At Spotify’s Stream On event today in LA, the company introduced a significant redesign of its app, which capitalizes on its investments in personalization technology while also adopting a similar short-form video feed as the one popularized by TikTok. In the updated Spotify mobile app, users and subscribers will gain access to a handful of
No one can predict the follow-on effects of a moment like this. We are in uncharted territory. I write this twice-weekly newsletter on a tight deadline, so when I saw a press release that started with “Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, was closed today,” I realized I might need to pivot. To protect SVB’s
TechCrunch is currently busy reporting the hell out of the SVB crisis, but as we sort out the competitive landscape and learn more about how founders and their VC partners are reacting, I have a question: How are startups going to pay for stuff while the mess is sorted out? According to the government, “insured
Secure messaging apps are lining up to oppose measures in the U.K. government’s Online Safety Bill (OSB) they argue will do the opposite of promoting online safety by undermining the robust encryption web users rely upon to safeguard their communications. Meta-owned WhatsApp, the not-for-profit Signal Foundation behind the Signal app, and Element, which operates the
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple could be working on a new HomePod device that would feature a built-in display for 2024. The rumor seems to be based on third-party supply chain companies, such as Tianma, a Chinese display manufacturer. This new product in the HomePod lineup would look completely different from existing HomePods as
Roku and Best Buy announced today that as part of their new first-to-market partnership, Roku gets access to Best Buy’s advertising platform. Also, Best Buy customers have exclusive access to Roku-branded TVs. The relationship is a first for Best Buy since it’s never partnered with a TV streaming platform to provide its first-party sales data.
Mythic, an AI chip startup that last November reportedly ran out of capital, rose from the ashes today with an unexpected injection of fresh funds. Mythic this morning announced that it closed a $13 million financing round led by existing investors Atreides Management, DCVC and Lux Capital alongside new investors Catapult Ventures and Hermann Hauser
Shares of Silicon Valley Bank are down sharply Thursday in the wake of the company’s announcement that it is raising additional capital by selling stock, taking a charge to roll over an asset portfolio to higher-yielding assets and extending its term-borrowing capacity. Given recent banking-related carnage in the tech and tech-adjacent worlds, there’s concern in
In addition to news related to its mobile app’s revamp and the introduction of TikTok-style music and podcast discovery feeds, Spotify announced podcast-focused news at its Stream On event in LA this morning. The company showed off a redesigned version of its Spotify for Podcasters dashboard, which will now work to better organize its tools
Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde comes back on the week’s big news: a jury convicted South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh of murdering his wife and son back in 2021 – a conviction announced just days after the release of a Netflix documentary series on the topic. ——– Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg
It may go down in the history books about Silicon Valley: the time that its most prominent bank, a bank founded nearly 40 years earlier, inflicted such grievous injury on itself that it had to be rescued by another bank or else risk going down in flames in a single day. We don’t yet know
Some of Silicon Valley Bank’s customers are struggling to transfer funds out of their bank accounts, numerous sources tell TechCrunch. The seeming wave of attempted withdrawals comes after SVB announced yesterday that it lost $1.8 billion in the sale of U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities that it had invested in, owing to rising interest rates.
