Do bigger checks lead to bigger swings? Y Combinator’s latest participants are the second batch to land a $500,00 check as part of the accelerator’s recently refreshed standard deal. And while the accelerator says it only looks at founders when investing in startups, not sector, category or idea, more money in the pipeline may be
Creator economy startups are tricky. It can be risky to ask creators to rely on a possibly precarious, pre-seed company to power an important aspect of their business — if you fail, as most startups do, you might inadvertently end up hurting other independent entrepreneurs, which is (hopefully) the last thing a founder wants. But
Anyone who has worked in a role even tangentially connected to the public markets will at least have heard of Bloomberg Terminal, an industry standard platform used by professionals to gain real-time data and insights into the financial markets. Indeed, Bloomberg Terminal is an incredibly useful — if expensive — tool for traders, brokers, analysts
The first AirPods Pro were a revelation. It felt like Apple was finally all in on doing a pair of earbuds right — a big change from the days of those questionable headphones that came in the iPhone box. The sound quality, the active noise canceling and — perhaps most importantly, the comfort level —
For any journalist who has ever googled their name, or for anyone else who has ever googled a journalist’s name, there is a good chance that one of the top hits will be for Muck Rack, a database that trawls social media, online publications and other expanses of the internet to compile lists of people,
And we’re back! Yes, today was the second day of pitches from Y Combinator, a U.S. startup accelerator with global outreach that conducts demo days twice a year. This year’s Summer 2022 cohort gave us hundreds of batch companies to consider. For participating founders, it’s a critical day; for investors, it’s a buffet; for us
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Helloooo! Since our last Daily Crunch, our adrenaline-fueled TechCrunch team has added more than 70 stories to the site. We’re picking out some of the best below, but we’ll almost certainly miss
London-based regulatory technology (regtech) startup SteelEye has raised $21 million in a Series B round of funding. Founded in 2017, SteelEye works with banks, hedge funds, brokers, asset managers and more, to help them comply with strict regulatory procedures and requirements in their respective industries. SteelEye essentially brings compliance to the cloud via a SaaS
I bear bad news if you’d rather not walk around feeling like you have a brick in your pocket: Apple seems to be bailing on its smallest smartphone … again. That’s right: The $2.5 trillion company’s big fall event came and went today with no mention of a new iPhone Mini. Instead, Apple is “going
YouTube TV announced on Twitter yesterday that it now supports 5.1 audio on Apple TVs and Amazon Fire TV devices. With the update, users can enjoy a movie theater-like experience in their homes. Surround sound is only available on compatible YouTube TV programs, and the feature is free for all subscribers. Note that you need
Last month, Y Combinator said that it had intentionally reduced its summer cohort by 40%. According to the accelerator, the decision to downsize the S22 batch — significantly smaller than its most recent batches — was a result of the economic downturn and changes to the venture funding environment this year. It was the latest
UBS and Wealthfront last week called off a planned deal to sell the robo-adviser startup to the financial giant for $1.4 billion. Instead, UBS invested $69.7 million in the company at a valuation that Wealthfront described as $1.4 billion. In its note discussing the end of the transaction and its latest fundraise, Wealthfront shared some
There’s been a lot of talk about remaking the electric grid in the U.S. and in Europe, preparing it for a tidal wave of intermittent renewable power and instant-on batteries. It’s happening in fits and starts, with utilities themselves alternately embracing and pushing back against the new, more distributed future. That’s been complicating grid upgrades.
