When it comes to sales software, Salesforce isn’t the only game in town. A number of startups have emerged to target the sales industry, with roughly $3 billion per year getting invested into marketing startups. Now one of the largest players is Intercom. The seven-year-old startup is now announcing a $125 million Series D round led by […]
Alphabet X spinout Dandelion raises $4.5M to built out its geothermal heating and cooling system for homes
Dandelion, a clean energy startup that was originally incubated inside Google parent Alphabet, has raised $4.5 million in funding to build out its business — a geothermal heating and cooling system for homes that claims it will drastically reduce its customers’ bills — it claims to cut bills in half (notwithstanding the upfront costs, more […]
Watch Huawei unveil the P20 live right here
Huawei is about to unveil its brand new flagship smartphone — the P20. While many details have already leaked, this is going to be an interesting launch. The conference will begin at 3 PM in Paris, 9 AM in New York, 6 AM in San Francisco. The company chose to unveil its new device at […]
Shuly Galili and Yahal Zilka join us in Tel Aviv
In a bit more than two months, the TechCrunch team is heading to Tel Aviv for a day-long event. And I’m excited to announce a couple of new speakers — Shuly Galili from UpWest Labs and Yahal Zilka from Magma Venture Partners. While both Galili and Zilka are investors, they have two different stories to […]
When No One Highlights Your Contributions, Do It Yourself
It’s no fun to toil away at a job where you feel taken for granted. But don’t sit around waiting for people to notice your or your team’s good work. Find ways to highlight your contributions. For example, ask your boss if you can talk about your team’s responsibilities in an all-staff meeting. Tell the […]
Uber blocked from testing self-driving cars on Arizona roads
Uber has been barred from testing its self-driving cars on public roads in Arizona following the accident last week involving one of its testing vehicles that killed a pedestrian crossing the street in its path. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey released a letter sent to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in which he described the accident as […]
Foxconn buys peripheral maker Belkin for $866M
Foxconn, best known for manufacturing practically everything in the world, has just announced the purchase of Belkin, the PC peripherals company, for $866 million in cash. That certainly makes it one of the larger consumer electronics acquisitions in recent memory. You probably know Belkin for its various lines of accessories, peripherals, and assorted consumer electronics; […]
“Time to keep going” says Harrison Metal, closing on a new, $68 million fund
Harrison Metal, a 10-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture fund, has closed its fifth vehicle with $68 million, founder Michael Dearing tweeted out a bit ago. “Ten years ago this month, I started this business,” he’d continued tweeting. ” I was excited-nervous as could be. Worried I didn’t belong in the venture capital world, I figured I’d […]
Mobileye chastises Uber by detecting struck pedestrian in footage well before impact
A self-driving vehicle fatally striking a pedestrian is a tasteless venue for self-promotion, but it’s also an important time to discuss the problems that created the situation. Mobileye CEO and CTO Amnon Shashua seems to do a little of both in this post at parent company Intel’s blog, running the company’s computer vision software on […]
Robot posture and movement style affects how humans interact with them
It seems obvious that the way a robot moves would affect how people interact with it, and whether they consider it easy or safe to be near. But what poses and movement types specifically are reassuring or alarming? Disney Research looked into a few of the possibilities of how a robot might approach a simple […]
BMW and Lexus look to car subscriptions
More automakers will soon offer vehicles through subscription services. Lexus today announced its upcoming UX crossover would be available through one and Bloomberg published a report today stating BMW is about to announce a subscription pilot. These automakers join a growing list of makers offering models through new financing vehicles. Currently, Volvo, Cadillac, Ford, and […]
Dropbox up another 7% on day two
Dropbox’s surge on the stock market has continued, with the company going up another 7% on its second day on the stock market. The company saw its shares close at $30.45, giving the company about a $13 billion market cap, fully diluted. When it priced its IPO, there was a question as to whether Dropbox […]
Cisco commits $50 million to aendhomelessness in Silicon Valley
Homelessness in Santa Clara County has gotten worse, with the overall homeless population increasing 13 percent to 7,394 in 2017 over the course of two years. That puts Santa Clara’s homelessness crisis in the same ballpark as San Francisco’s, which has a homeless population of 7,499, according to a 2017 homeless census and survey. Santa […]
Facebook fights creeps and apathy with expiring friend requests
Snapchat has ephemeral messages, and now Facebook has ephemeral friend requests. The big blue social network feeds off your social graph, and every time you expand it, it has more content to show you. But if you leave a questionable friend request in limbo for too long, you’ll probably never confirm or delete it. So Facebook […]
Smartsheet files for IPO
Smartsheet is the latest company to file to go public, now that the IPO window is open. The Bellevue, Washington-based company offers enterprise software for communication and collaboration. It describes itself as the “leading cloud-based platform for work execution, enabling teams and organizations to plan, capture, manage, automate, and report on work at scale, resulting in […]
This DIY, Alexa-connected robotic tank will bring you a beer
[embedded content] As we enter the upcoming Golden Age of connected robotics it’s important to stay well-lubricated. Thus we must invite the Walabeer tank, a DIY, Alexa-connected robotic tank that serves beer, into our homes and hearts. The project uses a toy tank chassis connected to a Walabot, a device that lets your projects see […]
Lightweight robo-coat for sea creatures could track habits without interfering
Tracking sea animals is a difficult task for many reasons, not least of which is the robustness necessary for any device to survive longer than a few weeks of water torture. The clunky solutions currently used to watch whales and other creatures might soon have a more lightweight competitor: this flexible, inexpensive “marine skin.” Developed […]
General Catalyst just closed its biggest fund ever, as firms race to get bigger, fast
It happened in 2016, and it’s happening like clockwork again in 2018: venture firms are closing new funds with more money than they ever have before, just two years after closing their most recent funds with more money than they’d ever raised before. Last week, you may have caught wind that Khosla Ventures is raising […]
Spotify thinks its revenue growth will slow, to reach $6.4 billion this year
Spotify released financial guidance ahead of its public debut planned for early April. It’s an unconventional move, but the music streaming service isn’t doing a traditional IPO. It’s not raising money and will be doing something called a “direct listing,” with insiders selling shares. This changes up the process and so Spotify decided to announce its […]
HQ Trivia’s first sponsored games roll out this week from Nike and Warner Bros.
