MarketingMuses

The record-setting score that settled the Donkey Kong arcade rivalry, made famous by the documentary The King of Kong, has been invalidated by Twin Galaxies, the de facto arbiter of arcade world records. What’s more, Billy Mitchell, the occasionally controversial player who set the scores, has been permanently banned from consideration for future records. It’s […]

In light of Tesla going a bit rogue and disclosing details of the fatal crash that involved Autopilot, the National Transportation Safety Board is removing Tesla as a party in the investigation. “The NTSB took this action because Tesla violated the party agreement by releasing investigative information before it was vetted and confirmed by the […]

How much drivers can make working for Lyft and Uber has long been a topic of conversation and third-party studies. Now, Lyft is providing some more clarity around how much people can make driving for its platform. “Understandably, we’ve seen a few external groups take their own guesses at what Lyft drivers make, usually as […]

Amazon’s acquisition of Ring officially closed today. Now the companies (or company, rather) are marking the occasion by discounting the Ring Video Doorbell $30, down to $100 — because what better way to celebrate scalability and maximum distribution than a price drop? Amazon is quick to note in its press material that the Ring name […]

Uber is expanding the proposed settlement it made with the Federal Trade Commission last August pertaining to data mishandling, privacy and security complaints that dated back to 2014 and 2015. In August, Uber agreed to 20 years of privacy audits. That proposed settlement happened prior to Uber’s disclosure of the massive 2016 data breach that […]

Impossible Foods is taking another bite out of the meat supply chain, with the announcement that it’s meatless burger substitute is coming to America’s first fast food burger chain — White Castle. That’s right, now stoned vegan hippies can join stoned slackers in their quest for cheap, delicious burger-y goodness. The “Impossible Slider” which is […]

Tocano, a spinout from Delft Technology University in the Netherlands which is working on an inkless printing technology, has closed a €1 million angel round to fund the next stage of its tech development and move a step closer to building its first commercial product. The startup began as the graduate student project of co-founder Venkatesh Chandrasekar […]

No doubt that you’ve seen emoji living in various subject lines inside your inbox lately. Fun fact: Did you know emoji have been shown to increase email open rates? And, as more of our communication becomes text based, emoji are one of the key ways you can express emotions that words may not quite capture. […]

Listen up startup fans — the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Applications to Startup Battlefield are finally open! Now, we told you that Disrupt San Francisco 2018 is going to be our biggest, boldest, most ambitious Disrupt ever: triple the floor space, 12 technology tracks, four unique stages and more than 10,000 […]

SpaceX has authorized a new Series I round for 3 million shares in a new round that will be worth up to $507 million, according to a certificate of incorporation document filed in Delaware. If all shares in this round are issued, the new round would value SpaceX at around $23.7 billion, according to the […]

Disrupt lands in San Francisco this September, and the agenda is shaping up to be absolutely amazing. With new digs at Moscone West and expanded capacity, we expect Disrupt SF (September 5-7) to be the biggest and best conference TechCrunch has ever had. And, in large part, that’s credited to our incredible guests. Today, we’re […]

Follow four startups through all the ups and downs Romain Dillet @ / 7 hours A year and a half ago, Station F and Le Studio Next teamed up for a documentary series about building a startup — and the result is called Foundation. It’s a personal and honest documentary series and I had a […]

The city of Glendale, Calif. seems like an unlikely place to grow one of the next billion dollar startups in the booming Los Angeles tech ecosystem. Located at the southeastern tip of the San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles suburb counts its biggest employers as the adhesive manufacturer Avery Dennison; the Los Angeles industrial team […]

Meet Bubblz, a French startup that wants to optimize all the boring processes that slow you down. If you’re trying to hire someone, if you need to collect information from many people, if you regularly put together marketing campaigns, you can use Bubblz to automate all the steps and collaborate with your coworkers. Many people […]

In a post today, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced a slew of new features for the app, designed to address growing concerns over rider safety. A majority of the additions are contained within a handy Safety Center landing page inside the app. The section features a bunch of insight into the company’s process for screening […]

After tomorrow, April 13, ticket prices for TC Sessions: Robotics will jump $100 for the May 11 event hosted at UC Berkeley. Buy your early bird $249 tickets today before these savings fly the coop! You’ll get full access to the conference, workshops and closing networking reception. Lunch and breakfast are included. The event’s stage […]

Stash, the finance app favored by first-time investors who are just learning the market, is getting into banking. The company announced this morning it will roll out a set of mobile-first banking services aimed at those left behind by traditional banks. The services include bank accounts with debit cards, no overdraft fees, access to a network of […]

