Clubhouse, the buzzy but still invite-only social audio app that’s popular with the Silicon Valley technorati, is being investigated by France’s privacy watchdog. The CNIL announced today it’s opened an investigation into Clubhouse following a complaint and after it got some initial responses back from Alpha Exploration Co., the U.S.-based company behind the app. It
“Snap, Inc. is a camera company,” Snap notes on its homepage, and while a lot of its effort up to now have been about using that camera ethos to help people share images of their lives with their social circles on its flagship app Snapchat, today the company made an acquisition to further that camera
Diem, a London, U.K.-based fintech startup, has raised a seed round of $5.5 million led by Fasanara Capital, and angel investor Chris Adelsbach, founder of Outrun Ventures. Additional investors include Andrea Molteni (early investor in Farfetch), Ben Demiri (co-chairman at fashion tech PlatformE) and Nicholas Kirkwood (founder of the eponymous brand). Diem is a debit
Seon, which lets online businesses fight online fraud like fake accounts has raised a $12 million Series A round led by Creandum, with participation from PortfoLion, part of OTP Bank. The funding appears to be one of Hungary’s larger series A rounds to date. Seon is a fraud-detection startup that establishes a customers’ ‘digital footprint’ in
More details have emerged today about the European Commission’s legislative proposal for a pan-EU ‘digital green pass’ to show verified COVID-19 status. The plan is controversial from a human rights and civil liberties perspective, given the clear risk of discrimination. But privacy and security experts are also raising concerns about the technology architecture that will
Cubyn, the Paris-based logistics startup that lets e-merchants outsource fulfilment and delivery logistics, has raised another €35 million in funding. The round is led by Eurazeo and Bpifrance Large Venture, with participation from First Bridge Ventures and Fuse Venture Partners. Existing backers DN Capital, 360 Capital, Bpifrance Smart Cities fund and BNP Paribas Développement followed
Saleor, a Poland and U.S.-based startup that offers a “headless” e-commerce platform to make it easier for developers to build better online shopping experiences, has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The round is led by Berlin’s Cherry Ventures, with participation from various angels. They include Guillermo Rauch (Vercel CEO and inventor of Next.js), Chris
Uber’s use of facial recognition technology for a driver identity system is being challenged in the U.K., where the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and Worker Info Exchange (WIE) have called for Microsoft to suspend the ride-hailing giant’s use of B2B facial recognition after finding multiple cases where drivers were mis-identified and went on
We crawled into an abandoned school bus, trespassed through dilapidated hallways, dodged fleeting thunderstorms, and wandered the empty streets of Chinatown late into the evening. For two summery weeks, I couldn’t have been happier. New York City was in lockdown. I’d been quarantined in my dinky apartment, disheartened and restless. I was anxious to do
Rode Microphones has a new and improved version of its much-loved Go portable mic, the Wireless Go II, which uses the same form factor as the original but adds a list of new and improved features. Most notably, the Go II offers two transmitter packs that can simultaneously talk to a single receiver, letting you
China’s Xiaomi had dominated the Indian smartphone market for three consecutive years until recently losing the top spot to Samsung. It has played by the Indian government’s rulebook to support domestic manufacturing, making smartphones in India rather than shipping them from its home country of China. Now it is further ramping up production in India
Many launch providers think reusability is the best way to lower the cost and delay involved in getting to space. SpaceX and Rocket Lab have shown reusable first stages, which take a payload to the edge of space — and now Stoke Space Technologies says it is making a reusable second stage, which will take
Boating is a hobby steeped in history and tradition — and so is the industry and those that support it. With worldwide connectivity, electric boats, and other technological changes dragging the sector out of old habits, Orca aims to replace the outdated interfaces by which people navigate with a hardware-software combo as slick as any
Few things are more personal than a keyboard, and yet they are often overlooked by Work From Home guides. Why use the standard-issue keyboard when there are so many options available? This is a sampling of some of the keyboards used by TechCrunch’s editorial staff. Some are boring, some are for different languages — and
