Instagram is introducing a new profile banner that will display a user’s upcoming livestreams, the company announced on Wednesday. Instagram head Adam Mosseri detailed the new feature in a video published to his social media profiles and noted that users can now display a badge on their profile to let others know that they have a
With the catchy moniker Deep Decarbonization Frontier Fund, Energy Impact Partners has captured $200 million of commitments for its $350 million fund, doubling down on its commitments to transition the world toward a sustainable future. The fund targets early-stage technologies that accelerate the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The Frontier Fund is built on
With sales teams now operating remotely, it is even harder to monitor how well they are performing. Atrium wants to make sure sales managers, sales development managers and customer success leads have the data-driven insights to be able to do that. The sales management technology company closed on $20 million in Series A funding to
The pandemic spurred a boom in electric bikes and other alternative urban transportation modes as city dwellers looked for less-crowded ways to get around their streets quickly and easily without resorting to cars. Now, one of the companies that benefitted from that trend is announcing a big round of funding to expand its business. Cowboy,
Following a two-month delay, Valve’s Steam Deck will launch on February 25th. In a blog post the company published on Wednesday, Valve said it would open orders to the first batch of reservation holders that day. Those customers will have 72 hours to purchase the handheld. If they don’t use the opportunity, Valve will release
As the startup game has matured around the world, it’s become less fun. Building companies from nothing to something is hardly supposed to be laugh-a-minute, but I think we’ve lost sight of how much fun new tech used to be. An example that comes to mind is Meerkat. Let me explain: Back in 2015, Meerkat
You’ve got a hundred-million-dollar mission — why are you using software built in the ’90s to design and launch it? That’s the question being asked by many new space companies, and Epsilon3 is looking to help them bring their operations out of spreadsheets and Word docs and into a modern and collaborative work platform. We
As a result of its ongoing partnership with nonprofit and anti-sexual assault organization RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), Tinder today announced a handful of product improvements as well as training for internal teams at the dating app maker designed to better support survivors of abuse and harassment. Soon, Tinder also says its members
Husk Power Systems, a clean energy company that has been at the forefront of fueling rural electrification since 2008, is planning to launch 500 solar mini-grids in Nigeria over the next five years. The renewable energy firm revealed the plans today when it announced the signing of a voluntary commitment with the United Nations to
Israeli startup Firebolt has been taking on Google’s BigQuery, Snowflake and others with a cloud data warehouse solution that it claims can run analytics on large datasets cheaper and faster than its competitors. Now, it is announcing a big round of funding to fuel its big data growth: Firebolt has raised $100 million in a
Pimloc, a UK computer vision startup that’s sharpened its business pitch to sell an AI service for quickly anonymizing video — automating the blurring of faces or licence plates, along with a suite of other visual search services — has grabbed another chunk of seed funding: Announcing a raise of $7.5M, led by Zetta Venture
Snapchat is upgrading its AR shopping experience today with updates to both to the Shopping Lenses inside its social app as well as to the analytics shared with Snap’s brand and retail partners. For consumers, the AR shopping features become more practical to use, as they’ll now display key product information, updated in real-time, like
OZÉ, a Ghanaian fintech startup that provides digital recordkeeping tools with embedded finance products to medium and small businesses, has raised a $3 million pre-Series A round. The startup’s new financing round was led by European early-stage VC Speedinvest, with participation from Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, Savannah Capital and other unnamed angel investors. This news
A sari-sari store owner who uses GrowSari GrowSari, the Manila-based startup that helps small shops grow and digitize, announced today that KKR will lead its Series C round with a $45 million investment. The funds will be used to enter new regions in the Philippines and expand its financial products. The Series C round is
Quantum computing promises to unlock a new wave of processing power for the most complex calculations, but that could prove to be just as harmful as it is helpful: security specialists warn that malicious hackers will be able to use quantum machines to break through today’s standards in cryptography and encryption. Today, a startup called