Founded in 2010 as an online loyalty card service, Punchh has since grown into a marketing platform serving more than 115 restaurant chains, including Pizza Hut and Quiznos. Now it’s raised a $20 million Series B to expand into more retail verticals and increase the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in its cloud […]

At a time when web users are becoming more concerned about their online privacy and personal data, Mozilla today is launching a new version of its Firefox for iOS web browser that includes Tracking Protection turned on by default. That means when you use the browser, websites won’t be able to track your activity and capture […]

Yesterday, Google pressed the Send button too quickly and informed G Suite customers that a new Gmail was coming soon. TechCrunch obtained a few screenshots of the new interface from a tipster called Chaim. I confirmed the authenticity of those screenshots with another person who saw the new design. So here’s what you can expect. […]

Tastemade is getting a Goop makeover with the announcement that the former president of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle empire, Geraldine Martin-Coppola, is coming on board as Tastemade’s new chief operating officer. Martin brings a wealth of experience in lifestyle branding to Tastemade’s online video and pictorial food, travel, and home design channel. At Tastemade, Martin-Coppola will […]

Dutch startup Revue, which is now positioning itself as an “editorial newsletter platform,” is adding the option to charge subscribers. This means that newsletters can be monetized directly, rather than relying on sponsorship or ads. The new feature requires signing up for a Stripe account, which you connect to Revue. You then write a description […]

Criminal records, driving records, employment verifications. Companies that use on-demand employees need to know that all the boxes have been checked before they send workers into the world on their behalf, and they often need those boxes checked quickly. A growing number of them use Checkr, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based company says that it now […]

When it launched back in 2010, Cloudflare was all about speeding up websites and protecting them from hackers. Today, with the launch of Spectrum, it’s taking a major step to move beyond the web and into protecting — and potentially speeding up — other parts of the internet. While Cloudflare’s regular services work well for […]

If you’re new to Einstein Account-Based Marketing it’s built on Salesforce and gives marketers the ability to leverage Salesforce platform features like AI, and Analytics. To extend the power of the solution, we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Demandbase. Demandbase will be the newest addition to our amazing suite of AppExchange partners who […]

[embedded content] A musician from Raleigh, North Carolina named Chase Holfelder, recorded a cover of Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity,” a stonerific acid jazz anthem that should be familiar to ’90s kids. This version, however, is recorded entirely inside a virtual reality rig with the help of the HTC Vive and VRScout. Holfelder used the SoundScape VR […]

Zaius, a customer data company working with consumer brands like Tea Forte and Burt’s Bees Baby, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. CEO Mark Gally said that while business-to-business marketing revolves around the CRM, there’s a “hodgepodge” on the consumer marketing side. More specifically, he said consumer marketers have a “swivel chair problem” […]

East Meet East, a New York-based matchmaking service focused on connecting Asian people in the U.S., is expanding its focus to go after dating opportunities in Asia after it raised a $4 million Series A funding round. The money comes from existing backer 500 Startups and new investors Asahi Medialab Ventures, DG Lab Fund (a joint effort […]

When Luminar came out of stealth last year with its built-from-scratch lidar system, it seemed to beat established players like Velodyne at their own game — but at great expense and with no capability to build at scale. After the tech proved itself on the road, however, Luminar got to work making its device better, […]

As part of All Raise’s mission to increase the number of female founders who receive venture funding in the next five years, All Raise has tapped more than 120 successful female founders to provide one-on-one mentorship to other women building companies. Currently, female founders receive just 15 percent of all venture funding, according to All […]

We are excited to announce two more top-quality speakers for our forthcoming TC Sessions: Blockchain event which takes place on July 6. Gert Sylvest, co-founder of Tradeshift and GM of Tradeshift Frontiers, and Galia Benartzi, co-founder and head of business development for Bancor, join our growing list of confirmed speakers. In case you missed those, they include Brian Behlendorf, […]

Billie, a New York-based startup that wants to fight the “pink tax” on goods marketed to women, announced today that it has closed a $6 million seed round. The funding was led by Silverton Partners, with participation from returning investors including Female Founders Fund and Lakehouse Ventures, and will be used to grow Billie’s team […]

LG is making efforts to improve the user experience on its devices after it opened a “Software Upgrade Center” in its native Korea. The new lab will be focused on “providing customers worldwide with faster, timelier, smartphone operating system and software updates,” the company explained in a brief statement. The idea is to help get […]

