform, which is leaving beta testing today, is the first “all-in-one