Social music streaming startup Stationhead announced today that it’s launching a new live commerce tool that allows select artists and hosts to sell digital tracks to fans during livestreaming parties on their stations. The startup says artists including BlackPink, Niall Horan, TXT and 5 Seconds of Summer have already used the feature during live release
It’s not every day that banking news is the big story in the startup world, but here we are. Yesterday the previously crypto-friendly Silvergate Bank announced that it would “wind down operations and voluntarily liquidate” itself. The company’s stock had been under massive pressure in recent months, exacerbated by a note from the bank on
Welcome to our 40th Pitch Deck Teardown! Goodness, time flies. Of those 40, just three were angel rounds, so today, we’ll take apart the angel deck of MiO Marketplace, a platform for media publishers and buyers. The company raised $550,000 at a $3.6 million pre-money valuation. Breakdown of the pitch deck teardowns to date. Image
QuantWare, the Dutch startup that builds quantum processors for research and commercial usage, today announced that it has raised a €6 million seed round (that’s about $6.33 million) led by Dutch deep tech investor Forward.One, with participation from QDNL Participations and Graduate Entrepreneur, among others. The company says it will use this new funding to
Drone delivery is one of those ideas that’s been sold as “the next big thing” forever. Regardless of how bullish you happen to be on the technology, there’s undeniably a lot that has to be figured out before we can start having serious conversation about mainstream adoption. Regulator issues are a big box to be
Roku devices are getting an upgrade. The company announced today a series of updates coming to its media streamers and TVs with the new version of its software, Roku OS 12. The updates, which will focus on areas like live TV and sports, among other things, will also be accompanied by a revamp of the
Digital mortgage lender Better.com’s SPAC deal with Aurora Acquisition Corp. recently got a new lease on life, extending its timeframe to close the transaction through the end of Q3 2023. Without the extension the transaction would have had to close by today. Further investigation has turned up an interesting fact in the interim: Even if
Using data to make better decisions faster helps startups in the crowded SaaS space improve product development, identify hidden market opportunities and complete work with fewer false steps, important priorities as these startups seek out a piece of the booming SaaS market, projected to increase by 19.7% over the next six years. A Singapore- and
Brussels-based startup Cowboy has been in the news lately for its cash burn rate. But the company wants to control its narrative again with some product and business news. Cowboy is launching a new feature called ‘AdaptivePower’, which automatically adjusts the power of the motor depending on the current slope and weather conditions. Cowboy’s electric
Starting today, Netflix is giving TV users the option to customize the size and style of subtitles and closed captions. This update gives subscribers the ability to choose from three sizes — small, medium and large — as well as four styles/colors which include the default white text option, drop shadow (white text with black
Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow recaps the day’s tech news: Inflection AI seeks funding, Reid Hoffman steps down from OpenAI’s board, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s VC firm is raising $75 million for its debut fund. ——– Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg Watch the latest full episodes of “Bloomberg Technology” with Caroline Hyde and
A steady stream of new startups pitch their ideas, concepts, products and services on a daily basis to TechCrunch reporters: Startups that claim to predict when employees might want to leave for a new job; that think they can detect depression using someone’s voice; that experiment by using chatbots on patients with depression; that scrape
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Happy International Women’s Day! Did you know that the holiday was adopted by the UN 46 years ago? We read the Wikipedia article about IWD, and learned stuff. Try it — you
Turns out the UK government, under current prime minister Rishi Sunak, is not replacing the GDPR, as Michelle Donelan, his secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, implied last October — when as a fresh-in-post digital secretary under a different PM, she paused the flagship data protection reform, saying the government wanted to rethink its
Among the wave of Spotify announcements coming out of today’s Spotify Stream On event, the company shared some exciting news with podcast listeners — in particular, Batman fans. Spotify is launching a new podcast series “The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark,” starring comedian-actor Hasan Minhaj as The Riddler. As part of Spotify’s exclusive multiyear partnership
Thousand Faces, a web3 community-based investment group, hosted its demo day on Wednesday with the top 10 startups from its Female Founder Accelerator program. The demo day coincided with International Women’s Day and featured women-led businesses focused on sustainable development goals (SDGs). The accelerator program’s first cohort accepted 30 startups from a pool of over
The tools of modern cinema have become increasingly accessible to independent and even amateur filmmakers, but realistic CG characters (like them or not) have remained the province of big-budget projects. Wonder Dynamics aims to change that with a platform that lets creators literally drag and drop a CG character into any scene as if it
TikTok is doubling down on its European charm offensive today as it looks to counter a rising tide of political discontent with the popular short-form video-hosting platform. A new program called Project Clover will serve to create “a secure enclave for European TikTok user data,” wrote Theo Bertram, TikTok’s European VP of government relations and