Welcome to the dark night of the smart speaker. A few years back, the category felt inevitable — and, frankly, why not? We’ve smartened our phones and watches. Why shouldn’t our homes be the next step? For decades, many looked longingly at home automation. Smart blinds that opened with your alarm clock might as well
Spotify’s success with Wrapped, its year-end review, designed for social sharing, may be pushing the company toward building more social experiences directly into its mobile app. The company for many months has been testing different iterations of a “friends activity” tab on its mobile app, and investors have now taken notice. During the streamer’s Q4
Female-focused telehealth startup, Teal Health, is popping up today to announce an $8.8 million seed round with a roster of heavy hitting investors on board — including (Serena Williams’) Serena Ventures, (Chelsea Clinton’s) Metrodora Ventures, and (Laurene Powell Jobs’) Emerson Collective. The February 2020-founded San Francisco-based startup’s first product will be a service that supports
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. As January is coming to a close, the TechCrunch team is firing on all cylinders (do we still say that, in a time of electric cars? What is a better expression these
Countries worldwide have pledged to reduce their energy usage and reach net-zero energy targets by 2050. To get there, they will need to find clever ways to decarbonize especially dirty businesses, including the buildings sector. The push to clean up the built environment has spawned a lot of policy, as well as overlapping acronyms, including
Two quantum-adjacent technologies — quantum sensing (QS) and quantum communication (Qcomm) — are as important as quantum computing hardware itself since they help make quantum computers function more accurately. A Sydney-based startup called Q-CTRL has built quantum-sensing software that helps reduce errors on quantum computers. Today, the company announced that it has raised another $27.4
Laptops and tablets are getting better and more powerful by the day but our fingers aren’t getting any more precise, and for extended writing and work, it’s still more helpful to have a keyboard and a larger screen at hand. These types of products have been around for at least a decade, but what’s new
Peacock is no longer offering its free tier to new customers, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday. The company says it’s shifting its focus to its Premium offering and that doing so will allow the streaming service to remain competitive in the marketplace. The change was first reported by The Streamable. The
Brain researchers have relied on devices called microelectrode arrays for decades, but the technology behind these tools is increasingly outdated. Precision Neuroscience is building a modern alternative that’s not only an order of magnitude better, but far less invasive to put in. With a newly raised $41 million in the bank, they’re all set to
If you thought egg prices were out of control, the SaaS inflation rate is outpacing the rest of the economy. In the U.S., SaaS expenses are growing 3.5x faster than market inflation. In Australia and the UK, that rises to 5x, according to Eldar Tuvey, founder and CEO of Vertice. “If cutting SaaS costs is
Dutch social enterprise Fairphone, which makes modular and — the claim is — more sustainable and ethical consumer electronics, has nabbed a chunk of funding to continue scaling a circular-economy-aligned smartphone business. The €49 million (~$53 million) “growth capital” investment — from an international consortium of impact investors, led by new shareholders Invest-NL, the ABN
Big Tech take note: In what looks like a meaningful — and long overdue — reforming step, the European Commission has committed to dial up its monitoring of how data protection authorities at the EU Member State level enforce the bloc’s flagship data protection rules — committing to regular checks on “large scale” General Data
Everyone’s talking about unplugging these days — climbing a mountain, trekking through the forest, finding your way to a truly secluded beach. Central to that concept is turning off notifications, uninstalling work apps or even — if you’re feeling especially brave — leaving the phone at home for a week or two. But is paradise
Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week, Darrell and Becca catch up with Rosie Nguyen, the co-founder and CCO of Fanhouse, a startup that helps content creators monetize their work. Rosie talked about her initial reluctance to become an entrepreneur but how issues at other content platforms pushed
Showing that there’s real investor enthusiasm for identity management platforms, Saviynt, which enables companies to secure apps, data and infrastructure in a single platform, today announced that it raised $205 million in debt from AB Private Credit Investors’ Tech Capital Solutions group. Founder Sachin Nayyar, who returned to Saviynt as CEO this week alongside newly-appointed
As venture capital investments slowed down in 2022, some startups turned to private credit, including debt capital, as a way to supplement their operations in the meantime. However, the policies and procedures paperwork that goes with these deals aren’t always easy to understand. Finley CEO Jeremy Tsui told TechCrunch that private credit is a $1.2
Even if insects don’t sound appealing to you, black soldier flies could play an essential role in the food chain in the coming years. In particular, these flies’ larvae can become an important source of proteins for livestock and fish. That’s why Entocycle is raising another $5 million in a Series A funding round led
I have wanted a robot pet at least since Sony introduced the original Aibo in 1999 — probably earlier, but Aibo made it seem tangible. Since then, there’s been a steady stream of attempts at making robot pets a reality that matches what we often see in futuristic science fiction — including a recent Aibo
After eight months, Netflix’s Kids Mystery Box feature has officially rolled out to Android devices today. Android users worldwide can now discover new children’s shows and TV characters by clicking on the “Mystery Box” in the “Favorites Row” at the top of the Netflix homepage. The company today updated its previous announcement post from May,
Welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. I’m back, I’m drinking an iced Americano maybe because I miss Alex, maybe because I just feel different today, and I’m ready to start our week together. Here’s what I got into on today’s Equity
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. Kicking off the week, we’ve been thoroughly enjoying Runa Sandvik’s story about how U.S. police use digital data to prosecute abortions in our post-Roe-v.-Wade world. The TL;DR is that healthcare in the
Movano Health turned heads at CES with an ouroboros-esque smart ring designed for women. In the crowded field of fitness wearables, where the mainstream heavy hitter of the Apple Watch heads up a very long tail of typically less pricey and/or more specialist activity tracking bracelets and bands all keen to claim their own patch
Nearly a year after ViacomCBS announced its rebrand to become Paramount, the company is now making a major change to its portfolio with today’s news that it will be fully integrating Showtime into Paramount+ — the streamer known in previous years as CBS All Access. The integration will include both streaming and linear platforms, the company
Caitlin Long, Founder & CEO, Avanti Bank & Trust, Nic Carter, General Partner, Castle Island Ventures and Co-Founder, Coin Metrics and Michael Saylor, Chairman and CEO, MicroStrategy, Inc. spoke to Bloomberg Quicktake’s Katie Greifeld about the future for crypto and what’s next in the crypto space. They are at the Bloomberg Financial Innovation Summit. ——–
A not-so-humble brag here, so brace yourself. The programming at TechCrunch Early Stage — April 20 in Boston, Massachusetts — is gonna be off the proverbial hook. How do we know? We read hundreds of applications from experienced founders and startup ecosystem experts eager to participate in Audience Choice for a chance to present at
Despite continuing talk about a possible recession, slumping tech stocks and a slowdown in the world of startup investing, the business of funding was positively humming last week. After slowing way down last spring, venture outfits disclosed a stunning $8 billion in new capital commitments in the span of just five days. Consider the following: NEA
French startup Sorare has signed a four-year licensing partnership with the Premier League. This is an important move for the company as the English football league is one of the most-watched sports leagues in the world. Sorare is a fantasy sports gaming experience based on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. In particular, Sorare has partnered with
With the economy teetering on recession, and sales of mobile phones and other consumer electronics slowing down globally, a U.K. startup called Raylo that’s leaning into both of those themes has picked up £110 million ($136 million) to grow its business, offering consumers access to new gadgets by way of short-term leases. The London-based company
Netflix announced today that its “One Piece” live-action series would be available to stream sometime in 2023. The company tweeted the announcement alongside a new poster of the upcoming series. The poster shows the main character, Monkey D. Luffy (played by Iñaki Godoy), with his back turned. A specific release date for the live-action series