HQ Trivia, the TV-style game show in an app, is starting to make money. The company this week is rolling out its first sponsored games, including a $3 million deal which includes sponsored games from Warner Bros., as well as a sponsored game from Nike, arriving today. AdAge was the first to report on HQ […]
London proposes stricter vetting for ride-hailing drivers
London’s transport regulator is asking for public views on a series of new proposals aimed at boosting the safety of private hire vehicles (PHVs), such as cars served via ride-hailing platforms like Uber. Among the measures Transport for London (TfL) is considering are: Enhanced background checks for private hire drivers — with a proposal to […]
Check out self-driving cars, DARPA and more at TC Sessions: Robotics May 11 at UC Berkeley
As we’re gearing up for May’s big show, the announcements are starting to come fast and furious. In the past two weeks, we’ve revealed that Andy Rubin, Marc Raibert, Melonee Wise, Robert Full and more will be joining us May 11 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. We’ll be unveiling the full schedule for the event […]
Google launches a Chrome OS tablet for schools
Chrome OS has been a pretty ideal place for Google to stake its various plays for the education. The cheap, bare bone Chromebook laptops have been light on complexity and heavy on connectivity. The company hasn’t had much in the way of options when it comes to touch screen devices however. Today, Google announced its […]
Google begins to roll out its mobile-first index
Google announced this morning its “mobile-first” index of the web is now starting to roll out, after a year and a half of testing and experimentation. Back in 2016, Google first detailed its plan to change the way its search index operates, explaining how its algorithms would eventually be shifted to use the mobile version […]
The Linux Foundation launches a deep learning foundation
Despite its name, the Linux Foundation has long been about more than just Linux. These days, it’s a foundation that provides support to other open source foundations and projects like Cloud Foundry, the Automotive Grade Linux initiative and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Today, the Linux Foundation is adding yet another foundation to its stable: the […]
Lynk & Co reveals the 02 crossover SUV and details European rollout plans
Geely’s Lynk & Co is one of the more interesting young automotive brands, with an approach to sales and marketing that more closely resembles modern gadget and lifestyle brand go-to-market strategy than traditional automaker sales. The Lynk & Co 01 SUV, designed to sit somewhere between Geely’s line on one end and Volvo’s vehicles on […]
Azure’s new Serial Console gives you a direct window into the dark heart of your VMs
Azure developers and sysadmins have long asked for the ability to get access to a serial console for their virtual machines (VMs). While it’s generally easy enough to log into a VM after it has booted, things get far more complicated if the machine doesn’t boot for some reason. Troubleshooting that can be a nightmare. With […]
Twitter moves to ban crypto ads
Twitter is the latest social service to boot out cryptocurrency advertisers. The company told Reuters it will be launching a new policy this week to prohibit the advertising of token sales/initial coin offerings (ICOs), and crypto wallet services. Ads for cryptocurrency exchanges will also be banned — with some limited exceptions. Twitter confirmed the policy change to us, […]
YouTube TV becomes first-ever presenting partner for the NBA Finals, following similar deal with MLB
YouTube TV announced this morning it will become the first-ever presenting sponsor of the 2018 NBA Finals as the result of a multi-year partnership focused on raising consumer awareness of YouTube’s streaming TV service. In addition to becoming the presenting sponsor of the NBA Finals, the deal will also see YouTube TV becoming the presenting […]
Aurora hires SpaceX’s Jinnah Hosein, opens SF and Pittsburgh offices
Self-driving technology company Aurora has made some key moves on its leadership team and overall company growth: It’s bringing on SpaceX’s now former head of software engineering, Jinnah Hosein, to lead its own software engineering team in a VP role. The autonomous software provider is also opening up two new offices, including one in San […]
Tesco vet Simon Belsham becomes president of Walmart’s Jet.com
Walmart has brought on Tesco veteran, Simon Belsham, to serve as president of its e-commerce business, Jet.com, acquired for $3 billion in 2016 to help the company better combat the Amazon threat. Belsham will be based out of Hoboken and will oversee the full operation of the Jet.com business, including its increasing focus on online […]
Apple’s original shows may launch next March, report says
Apple’s upcoming slate of original TV shows may finally see the light of day as early as next March, according to a report from The New York Times on Sunday. Citing producers and entertainment exec sources, the article says Apple has been taking advantage of its significant cash stores to fund its TV efforts – and […]
FedEx reserves 20 Tesla Semi all-electric big rig trucks
FedEx is the latest major logistics company to lock in an order for Tesla’s forthcoming Semi electric Class 8 trailer trucks. The shipping provider has ordered 20 of the vehicles, according to a press release from FedEx itself, which will go into service in its FedEx Freight department. The FedEx order is dwarfed by rival […]
Elon Musk’s next Boring Co. merch will be big Lego bricks made from tunnel rock
Elon Musk’s The Boring Company is indeed living up to its namesake and boring tunnels, but its primary source of revenue still seems to be selling stuff branded with its logo. First there was the hat, then the ‘not a flamethrower,’ and now Musk has said that the company will produce and sell large, “lifesize” […]
Tesla’s new navigation system will roll out this weekend