Berlin-based agriTech startup Klim is in a hurry to get farmers adopting so-called ‘regenerative’ methods — which are touted as less harmful to soils and biodiversity than conventional farming — arguing this evolution offers the best chance to shrink the global carbon footprint of agriculture fast enough to tackle the climate crisis. Its digital platform,
GPS in its many regional flavors has become a ubiquitous feature in phones, smart watches, cars and other connected devices, but for all the location-based features that it helps enable (mapping being the most obvious) it has a lot of shortcomings: it can be slow and inaccurate, it can contribute to faster battery drain and,
Today is Disney+ Day, and, as part of its perks, the company is offering Disney+ subscribers a new AR experience in conjunction with the short film “Remembering,” starring and produced by “Captain Marvel” Brie Larson and directed and written by filmmaker Elijah Allan-Blitz. The eight-minute-long movie features a companion augmented reality app that allows users
Cloud storage is expensive (especially in this economy), but many companies often over-provision, cutting their full return on investment. Lucidity was created to help them manage block storage more efficiently with a set of automated tools. The startup announced today that is has raised $5.3 million in seed funding. The round was led by AlphaWave
In recent years, there’s been an explosion in the usage of APIs — the interfaces that software apps use to communicate with each other. When asked to predict API usage in 2022 in a recent survey, 90.5% of developers responding said that they expect to use APIs more or the same as in 2021, while
A new nonprofit “startup” is emerging from stealth today with $15 million in funding from Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin, with a focus squarely on studying and treating Long COVID. While the global pandemic may have neared something close to a conclusion for many, millions of people around the world are still suffering long-term effects from
Earlier today I wrote a piece about Apple Watch Ultra’s new Scuba diving feature, and a lot of folks came out of the woodwork to tell me they wouldn’t trust a ‘dive toy’ to keep them safe under water. I respect their opinion, but I figured I’d share why I feel fully comfortable trusting Apple
America’s favorite reality star is leveling up her repertoire and levering up businesses. Kim Kardashian, who passed the “baby bar” exam in preparation to become a lawyer last year, just added another job title to her lineup — private equity investor. Kardashian is launching private equity firm SKKY Partners in conjunction with ex-Carlyle consumer head
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. It’s Wednesday, which today is known as Apple iPhone 14 (here’s all our stories from the Apple event) and Y Combinator Demo Day…day. As you can see, our team was at one
There’s a large education gap in Vietnam between urban centers, which have access to more resources, and the smaller cities and rural areas where 80% of students live. Edupia, an online learning platform, is bridging that divide with its live classes and private tutoring. The startup announced today it has raised a $14 million Series
Weather officials are predicting more monsoon rains in Bengaluru, complicating prospects for a quicker recovery for India’s Silicon Valley where floods have wrecked many slum houses, cut transportation links, knocked down power and disrupted business operations in parts of the city. The disruption has exposed the poor infrastructure in the city, home to more than
For those watching the slow motion unpicking of surveillance advertising in the European Union here’s a fresh development on the long and winding road to a long-overdue legal reckoning: Multiple grounds for appeal lodged by industry body, the IAB Europe, against a breach finding earlier this year against its self-proclaimed “best practice” framework for obtaining
Yes, I missed Bose’s big news this morning. I was busy with…other stuff. You, too, would be forgiven for missing the QuietComfort Earbuds II launch, under the deluge of Apple news (including its own new buds), but Bose makes very good headphones, and any new version of its flagship products deserves a mention. The new
So you’re sitting there watching all of the new gadget news from Apple this afternoon — a new Apple Watch Series 8, SE, Ultra, new AirPods Pro…and then, wait — is that Helly R.? If you’re a fan of the Apple TV+ series “Severance,” you might have caught a little Easter egg or two during
Y Combinator’s latest cohort of founders have opinions on the future of fintech. One-fifth of the accelerator’s Summer 2022 batch, which spans 240 companies, is working on solving issues in the financial space. The pitches range from building the Square for micro-merchants in Latin America to creating a way to angel invest in your favorite
Y Combinator said the market downturn was the reason for a smaller summer batch compared to recent cohorts. But does the exclusivity come at the cost of the ecosystem’s most diverse talent? These entrepreneurs are young, hungry, and represent more than 30 countries, including Italy, Israel, and Indonesia. The 240-company cohort is noticeably smaller than
When it comes to consumer-facing climate tech, electric vehicles and solar panels may get all the attention, but every home has some even lower-hanging fruit — HVAC, or heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Residential and commercial buildings produce about a third of the carbon emissions in the U.S., and much of that comes from heating