WeWork is buying up one of its largest competitors in China after it announced a deal to acquire Naked Hub. The deal was widely reported by Chinese media yesterday, but WeWork has now confirmed it through a blog post from its CEO Adam Neumann. Terms of the transaction are not disclosed but Bloomberg reported that it […]

Cluno, a startup operating out of Munich that offers what it calls a “car subscription” service, has raised €7 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Acton Capital Partners, with participation from previous investor Atlantic Labs. Founded in 2017 by the same team behind easyautosale, which exited to Autoscout24 in 2015, Cluno […]

If you were hoping to get some sweet drone footage of a NASCAR race in progress, you may find your quadcopter grounded unceremoniously by a mysterious force: DroneShield is bringing its anti-drone tech to NASCAR events at the Texas Motor Speedway. The company makes a handful of products, all aimed at detecting and safely intercepting […]

Tomorrow at noon PT, Apple will begin issuing an alert box when you open a 32-bit app in MacOS 10.13.4. It’s a one-time (per app) alert, designed to help MacOS make the full transition to 64-bit. At some unspecified time in the future, the operating system will end its support for 32-bit technology… meaning those […]

With the number of fantasy sports players in North America heading past 60m, and the industry said to be worth over $7 billion, fantasy sports games are clearly on the rise. On the web, the two biggest players are FanDuel and DraftKings, which between them control 90% of the market. But translating that kind of […]

Cruise recently brought on seven team members from Zippy.ai, which develops robots for last-mile grocery and package delivery, for an undisclosed amount of money. The deal did not include any of Zippy’s product or intellectual property. Instead, it seems Cruise was more interested in the skillsets of the co-founders, Gabe Sibley, Alex Flint, and Chris […]

If you’ve ever gone camping and found yourself thinking it kind of sucks, likely because you’re too close to other campers, you might be interested in learn about Tentrr, a three-year-old, 47-person company that’s promising to make it “dirt simple” to enjoy the great outdoors. How: by striking deals with private landowners who are willing […]

At TechCrunch’s flagship Disrupt events, there are three ways for startups to get in the limelight. One is to win a spot in the prestigious Startup Battlefield competition. Another is to be selected as one of the editor-selected TC Top Picks to exhibit in one of the featured tracks in Startup Alley. Both of those opportunities […]

Tap Systems, the developer of the Tap wearable keyboard and mouse, is releasing a developer SDK for interested programmers. The software kit will let developers design applications that can integrate with the Tap wearable which answers the once unanswerable question: what’s the result of one hand tapping? Resting on the fingertips of one hand, the […]

Joseph Byrum Contributor Joseph Byrum is chief data scientist at Principal Financial Group. He holds a PhD in genetics. Artificial intelligence is about more than asking Alexa or Siri to turn on the lights at home and add a reminder to the calendar about getting some milk at the store later in the afternoon. The […]

Microsoft’s Twitch competitor, Mixer, is giving streamers a new way to customize their channels. The company has entered into a partnership with Lightstream Studio to allow Mixer streamers to add images, overlays, transitions, and text to their streams, or to switch between scenes. The goal is to make it easier for creators to give their […]

Almost exactly three years ago, Patrick Pichette surprised industry observers when he left his powerful job as the CFO of Google to, well, enjoy his life. As he described the decision at the time, he wanted to “enjoy a perfectly fine midlife crisis full of bliss and beauty.” Now, Pichette is back in a role […]

Yesterday we reported that Instagram lacked data portability, knocking the app for the absence of an equivalent to Facebook’s Download Your Information too. Now an Instagram spokesperson tells me “We are building a new data portability tool. You’ll soon be able to download a copy of what you’ve shared on Instagram, including your photos, videos […]

Apple Music is continuing its upward climb in subscriber count, quickening its pace as it seeks to overtake Spotify in the battle for users’ ears. The music streaming service now has 40 million subscribers, a report today from Variety claims. We have reached out to Apple for confirmation. The service still has a ways to go […]

Welp. While Mark Zuckerberg gets the grilling of a lifetime on Capitol Hill, the firm at the center of all of this is losing its top (if temporary) executive. As day two of the Facebook testimony was unfolding, Cambridge Analytica sent out a brief statement from its Board of Directors, noting that acting CEO Alexander […]

Uber is done being solely a ride-hailing company. Under the leadership of CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the company is well on its way to becoming a multi-modal transportation platform. At a future of mobility event in Washington D.C. today, Khosrowshahi announced Uber’s foray into car rentals, shared bikes in D.C. and public transportation. Khosrowshahi also sat on a […]

