Startups

Russ Heddleston Contributor Russ is the co-founder and CEO of DocSend. He was previously a product manager at Facebook, where he arrived via the acquisition of his startup Pursuit.com, and has held roles at Dropbox, Greystripe, and Trulia. Follow him here: @rheddleston and @docsend More posts by this contributor What to expect when pitching European

Irene DeNigris Contributor Irene DeNigris, chief people officer of iCIMS, has a passion for cultivating a highly engaged, high-performance culture. When looking for answers, where do people first turn? For many, it’s Google. During the first half of March, we saw Google searches for “work from home” reach a 12-month high, garnering at least 50%

One of the newer companies attempting to join the rarified group of private space launch startups actually flying payloads to orbit has redirected its entire UK-based manufacturing capacity towards COVID-19 response. Skyrora, which is based in Edinburgh, Scotland, is answering the call of the UK government and the NHS to manufacturers to do what they

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hopping on Zoom with betaworks’ John Borthwick and Matt Hartman to discuss the tech world’s adaptation to this new locked-down world, the future of new media and answer questions from the audience. We discussed whether new media companies can raise capital right now, and touched on emerging trends around

Russ Heddleston Contributor Russ is the co-founder and CEO of DocSend. He was previously a product manager at Facebook, where he arrived via the acquisition of his startup Pursuit.com, and has held roles at Dropbox, Greystripe, and Trulia. Follow him here: @rheddleston and @docsend More posts by this contributor What to expect when pitching European

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of billions of people around the world. For many parents with young children in the United States, shelter in place orders implemented in different areas over the past few weeks mean they now spend each day balancing work with taking care of their families. For child care providers,

Founders should use this pause to re-assess processes and strategies Dan Wheatley 8 hours Dan Wheatley Contributor Dan Wheatley is CEO/co-founder of StraightTalk Consulting, a SaaS operations and growth consultancy that works with B2B founders to implement long-term, data-driven growth strategies. Described by Sequoia Capital as the black swan event of 2020, the long-term economic

Several months ago, we surveyed more than 20 leading real estate VCs to learn about what was exciting them most in the real estate tech sector and hear their opinions on proptech trends like co-working, flexible office space and remote office space. Since we published our survey, COVID-19 has flipped the real estate sector on

Four years ago, mathematician Vlad Voroninski saw an opportunity to remove some of the bottlenecks in the development of autonomous vehicle technology thanks to breakthroughs in deep learning. Now, Helm.ai, the startup he co-founded in 2016 with Tudor Achim, is coming out of stealth with an announcement that it has raised $13 million in a

When Eliot Buchanan tried to use his credit card to pay his Harvard tuition bill, the payment was rejected because the university said it doesn’t accept credit. Realizing the same problem exists for thousands of different transactions like board, rent and vendor payments, he launched Plastiq. Plastiq helps people use credit cards to pay, or

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. Since our agency opened in 2012, we’ve learned a lot about how to build quality links through content marketing. The industry has

France’s Ministry of State for Digital Affairs Cédric O and public investment bank Bpifrance announced a comprehensive support plan for startups this morning. Some French startups are going to face revenue issues as well as funding issues in the coming months. The French government wants to temporarily bridge that gap with refinancing and liquidity measures

After years of hype, the AR/VR space has certainly grown quieter as of late, but some investors are still coalescing behind a vision that the technologies could one day replace mobile if the technical kinks can be worked out. Creal is a Swiss startup that’s working on some fundamental display technologies that could make VR

Rocket launch startup Astra, which had been attempting to claim DARPA’s prize for successful demonstration of flexible space launch capabilities until earlier this month, will not be moving forward with an attempted flight of its launch vehicle this week as planned. The company’s “One of Three” rocket ran into an “anomaly” during pre-launch testing in

Meet Imatag, a French startup that has been working on a watermarking product. Watermarking is nothing new, but the company has found a way to mark images even if they are resized, cropped, edited or compressed. Many photographers and brands watermark their photos so that you can see who’s the original source when the photo