Tonal, maker of the smart home fitness trainer, announced it is more than tripling the number of physical locations it sells devices in through a new partnership with Nordstrom. Starting this month, Tonal will have 50-square-foot stations in the women’s activewear departments of at least 40 Nordstrom locations across the U.S., bringing the total number
There are many jobs in the construction industry that fall under the “dull, dirty, and dangerous” category said to be ripe for automation — but only a few can actually be taken on with today’s technology. One such job is the crucial but repetitive task of rebar tying, which a startup called SkyMul is aiming
Apple has announced that it plans to increase its corporate spendings in Germany. In particular, the company wants to set up a new facility in Munich, Germany. Called the European Silicon Design Center, the team will focus on 5G and potentially future wireless technologies. The company said that Munich is already its largest engineering hub
An artificial retina would be an enormous boon to the many people with visual impairments, and the possibility is creeping closer to reality year by year. One of the latest advancements takes a different and very promising approach, using tiny dots that convert light to electricity, and virtual reality has helped show that it could
Imaging has long been the primary battlefield on which the smartphone battles are waged. It makes sense. The thing about smartphones in 2021 is that they’re mostly very good. Sure, there are differentiators, but if you spend a decent amount on a device from any major manufacturer, you’re probably going to get a pretty good
Meet Detail, a new startup working on an app for iOS and macOS so that you can turn your iPhone into a software-optimized camera for live video. The startup wants to make it easy to use the phone that you have in your pocket with the livestreaming platform that you already use, such as Zoom,
The team behind Songclip thinks that social media could use more music. Yes, music is a big part of the experience on a handful of apps like TikTok and Triller, but Songclip co-founder and COO John vanSuchtelen told me, “That is not the end of how music is going to be a feature, that is
A team of mobile app engineers and designers from companies like Rent the Runway, ClassPass, Kickstarter and others, are now launching their own startup, Runway, to address the common pain points they experienced around the mobile app release cycle. With Runway, teams can connect their existing tools to keep track of the progress of an
You might think that Clubhouse is the final word on audio-centric social networks, but a San Francisco startup called Swell is launching its own iOS and Android app focused on voice conversations. The big difference: While conversations on Clubhouse all happen in real time — meaning that you’ve got to listen live or miss it
Google is making changes to its parental control system, Family Link, that aims to better reflect parents’ changing views on children’s screen time. In the pre-pandemic world, parents were more likely to see screen time as something in need of restriction — they’d rather their kids get offline or go outside to play with friends,
Google is letting developers keep more of their Play revenue, Instagram adds teen safety features and we examine the global distribution of venture funding. This is your Daily Crunch for March 16, 2021. The big story: Google Play halves commission on first $1M Following a similar move by Apple last year, Google said that it
Kosta Eleftheriou, a co-founder of the Fleksy keyboard app later sold to Pinterest in an acqui-hire deal, has been calling attention to Apple App Store issues like fake reviews, ratings and subscription scams, as well as malicious clone apps, after his own app, FlickType, was targeted by scammers. Now, the developer is taking the next
Challenger banks continue to make significant advances in attracting customers away from the big incumbents by providing more modern, user-friendly tools to manage their money. Today, one of the trailblazers in this area, Kuda Technologies, is announcing funding to continue building out its specific ambition: to provide a modern banking service for Africans and the
YouTube Shorts comes to the U.S., Amazon starts testing electric delivery vans in San Francisco and new data suggests the impact of Google Play’s recent changes. This is your Daily Crunch for March 18, 2021. The big story: YouTube’s TikTok rival launches in the US The YouTube Shorts product allows users to record, edit and
Sep.13 — Rett Wallace, Triton Research chief executive officer, comments on WeWork’s plans for a public listing. He speaks with Bloomberg’s Romaine Bostick, Caroline Hyde and Joe Weisenthal on “Bloomberg Markets: What’d You Miss?”
Mar.15 — Former Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer says some car makers won’t be able to pivot fast enough and make more electric cars. He appears on “Bloomberg Markets.”