Owning a Tesla comes with plenty of perks, but there is still one major pain point for most Tesla owners: navigation. Even though these cars feel like they’re from the future, the navigation systems on board look like any old navigation system you might have seen in a car or on a smartphone, with some […]
Nvidia looks to the AI future
It’s about making the lives of scientists and researchers easier, Jensen Huang, CEO and co-founder of Nvidia tells TechCrunch. He’s speaking of the keynote address he intends to give at the company’s upcoming GTC conference. Held in San Jose, miles away from the company’s new imposing headquarters, Nvidia is set to host thousands of attendees […]
Microsoft opens its gaming 3D optimization tool to enterprise industries
Microsoft is using the 3D optimization startup it bought last year to give it an in to the “mixed reality” enterprise market. Simplygon has previously had a heavy skew towards gaming services with technology that allowed developers more freedom over the kind of detail they offered end users. True to the name, Simplygon allowed companies […]
HTC had a terrible holiday quarter
Smartphone and VR headset maker HTC has published its consolidated results for Q4 2017 — and it makes for grim reading. The topline figures are: Flat quarterly revenue of NT$15.7 billion (~$540M) with gross margin of -30.8% Quarterly operating loss of NT$9.6 billion (~$330M) with operating margin of -60.8% Quarterly net loss after tax: NT$9.8 […]
Freelancers, Stop Underpricing Your Work
The dangers of overpricing your work are obvious: You can lose the deal and scare clients away. But charging low prices can signal low quality, making clients hesitant to work with you. To be sure you aren’t underselling yourself, develop a network of trusted peers who can provide honest information about going rates. Once you […]
Ford and Alibaba unveil car vending machine
Car shoppers in Guangzhou, China now have the ability to buy or try a car using a smartphone app and a car vending machine. The facility came out of a partnership signed two years ago between Ford and Alibaba. Called the Super Test-Drive Center the center houses dozens of Ford vehicles in the multi-story building. Users just […]
Here are the top Midwestern states and cities for startups
Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor Here are the top states and cities for startups in the South Where did venture capitalists go to college? The American Midwest has a long history of making stuff. During the 20th century, it was […]
Towards a world without Facebook
Dear blockchain people: this is your hour. Abandon your transparently greedy get-rich-quick schemes, turn away from your casinos of de-facto modern-day penny stocks, and focus your decentralized attention on what the world needs. Save us, O blockchainers, from the scourge that is Facebook! Decentralize all the things! I’m kidding, of course. For now. Every year, […]
Israeli startups: Grab your exhibit table in Startup Alley at TC Tel Aviv
Hey startups! TechCrunch is returning to Tel Aviv on 7 June, 2018 for its inaugural day-long conference at the Tel Aviv Convention Center. This year’s event will be bigger and better than ever — featuring not only TechCrunch’s signature stellar programming focused on mobility, but also a new expo area called Startup Alley, where hundreds […]
Monarch is a new platform from surgical robot pioneer Frederic Moll
Auris Health (née Auris Surgical Robots) has done a pretty good job flying under the radar, in spite of raising a massive amount of capital and listing one of the key people behind the da Vinci surgical robot among its founders. With FDA clearance finally out of the way, however, the Redwood City-based startup medical […]
JASK and the future of autonomous cybersecurity
There is a familiar trope in Hollywood cyberwarfare movies. A lone whiz kid hacker (often with blue, pink, or platinum hair) fights an evil government. Despite combatting dozens of cyber defenders, each of whom appears to be working around the clock and has very little need to use the facilities, the hacker is able to […]
Gillmor Gang: Facelift
The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Denis Pombriant, Doc Searls, Esteban Kolsky, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, March 23, 2018. G3: Face the Music — Mary Hodder, Elisa Camehort Page, Denise Howell, Kristie Wells, and Tina Chase Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, March 22, 2018. @stevegillmor, @dsearls, @ekolsky, @DenisPombriant, @fradice Produced and directed by Tina […]
Original Content podcast: Confronting the tragedy of Hulu’s ‘Looming Tower’
The Looming Tower, a new series on Hulu, approaches the September 11 terrorist attacks from an unusual angle — instead of focusing on the day itself, it tells the story of the FBI and CIA investigations into Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s. In some ways, the show feels like a police procedural, with Jeff Daniels […]
Snap reportedly buys its very own 3D game engine
Snapchat’s parent company has bought a web-based 3D game engine startup out of the UK, Business Insider (paywalled) reports. PlayCanvas is a development tool focused on letting people easily design rich 3D environments. Unlike products from companies like Unity and Epic Games, PlayCanvas’s game engine was entirely browser-based and was optimized to run on low-power […]
The web will soon be a little safer with the approval of this new security standard
Hear that? It’s almost as if thousands of spooks and hackers suddenly cried out at once… The Internet Engineers Task Force has just unanimously approved a security framework that will make encrypted connections on the web faster and more resistant to snooping. It’s called Transport Layer Security version 1.3, and while it’s not a big […]
Watch Alexa rap with Too Many T’s in this interactive music video
Alexa can already sing and rap, but now she’s the star of a new music video by the English rap duo Too Many T’s. The London-based rappers this week released an interactive video that lets Alexa sing along by triggering with voice commands, then pausing while she answers. The result is essentially a duet between […]
IPOs are back, but for how long?
