Aiming to compete with Bilt in the nascent property renter rewards market, Stake, a startup that provides cash back and banking services to renters, today announced that it raised $12 million in a Series A round led by RET Ventures’ new RET Ventures ESG Fund. Enterprise Community Partners, Hometeam Ventures, Operator Stack, Shadow Ventures, Olive
Storytelling platform Wattpad is introducing a new creator program for writers that can earn them up to $25,000 in compensation. The company is also debuting a new metric called “Engaged Readers,” to help writers gauge readers’ interest in their stories, and Wattpad Creator Portal, a new site for writers to get tips and tricks about
On April 4, the U.K.’s development finance institution, Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) Group, formally changed its name to British International Investment. As part of the name change, the development finance institution (DFI) announced that it surpassed its pledge to invest £2 billion in Africa over the last two years. It was a reminder of the
The U.K. is planning to tweak an existing law to allow text and data mining “for any purpose,” in a move that’s designed to boost artificial intelligence (AI) development across the country. The announcement constitutes part of a broader strategy to “level up” AI and transform the U.K. into what it calls a “global AI
Most Americans dread doing their taxes. Surveys show as much. But as many as 40% rely on money from tax refunds to satisfy some financial obligation. Ben Borodach, a former Deloitte fintech strategist and the CEO of tax service provider April, believes this points to the need for taxpayers to change their behavior from thinking
Alex Song Contributor Alex Song is the CEO and co-founder of Proxima, a data science company that helps brands better reach consumers across all major platforms. More posts by this contributor Why D2C holding companies are here to stay Every day, the advertising world faces new challenges and opportunities. New platforms, mediums, M&A activity, privacy
New data indicates that startups are laying off more staff. That said, the pace of layoffs is modest compared with the early-2020 economic correction. As COVID locked down many nations for the first time, the global economy shuddered and startups were left to deal with an immensely changed world effectively overnight. Layoffs at companies like
Very soon, humanity will get to view the deepest images of the universe that have ever been captured. In two weeks, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — NASA’s super expensive, super powerful deep space optical imager — will release its first full-color images, and agency officials today suggested that they could just
AlgiKnit is on a mission to offer more environmentally conscious materials for the heavily polluting fashion and textile industries. The startup is developing materials from seaweeds such as Macrocystis Pyrifera, one of the planet’s most renewable and regenerative organisms, creating yarns and fibers that don’t rely on petroleum or toxic chemicals. Aleks Gosiewski, Aaron Nesser
Y Combinator has announced Launch YC, a platform where people can sort accelerator startups by industry, batch and launch date to discover new products. The famed accelerator, which has seeded the likes of Instacart, Coinbase, OpenSea and Dropbox, invites users to vote for newly launched startups “to help them climb up the leaderboard, try out
Consumer rights groups in Europe have filed a new series of privacy complaints against Google — accusing the advertising giant of deceptive design around the account creation process which they say steers users into agreeing to extensive and invasive processing of their data. The tech giant profiles account holders for ad targeting purposes — apparently
If data is at the heart of any modern business, it needs to be easier to access and manipulate it without expertise. While there are many data analysis tools available including the sophisticated data science variety, and more line of business-focused BI tools, it hasn’t been easy for a person with little experience to work
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: What are my F-1
There is a moment from around April 2021 that Pilar Johnson thinks about often. She was scared and nervous. The Houston native grew up in a low-income neighborhood and had no experience in venture capital. As she waded into the industry, imposter syndrome frequently crept in. Then, she and her team at Debut Capital raised
Pokémon Go developer Niantic is running into trouble as it builds “the real-world metaverse.” Like so many other tech companies facing turbulent economic times, the company decided to let go of 8% of its staff, affecting about 85 to 90 people. Just seven months ago, the company raised $300 million at a $9 billion valuation,
If you want the inside scoop on which companies are serious about addressing their carbon emissions and which aren’t, take a look at the public comments submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its proposed climate rule. You can tell if a company is serious by its stance on so-called Scope 3 emissions.
Snežana Gebauer Contributor Snežana Gebauer, a partner with StoneTurn, has 20 years of experience in managing complex international investigations for major law firms, Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies and sovereign nations. The economic sanctions that have been imposed following the war in Ukraine pose an intricate set of challenges for private equity (PE). Sanctions are
European Union lawmakers are proposing to ban flavored heated tobacco products — a category that covers vaping — in a move they say is intended to protect the health of young people after a “significant” rise in sales of novel heated tobacco products. The EU has set itself a goal of creating a ‘tobacco free
Anonymous social apps targeting teens haven’t gone away in the wake of Snapchat’s new policy, which earlier this year banned these types of social experiences from integrating with its developer platform. Instead, the apps have simply found a new way to reach young people: via Instagram. In recent weeks, new apps like Sendit for Instagram
Kukua, a Nairobi- and London-based educational entertainment company and the creators of “Super Sema,” the first African animated superhero franchise, has raised $6 million in its latest round of investment. Tencent, which made its first African edtech bet in Nigeria’s uLesson last December, co-led this Series A round with Italy-based VC Alchimia. Other investors include
Selling your company — or not selling your company — is a complicated decision. Price, timing, pride, and a host of other factors play into the decision. Hell, you might simply enjoy running the business, be it a startup, unicorn, or public-market behemoth. Sometimes the decision is made for a company’s leadership team. Zendesk’s work
Walmart is expanding its array of virtual try-on services for shoppers with today’s news that it’s planning to acquire Memomi, an AR optical tech company and current Walmart partner offering virtual try-on experience for eyewear. Deal terms were not disclosed, but Memomi has enabled digital measurements for all Walmart and Sam’s Club customers since 2019,
E-commerce marketplaces are big businesses. It was estimated that some $3.2 trillion was spent globally on the top marketplaces in 2021, with those like Taobao, Tmall and Amazon accounting for over 60% of the activity, according to research firm Digital Commerce 360. With that number expected to grow 14% per year, Nautical Commerce wants to
Entrepreneur First made a name for itself a decade ago in its home base of London, and then further afield, for the novel approach it takes to tech investing: rather than seek out interesting, scaling startups like typical VCs, it backs founders and their very, very early stage startup ideas — so nascent in fact
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. Greetings, there is a lot of news to get into today, and my head is reeling a bit from some of that January 6 testimony today, so let’s get right into it.
Birdie, a UK-based caretech software-as-a-service maker, has closed a $30 million Series B funding round led by investment firm Sofina, with Omers Ventures and Index Ventures also participating — the latter reupping its backing after leading Birdie’s Series A last year. Max Parmentier, co-founder and CEO of Birdie, said the latest tranche of funding will
The Federal Trade Commission is suing Walmart for sitting by while scammers bilked customers out of more than $197 million, the agency alleged in a statement on Tuesday. It’s seeking a court order that would force Walmart to give money back to customers, on top of civil fines. In a brief response, Walmart described the
The auto industry is banking on electric vehicles to slash planet-cooking emissions, but EVs are still too expensive to knock gas-guzzlers out of the game. For now, at least. Sure, EV sales are up, maintenance costs are low, and gas prices are high, making combustion engines look all the worse. But on the flip side,
Mapan’s team, with CEO Ardelia Apti in the front In Indonesia, arisans are traditionally rotating savings and credit associations (RSCA) that let groups of people, primarily women, save and borrow money together. Mapan digitized that concept, and turned it into a service where users, also mostly women, can use it to pay for goods and
An independent review of UK legislation has concluded the country urgently needs new laws to govern the use of biometric technologies and called for the government to come forward with primary legislation. Among the legal review’s ten recommendations are that public use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology be suspended pending the creation of a