Who will fare better in the current venture downturn? Will it be the legacy investors with years of experience amassed through multiple market cycles — but who also have a sizable portfolio to worry about — or the emerging managers who are looking at the market with fresh eyes and a clean slate? We’re about
The Middle East has long been thought of as an oil region, but the United Arab Emirates aims to change this with an intense focus on growing the country’s technology and startup scene. For the first half of 2022, the Middle East region brought in $1.73 billion in investments across 354 deals, up from more
Before he was the founder and CEO of Patreon, Jack Conte was a musician, mostly posting videos of his songs on YouTube (which he still does). Now, running a company that helps creators earn predictable monthly income from fan memberships, Conte is pissed off at Meta. As both Facebook and Instagram make changes to emphasize
Marjella Lecourt-Alma Contributor Tech companies have historically been viewed more positively than other sectors when it comes to ESG issues, but over the past 24 months, impending climate-related regulations, and the rapid move toward greater accountability has meant that many tech companies are left exposed. Issues such as energy consumption, workforce diversity, human capital, security,
Clubhouse, the social audio app that rose in popularity amid the pandemic, is looking to shake up its platform with the launch of private communities called “Houses.” The company’s new offering allows any person or group to create their own curated “House” within Clubhouse. Users can sign up to create Houses starting today, but Clubhouse says
Microsoft is being called out for blocking users of the end-to-end encrypted email service, Tutanota, from registering an account with its cloud-based collaboration platform, Teams, if they try to do that using a Tutanota email address. The problem, which has been going on unrectified for some time — with an initial complaint raised with Microsoft
It has become something of a tradition: Samsung announces an Unpacked and all or most of the big products get teased out in leaks in the weeks leading up to event. Sometimes the leaks come before the event announcement, sometimes after, but any hope of keeping its biggest news under wraps appears to have largely
Nov.23 — A U.S.-European satellite designed to extend a decades-long measurement of global sea surface heights was launched into Earth orbit from California on Saturday. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Sentinel-6 satellite blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:17 a.m. and arced southward over the Pacific Ocean. (Source: NASA)
Walmart let go of almost 200 corporate employees on Wednesday amid the economic downturn and rising inflation, according to a person familiar with the development. The company said in a statement that these layoffs are a part of updating its structure. Last month, the firm slashed its Q2 and yearly profit guidance and said people
JPMorgan is anchor investor of the fund, which counts ex-United Airlines CEO Munoz as a partner Mary Ann Azevedo 1 day Latino founders of early-stage companies based in the U.S. just got a new potential source of capital. L’Attitude Ventures announced today that it has closed on its first institutional fund, raising more than $100
Pony.ai, a Chinese autonomous vehicle company valued at $8.5 billion as of late, has sued two former employees over alleged trade secret infringement. The lawsuit is arriving months after Frank (Zhenhao) Pan and Youhan Sun, two former technical leaders at Pony’s autonomous trucking business in the U.S., resigned to start a competitor called Qingtian Truck.