The first quarter is almost over, and despite Dropbox’s splashy debut on the public market earlier today, it was preceded by just two other U.S. tech companies to IPO in 2018: Cardlytics and Zscaler. Will Dropbox turn things around? Will the fact that Spotify is readying its debut get the momentum going at long last? It […]
This MIDI-powered robotic music box is the good news I needed this week
It’s been a bit of a tumultuous week, to put it lightly, but one must always remember that no matter how dire things look on the global stage, there are always makers working obsessively to create something beautiful and useless — like this MIDI-driven, robotic music box. Tinkerer and music box aficionado Mitxela (via Hackaday) […]
Drew Houston on wooing Dropbox’s IPO investors: “We don’t fit neatly into any one mold”
Dropbox went public this morning to great fanfare, with the stock shooting up more than 40% in the initial moments of trading as the enterprise-slash-consumer company looked to convince investors that it could be a viable publicly-traded company. And for one that Steve Jobs famously called a feature, and not a company, it certainly was […]
New ‘Silicon Valley’ VR experience lets you rip a bong in the hacker hostel
[embedded content] HBO’s Silicon Valley is returning to the air with Season 5 debuting on Sunday. To prep fans, HBO is teasing a virtual reality experience where users will be able to explore Erlich Bachman’s hacker hostel and interact with a ton of easter eggs from the show. You can rip a bong, open up […]
How Raya’s $8/month dating app turned exclusivity into trust
The swipe is where the similarity ends. Raya is less like Tinder and more like a secret society. You need a member’s recommendations or a lot of friends inside to join, and you have to apply with an essay question. It costs a flat $7.99 for everyone, women and celebrities included. You show yourself off […]
Rainforest Connection enlists machine learning to listen for loggers and jaguars in the Amazon
The vastness that makes the Amazon rainforest so diverse and fertile also makes it extremely difficult to protect. Rainforest Connection is a project started back in 2014 that used solar powered second-hand phones as listening stations that could alert authorities to sounds of illegal logging. And applying machine learning has supercharged the network’s capabilities. The […]
Dropbox and Box were never competitors
As Dropbox had its IPO moment this morning, more than 10 years after launching, we can finally put one myth to rest. Dropbox and Box were never targeting the same customers. As Anshu Sharma, founder at Prekari, a stealth startup and former partner at Storm Venture tweeted earlier today: If you are a VC and […]
Kids Court, the grand prize winner from Amazon’s developer contest, disappears from the Alexa Skills Store
What does winning the Alexa Skills Challenge earn you from Amazon? Apparently, in addition to the $20,000 Grand Prize, you might also have your skill yanked from the Amazon Skill Store without warning. At least, that’s what seems to have happened to the grand prize winner from the recent Alexa’s kids competition, Pretzel Labs. Its […]
Pivotal Software files for IPO
While everyone was looking at Dropbox’s debut, Pivotal Software dropped its IPO filing. The enterprise cloud computing company is majority-owned by Dell, which came about after its merger with EMC in 2016. VMWare also helped form Pivotal, which was created in April 2013. Here’s how it describes its business: Pivotal looks to “provide a leading cloud-native […]
Storytelling for B2B startups: Avoiding ‘buzzword bingo’ to make your wonky enterprise company worth talking about
Rebecca Buckman Contributor Rebecca Buckman is the vice president of marketing and communications at Battery Ventures in Menlo Park, CA. She previously was an editor and writer with The Wall Street Journal and Forbes. If there’s one thing I learned from my time as both a journalist at The Wall Street Journal and Forbes and, now, advising a global […]
Lawyaw uses AI to help lawyers draft documents faster
It’s no secret that much of the legal industry is build on reusable content. Most law firms have their own customized set of standard documents (like NDAs or Wills), but lawyers or associates still have to customize these documents by hand each time a client needs them drafted. Lawyaw, part of YC’s Winter ’18 class, is building […]
Apple proposes new emojis to represent people with disabilities
Apple has proposed a number of emojis to the Unicode Consortium, the emoji gatekeeper of sorts, to better represent people with disabilities. That’s because Apple is unable to include these emojis in iOS and Mac OS until the Consortium adopts them. The proposed emojis depict people who experience blindness or low-vision, those who experience deafness […]
American Express quietly acquired UK fintech startup Cake for $13.3M
Cake Technologies, the U.K. fintech startup that wanted to make it more convenient to pay your restaurant or bar bill, has been acquired by American Express — as the credit card behemoth plans to beef up its payment options for Amex members. According to sources the deal quietly completed in October last year for a […]
Pardot’s Got a Brand New Look!
