Startups

Small satellite startup Kepler has done something never before accomplished with satellite-based broadband connectivity: providing a high-bandwidth the Arctic. Kepler’s nanosatellites have successfully demonstrated achieving over 100Mbps of network speed to a German icebreaker sea vessel that acts as a mobile lab for the MOSAiC research expedition. This is the first time ever that there’s

Stealth fintech startup Digits, from the same team that built Crashlytics to scale then sold to Twitter for over $100 million, has raised a $10.5 million round of Series A funding, the company is announcing today. The round was led by Benchmark and has the backing of 72 angels, including founders and CEOs from companies

Following the death of five people at a Halloween party hosted at a California Airbnb rental, and a scathing Vice report outlining Airbnb’s failure to prevent nation-wide scams, the company says it will begin verifying all seven million of its listings. Airbnb properties will soon be verified for accuracy of photos, addresses, listing details, cleanliness,

GoCardless, the London fintech that makes it easy for businesses to offer recurring bank payments, has partnered with TransferWise for its currency exchange. The move sees GoCardless utilise the TransferWise API and the money transfer company’s “TransferWise for Business” product and in turn provide TransferWise’s FX rates to its own customers. More broadly, the partnership

Companies continue to refine digital diagnostic tools for in-home healthcare at a rapid clip. The latest to launch is an at-home test for urinary tract infections from the Los Angeles-based startup Scanwell Health. The company was founded by Stephen Chen, who literally grew up in the diagnostics testing business. His family had built one of

Over the past several years, ‘fintech’ has quietly become the unsung darling of venture. A rapidly swelling pool of new startups is taking aim at the large incumbent institutions, complex processes and outdated unfriendly interfaces that mar billion dollar financial services verticals, such as insurtech, consumer lending, personal finance, or otherwise.   In just the past

The countdown to serious savings continues here at TechCrunch, and this is a timely reminder that you that you have only four days left to save on early bird passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019 (11-12 December). Kommst du nun, oder was — you are coming, aren’t you? Pricing starts at €445 + VAT and, depending

Better than expected revenues couldn’t divert investor attention from the fact that Uber still managed to lose more than $1 billion in the most recent quarter as the company’s stock fell in after-hours trading. There are bright spots in the latest earnings report, not least that the company managed to stanch the bleeding that had

Sila Technologies, the battery materials company that has partnered with BMW and Daimler, landed $45 million in new funding and hired two high-profile executives, including Kurt Kelty, who led the battery cell team at Tesla for more than a decade. Kelty, who was on Sila Nano’s advisory board, has been appointed vice president of automotive,

Heads up, startuppers. We’ve entered the final week of early bird pricing on passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019. Place your procrastination on hold, because the deadline to save as much as €500 comes to an abrupt halt on 8 November at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Do yourself a saver-favor and buy your early-bird pass to Disrupt Berlin today.

Welcome back to Max Q, our weekly look at what’s happening in space and space startup news. This week was a bit more quiet than usual coming off of the amazingly over-packed International Astronautical Congress, but there were still some big moves that promise a lot more action to come before they year’s over –

Chinese autonomous air mobility company EHang has filed with the SEC the paperwork required to go public in the U.S. on the NASDAQ exchange, with a $100 million initial public offering. The company, which has been flying demonstration flights with passengers on board for a while now, is gearing up to launch its first commercial

After inking what sources said was a nine-figure deal with the world’s leading supplier of collagen proteins, Gelita, the cell-based collagen maker Geltor is in the market for at least $50 million in new funding, TechCrunch has learned. According to people with knowledge of the company’s plans, the new funding could range from $50 million

The husband and wife co-founders behind the direct-to-consumer cookware and dinnerware startup retailer OurPlace are big believers in the notion that the doorway to inclusive communities opens through the kitchen.  Amir Tehrani, the company’s co-founder and chief executive spent, his life in the cookware and kitchen business, while his wife, Shiza Tehrani, is the co-founder of

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about how SoftBank is screwing up. Before that, I noted All Raise’s expansion, Uber the TV show and the