Axio, a platform for cybersecurity risk evaluation, today announced the closure of a $23 million Series B round led by Temasek’s ISTARI, with participation from investors NFP Ventures, IA Capital Group and former BP CEO Bob Dudley. Axio CEO Scott Kannry tells TechCrunch that the proceeds — which bring New York–based Axio’s total capital raised
An innovative new medical startup in Romania helped doctors from three countries collaborate to treat Ukrainian cancer patients made refugees after Russia’s brutal invasion. The “Tumor Board” project was initiated by doctors from the US, Romania and Moldova to provide life saving treatments for displaced Ukrainians with cancer. A collaboration of Heal 21 Association and
ByteDance may be preparing for a global launch of TikTok Music service, according to trademarks filed in several countries found by TechCrunch. The China-based conglomerate has filed TikTok Music trademark in countries like the U.K., Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Malaysia and Costa Rica. This comes after a Business Insider report last week, which pointed toward a
Despite Zuckerberg & Co. spending billions of dollars on virtual reality tech every fiscal quarter, the wider VR startup ecosystem has been having a tough few years coming down from the highs of 2016, when investors dumped money into the sector expecting Oculus-sized returns only to see most of their investments slowly wilt away. This
News that private equity group Thoma Bravo is buying Ping Identity for $2.8 billion in cash broke earlier today, marking the beginning of the end of Ping’s life as a public company (at least for now). Thoma Bravo will pay $28.50 per share in an all-cash transaction, a price that TechCrunch noted is a roughly
The day before Lyft shut down its in-house rental service and laid off close to 60 employees, the team in charge of the program was consumed by what they thought was a much bigger problem. Throughout June, the rentals team had attempted to get the service up and running in New York without success. The
TechCrunch Disrupt is back, in person on October 18–20 in San Francisco, and we want to remind university and college students that one minute can change the trajectory of your startup dreams. How? The possibility begins when you apply to the TechCrunch Student Pitch Competition (powered by Blackstone LaunchPad). Here’s how it works: Record a
Cera, a U.K. provider of healthcare inside people’s homes augmented by a platform that allows carers to monitor a patient’s health and potentially flag problems, has raised $320 million (£260 million) in an equity and debt financing round, split roughly 50/50. The equity side of the funding round was led by Cera’s existing investor Kairos
Today in New York City, OnePlus held its first in-person launch event in two-plus years. That’s a lot of time away for a company that’s leaned so heavy on its fanbase for previous launches. Accordingly, the Gotham Hall event packed in fans and members of the press. COVID-19 may still be looming, but the OPPO-owned
Starbucks will unveil its web3 initiative, which includes coffee-themed NFTs, at next month’s Investor Day event. The company earlier this year announced its plans to enter the web3 space, noting its NFTs wouldn’t just serve as digital collectibles, but would provide their owners with access to exclusive content and other perks. At the time, Starbucks
Which startups will benefit the most from a strengthening greenback? And will changes in the value of major currencies lift any particular region? The U.S. dollar is having a good year. The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the value of the dollar against other currencies, for example, bottomed out at around 95 points in early
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked: Is it the bootstrapper’s time to jump on the
Anitra St. Hilaire Contributor I’ve been the first human resources leader at two successful startups. In both instances, I’ve built the human resources function and people teams from the ground up. Doing this from scratch means you have to consider everything, from compliance to compensation. Often, processes and procedures just fell into place before I
Andreessen Horowitz’s recent hire of former Jordan Park Group Chief Investment Officer Michel Del Buono suggests the venture capital firm is getting into startup founder wealth management. The outfit, more commonly known as a16z, confirmed Del Buono’s hire as CIO to oversee those types of services for founders, as first reported by Bloomberg. TechCrunch reached
Barely a day goes by without news of layoffs emerging from the tech world — from cybersecurity to gaming, no industry is impervious. It’s not limited to any particular size of company, either — everything from fledgling startups and scaleups, to billion-dollar public entities such as Netflix have all “downsized” or put their hiring plans on
With the shift to working from home becoming permanent for many, it’s important to upgrade more than just your desk chair. A good keyboard is not only more pleasant to work on but can help you avoid pain or even change the way you work entirely. Here are a few that stray from the beaten
Twitter is developing an updated version of its audio chat rooms product known as Spaces, TechCrunch learned and Twitter confirmed. The company said it’s currently working a new experiment for the Twitter Spaces tab in its app, but declined to discuss the specifics of that change. However, screenshots of one of the earlier versions of
Bluecopa, an Indian startup building a finance operations automation platform for high-volume companies, has raised $2.3 million to expand its offering in the global market. The seed funding round was led by Mumbai-headquartered Blume Ventures, with participation from Titan Capital, T-Fund, Speciale Invest, Bharat Founders Fund, T2D3, Amplify and Force Ventures. It was also joined
E-commerce marketing automation platform Klaviyo has received a $100 million strategic investment from Shopify, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The disclosure coincided with the announcement that Klaviyo and Shopify will strengthen their existing partnership by making Klaviyo the recommended email product for Shopify’s premium merchant plan, Shopify Plus, while