You may have noticed Pardot’s hot new look! We’ve given our website a makeover to make it even easier to learn how Pardot can supercharge your marketing. We’ve still got all the old features, including our Guided Tour, our product demos, and our Customer Hub, all wrapped up in a nice new package. We’re so […]
Y Combinator’s Jessica Livingston on Dropbox IPO: “It was just a dream of ours”
Dropbox, after more than a decade, finally went public this morning — and the stock soared more than 40% in its initial trading, making it a marquee success for one of the original Web 2.0 companies (at least for now). While we still have to wait for the dust to settle, it’s been a very […]
Elon Musk deletes own, SpaceX and Tesla Facebook pages after #deletefacebook
Elon Musk apparently wasn’t aware that his company SpaceX had a Facebook page. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO has responded to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down the SpaceX, Tesla and Elon Musk official pages in support of the #deletefacebook movement by first acknowledging he didn’t know one existed, and then […]
Google makes it easier to run high-performance workloads on its cloud platform
Hyperscale cloud platforms from the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google are great for running the kind of high-performance computing (HPC) projects that scientists in academia and the industry need for their simulations and analyses. Many of the workloads they run are, after all, easily parallelized across hundreds or thousands of machines. Often, though, the […]
Jeff Vinik invests $12 million into Dreamit Ventures, joins board
Real estate investor and Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik has expanded his relationship with Dreamit Ventures through a new $12 million investment into the early stage fund and accelerator, announced earlier this week. The deal will also see Vinik joining Dreamit as a Partner and a member of the Board of Directors. Vinik was […]
Dropbox soars more than 40% in its debut as a publicly-traded company
It’s a big day for Dropbox — the first marquee Web 2.0 name to go public this year and one of the biggest since Snap last year — which made its public debut today, with the stock soaring nearly 43% to around $30 in its first moments of trading. Today’s debut for the enterprise-slash-consumer company […]
Focus Your Martech Stack on CX…or Die!
Toys R Us recently made headlines with the news that it would close after 70 years in business. What was once an iconic toy store with massive success will soon be a memory. What went wrong? Greg Portell, lead partner at retail consultant A.T. Kearney, gave some great insight regarding Toys R Us’ lack of […]
Researchers find a new material for quantum computing
Rumors of commercial quantum computing systems have been coming hot and heavy these past few years but there are still a number of issues to work out in the technology. For example, researchers at the Moscow Institute Of Physics And Technology have begun using silicon carbine to create a system to release single photons in […]
HBO’s Silicon Valley gets the VR treatment for Season 5
For a long time, we’ve heard that VR is three to five years from becoming mainstream. While that premise remains questionable, HBO’s Silicon Valley is celebrating its fifth season with the launch of a VR experience called Silicon Valley: Inside the Hacker Hostel. The experience will be available on the HTC Vive, and will offer […]
The NEEO universal remote is a modern Logitech Harmony alternative
The advanced universal remote market is not a very crowded market. In fact, for a while now, Logitech’s Harmony line has been pretty much the only game in town. Newcomer NEEO wants to upset that monopoly with its new NEEO Remote and NEEO Brain combo ($369), which is a system that can connect just about […]
After app tracking scandal, MoviePass drops its annual pricing again
Yet another price drop for MoviePass. Following statements that the app was tracking customers’ location, which CEO Mitch Lowe quickly backtracked on, the company is again dropping its pricing in an effort to attract more sign-ups in the wake of the bad press. Today, the cost of MoviePass annual subscription has dropped again to $89.95, which […]
Musicians, actors and influencers plan social media takeover to support #MarchForOurLives
Equity Podcast: Facebook says ‘oops’ and Dropbox with a wave of enterprise IPOs
Welcome to “Equity,” TechCrunch’s venture capital and tech business podcast. For this week, we talked about the wave of enterprise IPOs. And we were joined by Dharmesh Thakker, general partner at Battery Ventures. He was the perfect guest because he specializes in enterprise and Battery is pretty good at it. We also talked about Facebook’s […]
Saga is the thinking person’s cryptocurrency
As we enter the third age of crypto – the first being Satoshi’s White Paper phase and the second being the exchange phase – we find ourselves in a maze of twisty tokens, all different. Enter Saga. Created by Israeli VC Ido Sadeh Man and investor Moshe Hogeg, Saga a token connected to a cash […]
Nissan targets sales of 1 million EVs annually by 2022
Nissan is hoping to achieve a target of selling 1 million electrified vehicles across its portfolio by its fiscal 2022, the automaker announced today. The target is part of its overarching strategic mid-term plan leading up to 2022. To be included in the sales total, models sold by Nissan need to either be pure electric […]
Apple could be announcing a new cheap iPad
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple could be unveiling a new version of its entry-level iPad at its event next week. The company is holding a press event on March 27 in Chicago. And the only thing that we know is that the event is going to be focused on the education market. […]
Facebook hit with shareholder lawsuits over data misuse crisis
When Your Boss Is Being Passive-Aggressive, Confront Them Respectfully
