It’s taken rather longer than a month for Meta-owned WhatsApp to commit to address complaints swirling around how it imposes terms of service on users but the European Commission has just announced that the messaging platform has agreed to improve how it communicates to users and presents future ToS updates. Early in 2021, WhatsApp triggered
SiriusXM, the satellite radio company and Pandora owner, disclosed today it’s laying off 475 employees, representing 8% of its workforce. In an email sent to employees, CEO Jennifer Witz said the cuts would impact “nearly every department” across the company, and follow a review of SiriusXM’s operations announced in November that aimed to identify areas
Last month, Flutterwave, Africa’s largest startup by private valuation, was involved in a hack that resulted in over ₦2.9 billion (~$4.2 million) missing from its accounts, according to local tech publication Techpoint Africa. According to the documents seen by the publication and reviewed by TechCrunch, unknown actors transferred the funds across 28 accounts in 63 transactions
Crypto-friendly bank Silvergate is studying whether it’s still viable, following the collapse of FTX
Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week.
To be successful, a business needs to have a plan for revenue in the short term and profitability in the long. Early-stage founders might be tempted to come up with half a dozen ways the company could make money. Don’t fall into temptation: Five unproven solutions don’t make one actual solution. Having said that, sometimes
Elon Musk, in his first address to Twitter Inc. employees since purchasing the company for $44 billion, said that bankruptcy was a possibility, according to a person familiar with the matter. Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow reports. 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 Emily
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. One of the quieter conversations in venture capital has only grown louder, in my DMs and interviews, over the past few months: The known bias
TGIF, my TechCrunch homies. It’s that time of week again — the time for Week in Review, where we recap the past five days in tech news. As always, lots happened, so let’s dig in sans delay. Well, perhaps with a slight delay. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that TechCrunch Early Stage, TechCrunch’s
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week Mary Ann Azevedo, Becca Szkutak and Alex Wilhelm gathered to riff through the week’s biggest startup and venture news. A big thank you to Becca for stepping in while Alex was
Time is running out for you to score the biggest savings on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 — the original and always-evolving conference dedicated to early-stage startups. Beat the March 10 deadline, and you’ll save up to $1,000 on General Admission, Founder, and Investor passes. Students and nonprofits — grab a deeply discounted pass for
Leslie Feinzaig, a venture capitalist, likes that her venture firm, Graham & Walker, sounds like an old, stodgy law firm. But apart from the name, there’s nothing really stodgy about it: Her fund exclusively invests in female- and nonbinary-founded startups. It’s a relatively new name for her firm, which was originally called Female Founders Alliance.
Substack, a publishing platform known for its newsletter service, announced this week that it had crossed the 2 million paid subscription mark. Given the wealth of historical data we have concerning the growth of paid subscribers at Substack, the number got our attention. Substack’s simple business model also makes it possible to generate a few
Last week, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which protects consumers from deceptive business practices, issued an advisory titled “Keep your AI claims in check.” When it comes to marketing, “false or unsubstantiated claims about a product’s efficacy are our bread and butter,” wrote Michael Atleson, an attorney with the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices. Artificial
#Tesla will build a new plant in Monterrey, #Mexico, and it’s a huge win for the nation’s president
Welcome back to the TechCrunch Podcast, where I’m standing in for Darrell while he’s honeymooning with his lady love. This week, I sat down with Amanda Silberling and Mary Ann Azevedo to talk through some of their interesting stories. You can listen below or subscribe in iTunes or Spotify to get new episodes delivered weekly
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. Hello, you crunchy Crunchers! If you’ve been slacking and not bought yourself a Disrupt ticket yet, that’s cool, we still love you. But here’s a hot tip: This is your last chance
Honda bailed on the Clarity — its only hydrogen-powered car in the U.S. — but the automaker hasn’t quit on fuel cells. That’s the message Honda sent with a peculiar announcement today: It’s putting some old Clarity fuel cells back to work, combining them into a backup power system for its data center just south
Metaverse hype was hanging like a multicolored fog over the Mobile World Congress (MWC) connectivity trade show in Barcelona this week. Conference organizer, the GSMA’s, program pitched attendees into a smorgasbord of metaverse-themed discussions — most of which seemed designed to generate maximum FOMO, as a parade of tech evangelists took to the stage in
The slowdown was inevitable, of course. Nothing stays hot forever — especially in this industry. By tech standards, smartphones have had a good run, but the last few years have seen device makers searching for the magic bullet to help the sales slide reverse course. The arrival of 5G was a nice reprieve, but next-generation
Companies already have a wealth of tools at their disposal for headhunting technical talent, but a new startup wants to give recruiters a leg-up by bringing together the worlds of GitHub and LinkedIn to create a database of the most suitable candidates for a specific software development role — and it’s doing so by using
The Northeast, and New England in particular, is known for its plethora of top colleges and universities. These hallowed halls contain multitudes of future entrepreneurs and, if you’re one of them, you can’t afford to rest on your laurels. Get yourself to TechCrunch Early Stage, a summit for early and aspiring founders taking place in
For all the focus on carbon pollution produced by shipping and aviation, some of the most challenging to abate will probably be residential buildings. In the U.S., housing units stand an average of 130 years before they’re torn down, according to a recent study. Homes and apartment buildings built 100 years ago, or even 30
Movies Anywhere, the Disney-owned app that lets users access their digitally owned movie collection from across services, is shutting down two features, “Screen Pass” and “Watch Together.” Screen Pass, which launched in 2020, allows you to loan out three movies per month within the app, which recipients can then watch for up to 72 hours.
TechCrunch Live took a virtual visit to Boston this week at our special City Spotlight: Boston event. During the special, extended event, influential Boston founders and investors spoke, including Boston Robotics founder Marc Raibert and MassChallenge CEO Cait Brumme. The event started with Greg Dracon, of .406 Ventures, and Matt Caulfield, founder and CEO of
The best-known unicorns in the world are getting fit, showing that it is possible to trim losses while still posting growth. They are living experiments when it comes to corporations looking to get lean without cutting muscle. European fintech giant Klarna is working through a valuation reset and a change in investor priority ahead of
Climate change is a problem important and pressing enough that investors have begun to grasp the opportunities that arise when trying to solve it. Now, they’ve started to cast their nets wider for other, adjacent opportunities. Tech that serves to conserve the oceans while using it to replace older, more harmful means of generating energy
Drone developer Brinc today showed off its newest drone, designed to help cops and others who care about public safety do their jobs from a safe distance. The new quadcopter is called Lemur 2 and is tooled up and ready to go into areas that otherwise would be too dangerous for humans. The new drone
Bloomberg’s Kamaron Leach joins Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow to discuss the latest wave of layoffs at Twitter as Elon Musk fired workers from the sales side of the social network’s business beginning late on Sunday.
According to a recent report, 92.4% of consumers use reviews when deciding to purchase products. It’s understandable. They want confidence in their purchase choice before buying a product online. A Seoul-based startup called Indent wants to help these shoppers through access to video reviews and product ratings, while also helping to drive sales for e-commerce merchants