Are you still waiting for the Windows 10 Spring Creators Update, which many expected to be released yesterday? You may be in for a long wait. According to the latest report from Windows Central’s Zac Bowden, Microsoft found a major bug in the latest release of its operating system that could push the release back […]

Who are you? That’s both an existential question, and also a very practical administrative concern. Today, identity is often exchanged through the use of government ID cards and official paperwork, but what happens when someone loses that paperwork or it is destroyed? Or, as is often the case in many countries around the world, a […]

Tenor is now going to exclusively power GIF searches in LinkedIn messaging after Google a few weeks ago, adding yet another service to its already pretty large portfolio of messaging platforms. Tenor has long positioned itself as a GIF search tool working across a number of different platforms, ranging from its own keyboard to Facebook […]

Google is launching a major update to Google Sheets today that’ll make the life of spreadsheet jockeys just a little bit easier — and may just make the switch from Microsoft Excel a bit more tempting for some. That’s because with this update, Sheets users can now finally record macros. That’s a feature that has […]

At its re:Invent developer conference, AWS made so many announcements that even some of the company’s biggest launches only got a small amount of attention. While the company’s long-awaited Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes got quite a bit of press, the launch of the far more novel Fargate container service stayed under the radar. When […]

After a huge early buzz, Snapchat’s wearables ultimately bellyflopped. The company says it lost $40 million on the device. But that failure wasn’t enough to dissuade the company from giving things another go — and from the sound of it, the second version of Spectacles find the company taking hardware a bit more seriously this […]

Google sent an email to G Suite customers to tell them that the company has been working on a brand new version of Gmail for the web. In addition to a fresh design, the company also listed some of the new features. You can expect to be able to access Google Calendar from the Gmail […]

Bloglovin’ has a new name, new funding and a new CEO: Kamiu Lee, who previously served as the company’s vice president of strategy and business development. It sounds the rebrand and Lee’s promotion are both part of a growing emphasis on the company’s influencer marketing business, where it helps advertisers find influencers who can promote […]

Let’s share a bit more about our agenda for TechCrunch’s Tel Aviv event. This year, the event will focus on mobility and everything around it, from autonomous vehicles, to sensors, drones and security. That’s why I’m incredibly excited to announce two great speakers. Argus Cyber Security co-founder and CEO Ofer Ben Noon and Here Technologies […]

Last fall, Hulu and Spotify teamed up to offer students a bundle including both of their services for a discounted price, compared with paying for each subscription separately. Today, the companies are announcing a similar discounted bundle will be available to all users. Spotify’s 71 million-plus existing Premium users will get the first shot at […]

After a few years of hype, a lot of the noise within the VR industry has died down, but with so many pushing social experiences as one of the platform’s most endearing user cases, there has still managed to be a feverish amount of activity to own the social networking space. One such startup, Liverpool-based […]

Qualcomm’s chips already power virtually every Android smartphone on the market, but the company has long set its sights beyond this core market and is increasingly looking at IoT as one of its next major growth areas. Earlier this year it launched its new embedded platform for IoT developers; today, it’s introducing two new systems-on-a-chip […]

TravelPerk, a Barcelona-based SaaS startup that’s built an end-to-end business travel platform, has closed a $21 million Series B round, led by Berlin-based Target Global and London’s Felix Capital. Earlier investors Spark Capital and Sunstone also participated in the round, alongside new investor Amplo. When we last spoke to the startup back in June 2016 — as it […]

Tandem, the U.K. challenger bank founded by fintech veteran Ricky Knox, has rolled out its second banking product today with the addition of fixed term savings accounts. The new offering enables customers to get a guaranteed interest rate if they deposit their money with Tandem over one, two or three years, and follows the launch […]

Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate that looks after the firm’s hugely popular Alipay service, is reportedly gearing up for an enormous funding round that could take its valuation to $100-$150 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported that Ant is in talks to raise upwards of $9 billion at the $100 billion mark, while Bloomberg suggested […]

Retail has been revolutionized over the last decade, with brands like Casper and Warby Parker offering high-quality goods at lower costs simply by selling them through the internet. Koio, a relatively new high-end sneaker brand, is looking to get in on the new retail wave, and the company has some fresh cash to do it. […]

Lyft, Uber’s chief nemesis in the U.S., is thinking of entering the fiercely competitive Japanese ride-hailing space, according to comments from one of its founders. “We would love to be in Japan, and we also will be looking at that possibility,” John Zimmer, Lyft co-founder and president, said at the New Economy Summit 2018 in Tokyo. […]

