It’s been a rough week. After the Supreme Court leak, way too much layoff news, the stock prices of the largest tech companies in retreat, and a general feeling that the economy is going in the wrong direction, it’s easy to think everything sucks. But we’re here to lift your spirits a little, at least
Hi friends. In case you missed it last week: I’m Greg, and I’m handling Week in Review now that Lucas is off with Anita building their new crypto-focused podcast/newsletter, Chain Reaction. I’m teeeechnically supposed to be on vacation today, but I figured it was probably not cool to throw the newsletter to someone else ONE
Startups need capital and often fundraise from investors. This requires pitching, numbers, stats and a story. And the time has to be correct. The key to timing is easy, according to this CEO: Fundraise when your confidence is high. Each week on TechCrunch Live, investors and entrepreneurs share lessons learned from personal experiences. And Front
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 you start a project, it’s easy to get caught up in it. Then time passes and suddenly it’s been a half decade. Equity, a podcast I got
Zero trust security is an emerging paradigm in enterprise IT. It means that no one is trusted by default from inside or outside a network and verification is required from everyone trying to gain access to resources on the network. This added layer of protection has been shown to prevent data breaches, but surveys reveal
The era of free money is now officially behind us: The United States Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate benchmark by 0.50%, or 50 basis points, this week. Startups have long basked in the sun of effectively zero-cost money. As a result of a historic period of low rates, the comparative attractiveness of investing
Canadian digital bank Neo Financial has raised $145.2 million (CAN$185 million) after surpassing the 1 million customer mark, the company announced today. Valar Ventures led the investment, which brings Neo’s total funding to $234.7 million (CAN $299 million) since its 2019 inception, and values the company at over $784.8 million. In Canadian dollars, this means that
Instagram is testing a new “Get Quote” button with select businesses on its app, Meta announced on Wednesday. The new button allows users to set up custom questions to ask customers prior to starting a conversation. Once customers fill out the questionnaire, they can then quickly request a quote from a business about a product
When Dock co-founder and CEO Alex Kracov was working at Lattice, an HR startup, he was in charge of a marketing team of 20 people, and he noticed that as the company grew and moved up market, the sales team was having trouble organizing collateral like the pitch deck, ROI analysis and feature videos for
Facebook’s rebranded parent, Meta, has become the next tech giant to be confirmed as subject to a special competition abuse control regime in Germany, following a 2021 update to its digital competition rules that are focused on large digital companies which are considered to be of “paramount significance for competition across markets”, as the law
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here. Friday, May 6, is here. The only thing important about that is the “Friday” part – and we are eager and curious to see what this weekend has in store for us,
When we last checked in with AI-powered captioning service Ava, they had just raised a seed round and it was six months into a pandemic that would reshape how we all work together. Eighteen months later they have investors banging on their door following huge growth, and aim to keep showing the tech industry how
A federal judge in California dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter Friday, dimming at least one avenue the former president and prolific tweeter might have used to get back to his platform of choice. Trump’s argument that the social media company and its then-chief executive Jack Dorsey violated his right to free speech failed to
Here is some news that is both straightforward and still a long time out but nevertheless important: by the end of 2023, GitHub will require all users who contribute code on the platform to enable one or more forms of two-factor authentication (2FA). And that’s pretty much it for the news. Today, the Microsoft-owned company
The food delivery business, and tech companies leading the charge, were hot commodities at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic as people stayed indoors and turned to apps to fill their bellies with pre-made meals. Now with that trend cooling off, those companies are feeling the chill. In the latest development, big changes and drama
The market for startup investment has changed. From the hottest year in startup venture capital history to a period of pessimism, how did we get to where we are today? The following digest of TechCrunch coverage looks to answer that question. We start with a historical run of stories beginning last December, threading through the
Since the pandemic began, the percentage of American workers who have quit their jobs has reached a 20-year high. A Pew Research poll gathered their top three reasons: Not making enough money No opportunities for advancement Tired of unfair/disrespectful treatment Companies no longer compete on the basis of salary and benefits. Prospective hires are explicitly
Meta recently said it would prioritize original content in its algorithms. Now, it’s going to pay for it. To help fend off the TikTok threat, Meta announced this week it now dole additional bonuses to Reels creators who are publishing original content on Facebook. The company warned that this change to payouts could see some
We’re less than two weeks away from kicking off TC Sessions: Mobility 2022. Our first in-person mobility event since 2019 — holy cats! — takes place on May 18-19 in San Mateo, California, followed by an online event on May 20. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with hundreds of your peers and hear about,
Codenotary, the company behind the immutable immudb open source database and a software supply chain security service built on top of it, today announced that it is also adding a full-stack Kubernetes and VMware vSphere monitoring service for operations and DevOps teams on top of that. Basically, while the company’s previous offering — Codenotary Cloud
Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek said on Friday that he’s pouring $50 million into the music streaming service, driving its stock price up by more than 3% to a high of $108.98 per share during regular trading hours. The momentary rise, however, is a blip on the radar for Spotify, which has taken a beating this
The pace at which venture capitalists are deploying funding across the globe slowed yet again in April. Venture capital dollar volume, as tracked by Crunchbase News in a new report, peaked in November 2021. Since that apogee, the value of venture investments has ticked lower in most months before dropping another $5 billion from March
Alex Wilhelm Contributor Alex Wilhelm is the editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News and co-host of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast. More posts by this contributor As Dropbox heads into earnings, it desperately needs a win Here’s how far startup valuations fell in Q1 2022 The leading story in technology-land this morning is the multi-billion dollar exit
Facebook is shutting down its podcast service on June 3 barely a year after its launch. The social media giant told TechCrunch that it’s also going to discontinue its short-form audio Soundbites feature and its Audio hub in the coming weeks. Facebook will also integrate its Live Audio Rooms offering, which is its Clubhouse clone,
Tomorrow Farms is fueling a sustainable food train with ingredients to turn the pantry and refrigerator staples we know now into foods that are better for us and kinder to animals and the planet. The company is poised to launch its first product later this month — co-founder and CEO Ben Berman was mum about
Just over a year after launching a dedicated unit focused on digital markets inside the national competition watchdog, the UK government has put some meat on the bones of what this new Big Tech regulator will focus on — including confirming it will have the ability to levy fines of up to 10% of global
The NFT ecosystem continues to chug along, but the vast majority of volume is still moving through the centralized halls of NFT marketplace OpenSea, leaving crypto VCs eager to find new channels. Katie Haun’s new firm, Haun Ventures, has led its first deal in NFT startup Zora Labs. The $50 million funding round values the
Former investment banker Khaled Jalanbo was working with emerging artists when he encountered an entrepreneur who pointed out the similarities between working with artists and startup founders. “When you get picked up by a good institution or a good leader, or represented by a good gallery, all of a sudden there’s more demand for people
Twitter is rolling out a number of new features for its live audio Spaces product this week. The social media giant is giving hosts and co-hosts on iOS and Android access to analytics about their Spaces. For example, hosts and co-hosts can now get information about how many total live listeners tuned in to the
Google and SAP have partnered around a number of different projects over the years and Google Cloud, just like its competitors, is a strategic cloud partner for RISE with SAP, the German enterprise software company’s program to help its customers move to the cloud. Today, the two companies announced a rather substantial expansion of their