In the beginning of the pandemic, we learned which companies were unprepared to handle a cataclysmic event. Now, as the world slowly starts to reopen in light of vaccinations, we’re learning which companies that soared during the pandemic also lost their discipline amid it. Over the past two years, tech rightfully became more critical than
Germany-based construction tech startup Cosuno has raised a $30 million Series B led by U.S. growth equity firm Avenir Growth. Spark Capital and Cherry Ventures, which led the Series A six months ago, also participated. Cosuno now says its valuation is put at $150 million. Construction is one of the largest industries in the world
Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Friday, February 11, 2022! Today we’re talking big rockets, self-driving cars, tech stocks getting rekt, and more. It’s a fun, and good mix of news. Enjoy! – Alex The TechCrunch Top 3 Rocketship, or big vapor phallus? At an event about SpaceX’s huge Starship launch system, more questions
The number of startups building buy now, pay later (BNPL) services is long. Just this year we’ve seen French BNPL startup Alma raise a $130 million equity round, BillEase raise $11 million for BNPL in the Philippines, Lipa Later raise $12 million for the same effort in Kenya, and ThankUCash raise $5.3 million for fintech
Instagram is introducing a rolling out a “Your activity” tab that allows users to see and manage their activity on the app. The company started testing the feature late last year and is now rolling it out to all users worldwide. The new tab allows users to bulk delete their content and interactions. This includes
When someone knocks on your door waving a check for $17 billion, you have to let them in for a chat. But when presented with that very offer this week from a consortium of private equity firms, Zendesk’s board rejected the deal on grounds that it undervalued the company. In a statement, they said they were
There are plenty of competitors in so-called FMS (Farm Management Software), but so far no global dominant leader has emerged. Agrivi has raised $7.3M, Granular $24.9M and Farmlogs $37M. So there’s clearly plenty of scope for more. Now Estonia-based eAgronom, another FMS startup, has closed a $7.4 million Series A round led by Yolo Investments and ZGI Capital. Also
In the world of cybersecurity, you can’t secure something if you don’t know it’s there. Enter cybersecurity asset management, an admittedly unsexy fragment of the booming industry that investors have shown an ever-increasing appetite for over the past 18 months. The cybersecurity industry experienced what is being hailed by some as a “golden year” —
Utah-based proptech Homie has laid off one-third of its staff, according to reports. Hunter Richardson, former director of talent advisory and acquisition at Homie, posted on LinkedIn that he was among the one-third affected but declined to comment on his being let go. Homie was founded in 2015, and according to its CEO and co-founder
Tumblr is launching its second attempt at a monetization feature today. Rolling out in the U.S. now and soon globally, Tumblr Tips will let bloggers receive one-time payments from their supporters. Tumblr will not take a cut from these payments, though standard credit card fees (2.9% + $0.30) will apply. Tipping is available on web,
February 2014 seems so long ago. Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox shut down after it was hacked, the Nokia X was unveiled at Mobile World Congress, and Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft’s Server & Tools division, was promoted to the CEO spot, replacing Steve Ballmer. To mark the eighth anniversary of Nadella’s ascension, enterprise reporter Ron
Google’s dominance of the online ad market has been targeted by another antitrust complaint filed in the European Union by a coalition of publishers. This time it’s the European Publishers Council (EPC) — whose members include the CEOs of News UK, Condé Nast, New York Times, Axel Springer and The Guardian, among others — arguing
Artificial intelligence has infiltrated a number of industries, and the restaurant industry was one of the latest to embrace this technology, driven in main part by the global pandemic and the need to shift to online orders. That need continues to grow. In 2021, some 60% of Americans ordered takeout or delivery at least once
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. We had the full crew aboard today for our live taping, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Overall, it was a success? Our streaming tech took us to
Earlier this year YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki laid out an overview of what the video behemoth was planning for the year ahead, including a strong hint that it was considering the introduction of NFTs for creators to connect in a different way with fans. Today, the site’s chief product officer, Neal Mohan, has published a