Having a passive-aggressive boss can be frustrating. Whether they’re limiting access to information you need or giving you the cold shoulder when you disappoint them, it’s hard to address the negative behavior without triggering repercussions. Approach your manager from a place of respect, and resist the urge to be passive-aggressive in return. Raise your concerns […]
Southern California needs to find its hub for it to develop its own tech ecosystem
Recognizing the tens of billions of dollars that the Southern Californian region leaves on the table, because it hasn’t taken its rightful place in the American technology industry, a new group called the Alliance for Southern California Innovation has just released a report to analyze how SoCal can work to assume its pole position. Through interviews with […]
Tapas Media aims to turn digital comics into the next big entertainment franchise
Tapas Media has its own platform for digital comics — but like a lot of publishers, CEO Chang Kim has ambitions beyond the comics world. Comixology is the big name in digital comics. The company, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014, is focused on selling print comics from major publishers in web- and mobile-friendly […]
Hold this beam for me, friend robot, and let us construct a house together
Being a neophyte in the world of woodworking — I’ve made a shabby but sturdy shed — I can appreciate the value of a good partner who can help measure, cut, hold stuff, and generally be a second pair of hands. The usual drawback with humans is you have to pay them or feed them […]
Snapchat’s new feature is aiming to turn Snap Map into a next-gen newsfeed
Snapchat may still be getting a lot of heat for their redesign, but the company is continuing to devote resources to build out Snap Map, the map-based feature it introduced last year. A new feature called Map Explore will let you thumb through Snap Map updates in a more methodical way, so that you can see […]
Sheryl Sandberg says Facebook leadership should have spoken sooner, is open to regulation
Dropbox prices above its original range at $21 as it heads toward an IPO
Dropbox is pricing above the range it originally set ahead of its public listing tomorrow, handing the company a valuation inching ever-closer to its original $10 billion valuation, according to a report by CNBC. Dropbox earlier this week said it would price its initial public offering in a range between $18 and $20 per share, […]
Water Abundance XPRIZE finalists compete in gathering water from thin air
Despite being a necessity for life, clean, drinkable water can be extremely hard to come by in some places where war has destroyed infrastructure or climate change has dried up rivers and aquifers. The Water Abundance XPRIZE is up for grabs to teams who can suck fresh water straight out of the air, and it […]
Medium is now paying partners cash bonuses for quality work
Introducing the TechCrunch Disrupt SF ’18 Virtual Hackathon
We’ve told you that TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 is going to be the biggest, most ambitious Disrupt ever — and we’re serious. So serious, in fact, that we’re super-sizing the Hackathon, taking it online and making it global. Now thousands of the world’s most talented developers, programmers, hackers and tech makers can participate and […]
Bird adds a former Lyft VP of Goverment Relations as Chief Legal Officer
Bird has made another key hire as it looks to spread its electric scooter rental business across the nation. The company has brought on former Lyft vice president of government relations, David Estrada,to be its chief legal officer. He’s going to take over the company’s compliance and government relations efforts just as Bird seems poised […]
Meet the startups that pitched at EF’s 9th Demo Day in London
Entrepreneur First (EF), the company builder and “talent first” investor, Entrepreneur First (EF), the leading company builder, held its ninth London Demo Day this afternoon. Once again, the pitches took place in front a packed crowd at King’s Place in London’s King Cross area, seeing 19 startups pitch their wares to investors, press and other […]
Why achieving diversity in tech requires firing the industry’s ‘cultural fit’ mentality
Lekan Olawoye Contributor Lekan Olawoye is the lead executive, Talent Program & Ecosystem Engagement at Toronto-based MaRS Discovery District. If you have interviewed for a technology job, there’s a good chance the words “culture” and “fit” made an appearance during the phone-screen phase, or in early rounds of interviews. It is no longer enough for […]
MIT’s new device can pull water from desert air
When it comes to Star Wars Universe-style tech breakthroughs, lightsabers, holograms and hyperdrive get all the love. But spare a thought, if you will, for the poor moisture farmers of Tatooine. Granted *spoiler* it didn’t end to well for Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, but the idea of pulling water from the desert air was […]
IBM can’t stop milking the Watson brand
More than seven years after IBM Watson beat a couple of human Jeopardy champions, the company has continued to make hay with the brand. Watson, at its core, is simply an artificial intelligence engine and while that’s not trivial by any means, neither is it the personified intelligence that their TV commercials would have the […]
Gwynnie Bee is bringing subscription clothing rental to traditional retailers with launch of ‘CaaStle’
Gwynnie Bee, a subscription service offering women an “unlimited closet” of clothing for rent, believes its model is one that can be expanded to traditional retailers, too. And today, it’s officially taking the wraps off a new technology platform which will allow retailers to offer a subscription clothing rental business alongside their existing channels. The […]
Multi-Touch Magic: Pardot’s Campaign Influence Attribution Models