German insurance giant Allianz is following Google and Tencent by backing Go-Jek, the Indonesia-based ride-hailing and local services company valued at over $4.5 billion, after it announced an investment. The money comes from Allianz X, the firm’s digital investment arm, which confirmed it put in $35 million in what is its first deal in Southeast Asia. The […]

Liberis, the London-based fintech that provides finance for small businesses, has raised £57.5 million in new funding to help support the company’s growth. The alternative finance provider makes loans against a company’s future credit and debit card sales. The majority of the new capital being raised by Liberis is debt, which in turn will enable […]

Boris Teksler Contributor Boris Teksler is the former licensing chief at Apple and current chief executive of the patent licensing company Conversant IP. Joe Silino Contributor Joseph Siino is the former intellectual property chief at Yahoo and the current president of Via Licensing. Ira Blumberg Contributor Ira Blumberg is the vice president of IP at […]

How can an electric scooter ride-sharing company like Bird possibly make money? If you live in a select number of cities in the U.S., it’s hard not to see electric scooters appearing on sidewalks all over the place. Electric scooter ride-sharing services are also remarkably cheap: $1 to start a ride and another $0.15 per […]

The app permissions that led to 87 million Facebook users’ data being harvested and sold to Cambridge Analytica may have also allowed access to those users’ inboxes, the company confirmed today. This wasn’t achieved by any underhanded means, exactly, but people might not have realized that they were granting permission to read and record their […]

Okay, Apple, now you’ve got my attention. Not content with landing an Amazing Stories reboot from Steven Spielberg, multiple series from Reese Witherspoon, a space opera from Ron Moore and much more for its upcoming original TV initiative (which might launch next March), Apple is also developing a series based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books. […]

Spotify’s got something big up its sleeve, that much we know for sure. The music streaming service has a big event in the works for April 24 in New York — though it hasn’t really offered up anything useful beyond that. A revamped version of the company’s free tier could certainly make sense for the […]

While many of us in the tech world are familiar with Facebook’s business model, there is a common misconception among people that Facebook collects information about you and then sells that information to advertisers. Zuckerberg wants everyone (especially the U.S. Senate) to know that’s not the case, and has laid forth the most simple example […]

The death spiral of blood-testing startup Theranos just became even more real today for the bulk of its remaining employees. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company has laid off the majority of its staff as part of a “last-ditch effort” to save cash and avoid bankruptcy. The layoffs have taken the staff from […]

Myst holds a special place in the hearts of many. Released in 1993, it was unlike any video game most had seen at the time — and yet, its DNA lingers in countless games released today. It was also the game that made tens of thousands of kids beg their parents for a CD drive. […]

Today’s testimony by Mark Zuckerberg in front of a Senate joint committee was often boring or redundant with previous statements. But there was an exchange near the two hour mark that was pleasantly refreshing: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) doggedly pursuing a common-sense answer from Zuckerberg on the question of whether it had any real competition. […]

Facebook’s founder said last month that the company is open to being regulated. But today he got asked by the US senate what sort of legislative changes he would (and wouldn’t) like to see as a fix for the problems that the Cambridge Analytica data scandal has revealed. Zuckerberg’s response on this — and on […]

There is a classic stereotype of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur: often a computer science nerd, almost certainly male, ambitious, and most importantly, young — very young. Founders who have been covered extensively by the media, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, started their companies still glimpsing their teenage years, and that reputation has […]

Ilya Strebulaev Contributor An expert in corporate finance, venture and angel capital, innovation financing, corporate innovation and financial decision-making, Ilya Strebulaev is the David S. Lobel Professor of Private Equity and Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. A $1 billion valuation was until recently a significant badge of honor for a […]

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce, Science, and Transportation committees, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that his company did not notify the Federal Trade Commission about the initial user data leak that triggered its most recent privacy scandal. “They considered it a ‘closed case’,”Zuckerberg said in response to a question over whether […]

At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its […]

In his opening statement in today’s Senate hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Senator Thune (R-SD) noted that Cambridge Analytica, the company most associated with the ongoing privacy debacle, will be examined separately at another time. “There are plenty of questions about the behavior of Cambridge Analytica and we expect to hold a future hearing on Cambridge […]

This isn’t really surprising if you’ve been following Uber’s legal woes. But the Court of Justice of the European Union has confirmed to Uber France that Uber is operating a transportation company. Member countries can prohibit or punish Uber in their own countries without involving the European Union. Over the past few years, Uber has […]