If you work for someone else, you likely know the drill: in comes that annual email reminding you that it’s time for unconscious bias or sexual harassment training, and if you could please finish up this mandatory module by this date, that would be terrific. The email — not to mention the programming itself —

Software development companies tackling services for niche industries, like commercial real estate subcontracting, continue to find Los Angeles to be fertile ground for development. The latest company to raise funding from a clutch of investors is BuildOps, which raised $5.8 million in seed financing from some big names in the Los Angeles tech ecosystem. Led

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate and Alex broke the discussion into two main themes. The first dealt with early-stage companies, and the second, as you can imagine, later-stage affairs. Don’t worry, we don’t get to SoftBank for quite some time.

Calling all tech-minded students, nonprofit and government employees — this is your moment. Come and join us at Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December at a price you can afford — because great ideas and innovation come from every sector. Apply for our discounted Innovator passes for students and nonprofit or government employees and enjoy

Kepler Communications, the Toronto-based startup that’s focused on developing and deploying shoebox-sized satellites to provide telecommunications services, is opening up registration for those interested in getting their first developer kits. These developer kits, designed to help potential commercial customers take advantage of its Internet of Things (IoT) narrowband connectivity deploying next year, will then be

The rise of the internet has given every company the chance to be a global company. But as a founder, growing from your garage to the worldwide markets can be tricky business. That’s why we’ve assembled a panel of top-tier experts to talk through the peaks and pitfalls of scaling strategies at Disrupt Berlin in

Sophia Wood Contributor Sophia Wood is a principal at Magma Partners, a Latin America-focused seed-stage VC firm with offices in Latin America, Asia and the U.S. Sophia is also the co-founder of LatAm List, an English-language Latin American tech news source. Brazil continued to churn out unicorns this month, with Curitiba-based Ebanx becoming the first

Writers Laura Wagner, Kelsey McKinney, Tom Ley, Lauren Theisen, Patrick Redford, Albert Burneko and Chris Thompson all tweeted today that they have resigned from Deadspin, the sports-focused site owned by G/O Media. A quick refresher: G/O Media was formerly known as Gizmodo Media Group, and before that as Gawker Media. It took on its current

The cloud kitchen craze has reached Latin America. Food tech startup called Muy landed a fresh $15 million Series B to expand into Mexico and soon Brazil. The service is currently operative in Colombia.  Muy is a “cloud kitchen meets Chipotle,” says one investor. The company describes itself as a virtual kitchen and smart chef

If your budget simply can’t manage a line item for a ticket to Disrupt Berlin 2019, we have exciting news for you. Volunteer for our work exchange program, and we’ll give you a free Innovator pass good for both days of the show (11-12 December). We have a limited number of volunteer positions, and applications

Slack created a new solution for workplace communication, one copied by many, even Microsoft. But the product, which is meant to help individuals and businesses collaborate, has been critiqued for sending too many notifications, with some claiming it’s sabotaged workplace productivity. Quill, a startup led by Ludwig Pettersson, Stripe’s former creative director and design aficionado,

Contract, self-employed and temporary jobs are on the rise in developed markets, with some 85% of the global workforce, 2.7 billion people, estimated to be on some form of hourly wage rather than flat salary. Today, a startup that helps companies source these kinds of candidates is announcing a round of funding to help meet

Think you have what it takes to be a TechCrunch hackathon champion? It’s time to put your creative code and confidence where your mouth is, my friends. Come to Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December and pit your skills, tenacity and endurance against some of the best creators from around the world. We’re limiting participation

Sourcing ingredients in the restaurant industry is a dirty process that still relies heavily on voicemails and fax orders. More tech-forward solutions have been pushed but getting restaurants and suppliers to uniformly sign on to a platform has been a relatively daunting challenge. Choco is a young startup with plenty of momentum that’s aiming to

Building effective propulsion systems for satellites has traditionally been a highly bespoke affair, with expensive, one-off systems tailor-made to big, expensive spacecraft hardware. But increasingly, companies including startups are looking at ways to provide propulsion tech that can scale with the projected boom in demand for orbital satellites, including cube sats and small sats, as