In October 2017, right before Dreamforce, I was gearing up for my Pardot Specialist exam and trying my best to keep up with everything Pardot when I received an email announcing a new feature. It was Pardot’s Campaign Influence Attribution Models, and it was exactly what I’d been hoping for. This new feature helped you […]
Alphabet’s Outline lets you build your own VPN
Alphabet’s cybersecurity division Jigsaw released an interesting new project called Outline. If I simplify things quite a lot, it lets anyone create and run a VPN server on DigitalOcean, and then grant your team access to this server. I played a bit with Outline and it’s an interesting product. There are two components, a managing […]
Discounted tix to Disrupt SF ’18 for students, nonprofits, government & military
TechCrunch Disrupt ranks as the premier event in the startup landscape, and our flagship event, Disrupt San Francisco 2018, which takes place September 5-7, will be our biggest and best Disrupt ever. If you haven’t heard, we’re moving to the Moscone Center West, tripling the floor space and featuring four stages of unique programming — […]
Airbnb hosts can kick you out after you’ve checked in
Last month, Logan Kugler checked into the home of a Los Angeles-based Airbnb host. The plan was to stay there for about one month, but Kugler found himself checking out just three days after checking in. That’s not because he wanted to, but because the host cancelled his reservation. This story is not about any […]
YouTube Red’s Karate Kid sequel ‘Cobra Kai’ drops new trailer
[embedded content] Cobra Kai never dies, and the resurgence of the rogue karate dojo in the upcoming YouTube Red original series reboot of The Karate Kid shows former sensei John Kreese was true to his mantra in the 1984 classic. The series, set to debut May 2 on YouTube’s paid subscription service, YouTube Red, will […]
Marc Raibert, Melonee Wise and more will be speaking at TC Sessions: Robotics May 11 at UC Berkeley
We’re gearing up for our big upcoming TC Sessions: Robotics event May 11 on the UC Berkeley campus, and we’ve got a lot to talk about. We’ve already announced Berkeley professors Pieter Abbeel and Robert Full, Android/Playground Global founder Andy Rubin and VCs Chrissy Meyer, Renata Quintini and Rob Coneybeer. Here are a few more […]
GitLab adds support for GitHub
Here is an interesting twist: GitLab, which in many ways competes with GitHub as a shared code repository service for teams, is bringing its continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) features to GitHub. The new service is launching today as part of GitLab’s hosted service. It will remain free to developers until March 22, 2019. After […]
Instagram will show more recent posts due to algorithm backlash
Instagram isn’t quite bringing back the chronological feed but it will show more new posts and stop suddenly bumping you to the top of the feed while you’re scrolling. “With these changes, your feed will feel more fresh, and you won’t miss the moments you care about” Instagram writes. Instagram switched from a reverse chronological […]
Bell & Ross creates a transparent tourbillon
It’s Spring and that means it’s time for Basel, the definitive international watch show. Around this time every year all of your favorite brands – and brands you’ve never heard of – launch unique timepieces that cost more than a few dozen Honda Accords and look like something made by a Doctor Manhattan during one […]
Google Assistant on phones now lets you send and receive money
“Hey Google, send Brian $15 for breakfast today.” Starting today, you can use this command to tell the Google Assistant on your phone to send money to people with Google Pay, the re-branded version of what you may still think of as Android Pay. And if Brian, as usual, forgets to pay you back, you […]
Twitch’s extensions come to mobile
Twitch’s extensions – the tools that allows streamers to customize their channel pages with interactive experiences, including leaderboards, polls, schedules, and more – are now available on mobile. The game streaming company announced this highly-requested feature at the Game Developers Conference this week, along with the launch of a web app for developers that will […]
Huawei’s U.S. plans hit major setback as Best Buy said to stop sales
Huawei can’t catch a break in the States. Just at the company was set to announce a big carrier deal at CES, AT&T reportedly switch gears last minute. Now, a week before the company is set reveal its next big flagship at an event in Paris, Best Buy is reportedly planning to stop sales of […]
Entrepreneur First, the London-based company builder backed by Greylock, expands to Hong Kong
When Silicon Valley’s Greylock Partners led Entrepreneur First‘s $12.4 million funding round in September, Greylock’s Reid Hoffman said he could see the company builder expanding to “20 or 30 or 40 cities, maybe even 50“. Since then, EF has expanded to Berlin, in addition to existing programmes in London and Singapore, and today the so-called […]
Watch Deadpool introduce the X-Force in new Deadpool 2 trailer
[embedded content] It’s the most anticipated Josh Brolin-starring Marvel movie coming out this year – no, not that one. The one with the dick jokes. Deadpool 2 arrives in theaters on May 18, and you can check out the longest look we’ve had yet at what’s in store for the highly-anticipated sequel above. Looks like it’s […]
Skyline AI raises $3M from Sequoia Capital to help real estate investors make better decisions
Skyline AI, an Israeli startup that uses machine learning to help real estate investors identify promising properties, announced today that it has raised $3 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital. The round will be used to build its tech platform and hire experts in data science and machine learning. Founded in 2017 and headquartered […]
Samsung’s Galaxy S9 is the way to wean yourself off of DSLRs
Samsung has a new smartphone out, the Galaxy S9 (and S9+). It’s the latest flagship from one of the top smartphone makers in the world, but this year’s version has a lot in common with last year’s model, at least on the surface. The big focus (lol) this year was on the camera, and for […]