RedRoute, a voice-based customer service experiences and conversational artificial intelligence startup, is going after an emerging $350 billion customer service automation sector. When Brian Schiff, Sam Krut and Jacob Cooper founded the company in 2015, they were still undergraduates at Cornell University and it was initially an Uber-like social transportation app to help people find
The UK’s competition authority has accepted commitments from Google over how it develops the post-cookie future of interest-based ad targeting online under its self-styled “Privacy Sandbox” proposal. In an announcement today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it is satisfied that the legally binding commitments secured from Google will ensure that the evolution of
Tiger Global-backed ShareChat and Times Internet-owned on-demand video streaming service MX Player have agreed to “strategically merge” their short video apps Moj and MX TakaTak, the two firms said Thursday, in a move they said would create India’s largest short-video platform. The deal is structured this way: MX Media, the parent firm of MX Player
Atommerce, a Korean startup that helps users connect with mental health professionals via a mobile app MiNDCAFE, plans to scale its service for growth with a $16.7 million Series B, which was three times oversubscribed within two months. With the recent funding, Atommerce plans to enhance artificial intelligence and machine learning technology for its platform
A startup hoping to reinvent regional air travel with an unusual vertical-takeoff aircraft has rebranded and raised a $12.4M funding round. Craft Aerospace will henceforth be known as Odys Aviation, and the money will go towards, among other things, a planned demonstration flight this year with a one-passenger prototype. The interesting “blown wing” approach to
Last December, Facebook officially began allowing crypto advertisers to buy ads on its platform. This quiet but important change meant that a long-closed marketing avenue for crypto products was now open. But what are best practices for crypto marketers in general? And is the platform worth exploring for crypto and NFT projects? First, let’s understand
Gremlin, the popular chaos engineering startup, today announced that it has brought on Josh Leslie, the former CEO of Cumulus Networks, which was acquired by Nvidia in 2020, as its CEO. Kolton Andrus, who co-founded the company back in 2016 and held the CEO role since, will become Gremlin’s CTO to focus on driving the
Use of Google Analytics has now been found to breach European Union privacy laws in France — after a similar decision was reached in Austria last month. The French data protection watchdog, the CNIL, said today that an unnamed local website’s use of Google Analytics is non-compliant with the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Virtual production has rapidly become one of the most promising techniques in media. But while a huge and sophisticated real-time display instead of a green screen solves many problems, it also creates new ones. The creators of Netflix’s mind-bending Dark took on this challenge for the production of their new show, 1899 — and combined
Mdundo, an Africa-focused music streaming service, is banking on more partnerships with telcos across the continent to grow its earnings and user base. Last year, the company signed deals with MTN and Airtel in Nigeria, and Vodacom in Tanzania, which appear to be paying off after its user-base almost doubled as it added paying subscribers
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Thursday, February 10, 2022! Trying new stuff is always risky, but I wanted to say thanks to everyone who came out today to watch Equity
Inflation in the United States came in a little over expectations: The consumer price index rose 7.5% last year, the largest figure in some decades. In response, expectations for monetary tightening in America are also running hot. And as interest rates rise, there’s an expectation that safer assets will become more attractive, and more speculative
A special set of editorials published in today’s issue of the journal Science argue that social media in its current form may well be fundamentally broken for the purposes of presenting and disseminating facts and reason. The algorithms are running the show now, they argue, and the systems priorities are unfortunately backwards. In an incisive
After 14 years, it’s hard to keep calling Egnyte a startup. It’s more a wily veteran private company with steady growth, one that might have taken 12 years to reach $100 million in ARR, but took just two more to reach $150 million. It could surpass $200 million this year, and Egnyte CEO and co-founder
French startup Alma is trying to build a new “buy now, pay later” giant in Europe. The company has closed a $130 million Series C round (€115 million). It has also raised $109 million (€95 million) in debt financing. Tencent, GR Capital and Roosh Ventures are investing in the startup for the first time. Some