If you’re a coach who’s ever thought, “Man, I wish there was a footwear-mounted performance tracker for my soccer team,” boy, do I have some excellent news for you. Playermaker, founded in 2016, is already in use by more than 250 teams, and the company today announced a $40 million fundraise, which will help it
The banking industry isn’t always welcoming to startups, depending on the market’s outlook. As inflation rises and companies brace for the worst, once-promising neobanks are being forced to face the music. For example, Varo Bank, the first neobank to be granted a U.S. bank charter, recently revealed that it could run out of cash by
The European Union is considering how to respond to a major blow to its antitrust enforcement after a court in Luxembourg sided with chipmaker Qualcomm — which had been appealing a €997 million ($1BN+) fine the EU levied against it back in 2018. At the time, the bloc’s competition regulator concluded Qualcomm had abused its
Platform9, which bills itself as an “open distributed cloud company,” today announced that it closed a $26 million funding round led by Celesta Capital with participation from Cota Capital, NGP Capital and other investors. CEO Bhaskar Gorti said that the new cash will be used to drive Platform9’s go-to-market strategy and product research and development,
Coinbase has hired Arnab Kumar, former executive at Prosus Ventures, in the latest push to relaunch its eponymous cryptocurrency exchange in India. Kumar, who has previously also worked at influential think tank Niti Aayog and Deutsche Bank, is joining the exchange as director of India market expansion, a spokesperson said in an email. At Niti
The crypto sell-off of the last several days was preceded by staffing cuts at several companies in the business of facilitating the trading of decentralized assets and tokens. Reductions at Gemini and Crypto.com were superseded today by news that Coinbase is cutting more than 1,000 staff. Given that Coinbase and other crypto exchanges were high-flying
It’s difficult to build high-growth clean tech companies using venture capital: Despoiling the planet has a much higher return on investment than saving it. Twenty years ago, there were high hopes for companies aiming to mitigate environmental impacts, but an extended recession, China’s dominance over solar power manufacturing and low natural gas prices were just
Shared micromobility giant Lime is piloting electric motorbikes in Long Beach, California. Lime has been teasing a new form factor to cater to use cases outside of scooters and bikes for a while, so it’s no surprise to see the company test out a vehicle that’s sturdy and comfortable like a bike but easy to
NordVPN, one of the most popular VPN providers, is the latest to confirm that it will be removing its servers in India ahead of the nation enforcing new strict guidelines later this month. The Lithuania-based firm, which counts General Catalyst and Novator among its backers and is valued at $1.6 billion, said on Tuesday that
Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern joins Emily Chang from the Bloomberg Technology Summit to discuss the macro environment’s impact on travel, consumer behavior trends, and take a look at travel in the year ahead.
Biotech startup Meta Pharmaceuticals sets itself an ambitious goal as it secures its initial investment. The Shenzhen-based company, which sets out to develop treatments for autoimmune diseases with the help of artificial intelligence, has raised $15 million from its seed and pre-A rounds. There is no lack of investor interest in companies applying machine learning
Many people have plenty of online subscriptions that they barely use, and can save a fair amount of money with a service like Truebill to see all their recurring payments in one place. Spendflo wants to do the same for enterprise subscribers of SaaS services, and is targeted toward chief financial officers and finance leadership
Crypto falls below $1T as lending giant freezes withdrawals Jacquelyn Melinek 7 hours Crypto markets were shaken as the not-so-stablecoin UST and sister cryptocurrency LUNA collapsed last month, bringing the digital asset economy down with them and exposing smaller, more vulnerable players. Now, we’re seeing crypto whales like Celsius floating up to the surface for
Though the iPad was a huge hit from the beginning based on its user-friendly interface and single-application focus, it had begun feeling a bit stale for those who hunger for more depth. Long one of the world’s lightest and most powerful medium format computers, the lag between what kind of work it was capable of
Apple introduced some amazing updates across iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS at the worldwide developer conference (WWDC) last week. The company announced a few new features never seen before on iOS like Stage Manager for better multitasking and Safety Check to get away from abusers. But there are others that Apple simply Sherlocked — the
Magic Spoon, the maker of better-for-you cereals, secured $85 million in Series B funding as three of its brands make the jump from direct-to-consumer-only offerings to Target store shelves for the first time. HighPost Capital led the new round, which brings Magic Spoon’s total funding to date to $100 million. HighPost is joined by Siddhi
On a very special episode of The TechCrunch Podcast this week, I’m joined by Apple Senior Director of Platform Product Marketing Kurt Knight, who talks us through some of the big updates Apple announced at its WWDC conference on Monday. Kurt specifically talks us through the big new changes to Apple’s Continuity suite of features
Celsius Network, one of the biggest crypto lenders, told customers Sunday evening that it is pausing withdrawals, swap, and transfers between accounts in a move that has sparked discussions and has prompted the price of the firm’s token to take a 60% tumble in the past one hour to 19 cents. “We are taking this
The Zendesk ownership saga took several new turns this week, with an external investor, Jana Partners, agitating against the company, a review of its strategic options coming to a close, and the business software company deciding to stay independent. Now worth less than $10 billion, Zendesk has made more noise in recent months than you
Welcome to The Interchange, a take on this week’s fintech news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. Greetings from Austin, Texas, where the temps have been over 100 degrees for days now and we’re trying hard just not to melt. The global funding boom in 2021 was unlike anything most of us
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. Per Layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracker, over 16,000 tech workers lost their jobs in May, and June is off to a similarly brutal start. TechCrunch’s senior reporter Amanda Silberling and I have accidentally,
Hi, friends! Welcome back to Week In Review, the newsletter where we recap some of the top stories to cross TechCrunch dot com this week. The most read story this week was . . . well, everything that came out of Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference. Apple tends to dominate the news cycle during WWDC,
During its WWDC keynote, Apple announced a bevy of changes and updates to its hardware and software. In the mix were anticipated improvements to its various operating systems and computers — and plans to expand its fintech footprint. Apple has been growing as a consumer finance company for some time, most famously thanks to its
Mexico City-based digital bank Klar has raised $70 million in equity funding at a valuation of $500 million, the startup announced today. The raise follows a period of hypergrowth for the company. Klar experienced a “7x” year-over-year increase in revenue and 4x bump in transaction volume over the same time period, according to Klar co-founder
Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. When does a startup stop being a startup? It’s a tougher question than it seems — tech companies have found that there’s power in
Boulder Care, a Portland, Oregon–based telehealth provider focused on medical treatment and support for people overcoming substance use disorders, raised $36 million in Series B funding. Founded in 2017 by Stephanie Strong, the company has a mission to address national overdose rates, particularly with opioid and alcohol use disorders. Analysis from the White House in
Technology built with defense in mind is getting some significant and serious traction at the moment, spurred by world events, advances in technology and a growing appetite from end users to invest in more innovative ways to protect themselves. In the latest development, Shield AI — which makes software and hardware for drones and other
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the
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 Friday, June 10, 2022, and Haje is on the road, so it’s just me today. Before I let you enjoy the weekend, there are a few housekeeping items to address. First,
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The show is largely off this week, which means that we don’t have our usual deluge of new startup news covered for you. But, we didn’t want to leave you with nothing at all on this lovely Friday,