Cloudflare introduces free network monitoring tool for mobile app developers
When Cloudflare acquired Neumob, a mobile performance startup last fall, it was a sign that the company wanted to move beyond web performance into helping mobile app developers understand what’s happening at the network level. Today, the company introduced Cloudflare Mobile SDK, a free tool which could help developers understand network-level performance problems. Cloudflare’s co-founder […]
Watch Alexa meet the funniest family on the Internet
[embedded content] Presented without comment: the cutest Alexa video available on the Internet today featuring Lauren eLL, her Dad, and Grandma. It has it all – laughs, cursing, and Hillary-bashing and Lauren even posted a reaction video showing the real life Nanna and Dad watching themselves as confused cartoons. [embedded content]
AdStage raises another $3M as it shifts focus to data
AdStage is announcing that it’s raised $3 million in new funding. That might not sound like much for a startup that raised a $6.25 million Series A back in 2014, but CEO Sahil Jain told me via email that the company has always raised “in tranches.” So when you combine this new funding with the […]
Ansarada gets $18M in Series A funding to help companies better prepare for major deals
Australian startup Ansarada, which provides tools for companies preparing for a major transaction, will expand in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa after raising an $18 million Series A. The funding was led by Ellerston Capital, with participation from Tempus Partners, Belay Capital and Australian Ethical Investments. A noteworthy detail about the […]
Swiss police order up Tesla Model X police cars for active duty
Tesla’s Model X has had some brushes with law enforcement – in a good way, as when police from Toronto demonstrated one in their patrol car colors to show what it might be like to actually use them. But police from Switzerland’s Basel-Stadt police force are going one further, and actually ordering Model X vehicles […]
The founder of business banking startup Tide plans to step down as CEO
Changes are afoot at Tide, the U.K. fintech startup that offers banking services for small businesses. TechCrunch has learned that founder George Bevis is planning to step down as CEO, and that the nearly three-year old company is actively headhunting for his replacement. It comes at a time when Tide — which counts 30,000 small […]
Revolut launches disposable virtual cards
Fintech startup Revolut is launching a new type of virtual cards — disposable cards for online purchases. While you could already generate additional virtual cards for a fee, this is a different kind of virtual card as it gets destroyed after each transaction. If you usually shop on Amazon or if you have a Spotify […]
If You’re Overqualified for a Job You Want, Explain Why You Want It
It might seem easy to get a job for which you have all the right credentials, but many managers hesitate to hire someone who seems too good for the role. So go out of your way to counter any assumptions the hiring manager may have. For example, they might think that you’ll be too expensive, […]
First impressions of the $199 Oculus Go VR headset
Virtual reality seems to have become a very tired topic to consumers. Products are still getting made though because big tech companies are still convinced of its staying power. The challenge now becomes attracting attention from people whose attention spans for what you’re selling has perhaps already timed out. Oculus Go is the latest VR […]
Video: The driver of the autonomous Uber was distracted before fatal crash
The Tempe, Arizona police department have released a video showing the moments before the fatal crash that involved Uber’s self-driving car. The video includes the view of the street from the Uber and a view of minder behind the wheel of the autonomous Uber. Warning: This video is disturbing. Tempe Police Vehicular Crimes Unit is […]
Get the latest TC stories read to you over the phone with BrailleVoice
For the visually impaired, there are lots of accessibility options if you want to browse the web — screen readers, podcast versions of articles, and so on. But it can still be a pain to keep up with your favorite publications the way sighted app users do. BrailleVoice is a project that puts the news […]
AI game trainer Gosu.ai raises $1.9M to give gamers a virtual assistant
If you play hardcore and competitive games you want to win, so it would be useful to have someone leaning over your shoulder giving you tips on how to play better. Someone that knows all your moves and behaviors, for instance. That’s the thinking behind Gosu.ai, which has developed an AI assistant to help gamers […]
Modular sofa startup Burrow raises $14M
We’ve described Burrow as a startup that brings a Casper-style approach to sofas, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the company has raised funding from one of Casper’s investors. Burrow is announcing a $14 million Series A led by New Enterprise Associates. Correlation Ventures also participated in the round, as did previous investors Red & Blue […]
Jack Dorsey believes bitcoin will be the world’s sole currency within 10 years
We knew Jack Dorsey was bullish on bitcoin, but some new quotes reveal that he’s really really bullish. In an interview with the Times of London, the Twitter and Square chief executive expressed a strong belief in bitcoin’s shot at outliving its growing pains in order to grow into a ubiquitous digital currency. “The world […]
Uber has reportedly rescinded its job offer for the Amazon exec that was its potential product lead
Uber appeared set to hire Assaf Ronen, the former vice president of Amazon’s voice and natural user interface shopping, to lead its products — but it looks like that isn’t going to happen due to a discrepancy in his working history, according to Recode. Uber discovered a discrepancy related to his tenure at Amazon, where […]