Smart thermometer maker Kinsa has been working on building accurate, predictive models of how seasonal illnesses like the flu travel in and among communities — and its fever map is finding new utility as the novel coronavirus pandemic grows globally. While Kinsa’s US Health Weather Map has no way of tracking the spread of COVID-19

Planet 13 is located blocks off the Las Vegas Strip and holds the title as the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. But it’s much more than just a storefront. There’s a lot to the 115,000-square-foot facility, including entertainment, restaurants and cannabis processing equipment where the company makes edibles and drinks. This is a destination, Vegas-style. In

Germany’s Global Savings Group (GSG), the e-commerce content company, has acquired French cashback company iGraal for €123.5 million in a mixture of cash and stock. Specifically, the deal was reached with iGraal’s majority owner M6 Group, and consists of €35 million in cash and the remaining made up of an exchange of shares. The acquisition

Right now the world is at war. But this is no ordinary war. It’s a fight with an organism so small we can only detect it through use of a microscope — and if we don’t stop it, it could kill millions of us in the next several decades. No, I’m not talking about COVID-19,

Dave Struzzi Contributor Dave Struzzi is the founder of Fame Arcade, a consultancy that works with innovative technology brands. His book, “App Store Fame and Fortune,” was among the first to explore best practices for mobile app marketing. As organizers cancel events with massive attendance, like SXSW (400,000 attendees), E3 (66,000), GDC (65,000) and Mobile

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week’s episode was a testament to making do, as we’ve had to cancel some trips, juggle a few guests, and get up and running as a podcast that have guests dial in without losing our stride. So,

Efforts to get at-home test kits for the COVID-19 coronavirus are ramping up quickly, and two more health industry startups are bringing their own products to market, with both Carbon Health and Nurx starting shipping of their own in-home sample collection kits. Both of these new offerings are the same in terms of approach to

At-home diagnostics startup Scanwell, which produces smartphone-based testing for UTIs, is working on getting at-home testing for the novel coronavirus into the hands of U.S. residents. The technology, which was developed by Chinese diagnostic technology company INNOVITA and has already been approved by China’s equivalent of the FDA and used by “millions” in China, can

Scopely, the mobile gaming publisher behind titles including Marvel Strike Force, Scrabble Go, Yahtzee with Buddies and Star Trek Fleet Command, has added another $200 million to its hoard of cash for mergers and acquisitions. While some startups are fearing a cash crunch, other businesses seem to be preparing to go on a shopping spree.

Garrett Smallwood Contributor Wag! CEO Garrett Smallwood is a three-time entrepreneur with previous experience at Redbeacon (acquired by The Home Depot), Pillow (acquired by Expedia via Home Away Group) and Finrise (acquired by Wag!). Wag!, the petcare company known for connecting pet owners with local dog walkers, has recently undergone a series of sweeping changes.

Glossier NYC, in normal times, is typically visited by more than 2,000 people every day, with lines of people from all over the world curling out the door. And when you enter, it’s tempting to touch, well, everything. The walls are adorned with flowers, mirrors and giant versions of the makeup company’s flagship product: Boy

Kimberly Shenk has been focused for a while now on “clean” products that are made without harmful chemicals. In 2017, Shenk and friend Jaleh Bisharat launched NakedPoppy, a site that curates and sells cosmetics that have been vetted by chemists (including some of its own products). Interestingly, as the young startup was announcing $4 million

With world events overtaking the tech world’s preferences to meet for coffees and convene at events, Y Combinator skipped its famous two-day live Demo event and went for a radical experiment: no demos at all, but instead a long list of the nearly 200 startups in its Winter 2020 batch, with links to their sites

Many companies have been designed to optimize productivity when everybody is in the office. As offices close due to the coronavirus outbreak, many people are experimenting with remote work at scale for the first time. Employees have to learn what it means to work remotely — but managers also have to learn how to keep

Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,”