French startup Resilience announced yesterday that it has raised a $45 million (€40 million) Series A round led by Cathay Innovation. The startup wants to improve the treatment journey when you’re diagnosed with cancer so that you live a healthier and longer life. In addition to Cathay Innovation, existing investor Singular is also participating. Other
News reports surfaced over the past 24 hours that the $40 billion Nvidia-Arm deal, which ranks among the most expensive tech deals ever, is in peril. Nvidia is reportedly ready to walk away due to regulatory pressure. The question is, what does it mean for tech M&A if this deal falls apart? Let’s not forget
Companies make acquisitions for a host of reasons. Sometimes it’s about filling a hole in a product road map, or expanding market share, or finding good people. Finding the right company to acquire takes special talent. But once the deal is through, it takes skill and a deft hand to integrate the acquired company smoothly
When the company first revealed that it’s considering adding a trusted friends feature, it also presented another concept that would allow you to take on different personas within the same account. It’s unclear if that version of the feature is no longer in development. Twitter is also testing a feature called Communities that gives you
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 January 25, 2022! Today our cup overflows with news. There’s simply too much going on to cover in a single newsletter, so I’ve tried to
Bulgarian venture capital is experiencing something of a renaissance. Last year LAUNCHub Ventures raised a €70 million find aimed at South Eastern Europe, while Vitosha Venture Partners raised a €26 million ($30 million) fund for startup out of Bulgaria. Now Eleven Ventures, another Bulgarian VC focused on pre-seed and seed investing in South-Eastern Europe (SEE)
IRobot announced Terra three years ago this week. After making some tough internal decisions to delay launch back in 2020, the robot mower is still MIA. For those with a lot of grass and far less time, there are still a number of robotic mowers out there, on both the commercial and consumer side of
Amid this long-lasting startup era, 2021 may go down as the peak venture capital year. When The Exchange looked at global data for venture capital activity in 2021, we used words like “bonkers” and “record-setting.” Those might have been a little modest when we compare just how much the venture asset class has grown from
In a letter published today by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the executive suggests the video-sharing platform may embrace Web3 technologies, including NFTs — or non-fungible tokens, a way to certify digital assets stored on the blockchain — as a means of helping YouTube creators make money. While no concrete plans were shared, nor any sense
Kencko, the plant-based, blender-free smoothie company, raised $10 million in Series A funding to expand into new categories. Existing investor Siddhi Capital led the round and was joined by both current and new investors, including Next View Ventures, Riverside Ventures, Silas Capital, Cheyenne Ventures, Shilling Capital, Indico Capital, Mission Point, Gather Ventures and Nextblue Ventures.
Scratchpad, a startup that is building a tool to make it easier for salespeople to enter data into Salesforce, has expanded that mission to give access to the information it’s collecting to the whole revenue team. Apparently, investors were pleased with that expanded approach, and the company announced a $33 million Series B today. Previous
Sylvera, a UK-based startup which uses machine learning technology to analyze a variety of visual data like satellite imagery and Lidar with the goal of boosting accountability and credibility around carbon offsetting projects, has fast followed a $5.8 million seed round in May last year by closing a $32M Series A. The round was co-led
Peloton ended 2020 on top. Its own supply chain issues had presented a hurdle — but if anything, these were side effects of the company’s own stratospheric successes. It simply couldn’t keep up with demand, one of the better problems to have as a business on the rise. Always leave them wanting more, as P.T.
Mental health app Intellect’s founder and CEO Theodoric Chew Intellect, the Singapore-based mental health startup focused primarily on Asia-Pacific markets, announced today it has raised a $10 million Series A. The company’s services, including self-directed mental wellness programs in 15 languages and online therapy sessions, are available through two channels: as an employee benefit and
Meet Zoi, a new French startup that wants to combine routine medical checkups with preventive care through a mobile app. The startup has been co-founded by Ismaël Emelien, former special advisor to Emmanuel Macron during the early days of its presidency, and Paul Dupuy, who previously worked on Workwell. Before I tell you more about