A TechCrunch-commissioned report finds damning evidence
An AR glasses pioneer collapses
Banking startup N26 raises $300 million at $2.7 billion valuation
AWS gives open source the middle finger
How Trump’s government shutdown is harming cyber and national security
Winter Party 2019
Limited Tickets Release Today!
San FranciscoFeb 8
The Latest
Improbable and Epic Games establish $25M fund to help devs move to ‘more open engines’ after Unity debacle
3 hours agoLucas Matney
Improbable is taking a daring step after announcing earlier today that Unity had revoked its license to operate on the popular game development engine. The UK-based cloud gaming startup has inked a…
A Pong table managed to wow CES 2019
3 hours agoBrian Heater
That’s not the kind of headline one expects to write going into the week. But here we are. Universal Space’s analog Pong table is a mindblower in a whole unexpected way. The tabletop machine goes m…
Taking a stroll with Samsung’s robotic exoskeleton
4 hours agoBrian Heater
Samsung’s look but don’t touch policy left many wondering precisely how committed the company is to its new robots. On the other hand, the company was more than happy to let me take the GEMS (Gait …
Unity pulls nuclear option on cloud gaming startup Improbable, terminating game engine license
4 hours agoLucas Matney
A pair of highly-funded gaming unicorns are publicly skirmishing and the deal could have major repercussions for game developers. Today, UK-based cloud gaming startup Improbable, announced that Uni…
Reports raise video privacy concerns for Amazon-owned Ring
4 hours agoTaylor Hatmaker
Amazon -owned smart doorbell maker Ring is facing claims that might give some smart home enthusiasts pause. Recent reports from The Intercept and The Information have accused the company of mishand…
Spotify’s increased focus on podcasts in 2019 includes selling its own ads
4 hours agoSarah Perez
Having established itself as a top streaming service with now over 200 million users, Spotify this year is preparing to focus more of its attention on podcasts. The company plans bring its personal…
Is Samsung getting serious about robotics?
A funny thing happened at Samsung’s CES press conference. After the PC news, 8K TVs and Bixby-spo…
5 hours agoBrian Heater
Sessions: Robotics + AI 2019
Join top minds in robotics and artificial intelligence
Early Bird Pricing Now Available
Postmates lines up another $100M ahead of IPO
5 hours agoKate Clark
Postmates has landed a $100M investment to compete with SoftBank-backed competitor DooDash ahead of an IPO expected later this year.
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Californians may get a break on their mobile bills after tax is struck down in court
5 hours agoDevin Coldewey
Californians have a lot to enjoy — great weather, big waves, solid microbreweries, and of course extremely high taxes on prepaid mobile service. But this controversial last feature is being adjuste…
Where we’ll be next
2nd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize
Feb 8San Francisco, USA
Sessions: Robotics + AI 2019
Apr 18Berkeley
Disrupt SF 2019
Oct 2–4San Francisco
Disrupt Berlin 2019
Dec 11–12Berlin, Germany
Research finds heavy Facebook users make impaired decisions like drug addicts
5 hours agoTaylor Hatmaker
Researchers at Michigan State University are exploring the idea that there’s more to “social media addiction” than casual joking about being too online might suggest. Their paper,…
UK has ‘red flagged’ 4,600 sellers for tax evasion on marketplaces like Amazon in 2 years
6 hours agoIngrid Lunden
Sites like Amazon and eBay have made it very compelling for consumers to buy online rather than in stores, in part because prices are very competitive and in many cases cheaper than what buyers mig…
Recent Funding Reports
by
Ola(opens in a new window)
Kormangala, Karnataka
5.2B INRRound
Postmates(opens in a new window)
San Francisco, California
$100MF
OneLogin(opens in a new window)
San Francisco, California
$100MD
Talentsoft(opens in a new window)
Boulogne-billancourt, Ile-de-France
$50MD
ProntoPro(opens in a new window)
Milano, Lombardia
6.0M EURB
Piano Software(opens in a new window)
New York, New York
$22MB
Badi(opens in a new window)
Barcelona, Catalonia
$30MB
Decisiv(opens in a new window)
Glen Allen, Virginia
$30MC
Mr Jeff(opens in a new window)
Valencia, Comunidad Valenciana
10M EURA
WhereIsMyTransport(opens in a new window)
London, England
$1.9MA
Synapticon(opens in a new window)
Schönaich, Baden-Wurttemberg
$12M
Akulaku(opens in a new window)
Jakarta, Jakarta Raya
$100MD
Undandy(opens in a new window)
Lisbon, Lisboa
1.1M GBPEquity Crowdfunding
Open Bionics(opens in a new window)
Bristol, Bristol, City of
5.0M GBPA
Maude Group(opens in a new window)
Brooklyn, New York
$1.5MSeed
Authenteq(opens in a new window)
Reykjavík, Gullbringusysla
$5.0MA
TemperPack(opens in a new window)
Richmond, Virginia
$22MB
QueQ(opens in a new window)
Bangkok, Krung Thep
$2.5MA
Digiteal(opens in a new window)
Mont-saint-guibert, Brabant Wallon
832K EUR
Digiteal(opens in a new window)
Mont-saint-guibert, Brabant Wallon
200K EURDebt Financing
Medbanks Network Technology(opens in a new window)
Beijing, Beijing
$59MD
Beta Bionics(opens in a new window)
Boston, Massachusetts
$63MB
Notes.io(opens in a new window)
Istanbul, Istanbul
$8KSeed
Qnami(opens in a new window)
Basel, Basel-Stadt
100K CHFDebt Financing
Panya Studios(opens in a new window)
Bangkok, Krung Thep
$730KSeed
nanoleq(opens in a new window)
Zürich, Zurich
100K CHFDebt Financing
Aesyra(opens in a new window)
Lausanne, Vaud
100K CHFDebt Financing
New Jersey State Department of Health(opens in a new window)
$2.3MGrant
Sleepiz(opens in a new window)
Zürich, Zurich
100K CHFDebt Financing
Chishine Optoelectronics(opens in a new window)
Xian, Hunan
$1.5MA
Zan Compute(opens in a new window)
Santa Clara, California
$1.0MSeed
Home King(opens in a new window)
$300MC
Perfect Digital Technology(opens in a new window)
Beijing, Beijing
250M CNYCorporate Round
EMERITUS Institute of Management(opens in a new window)
Singapore, Central Region
$40MC
BitRock(opens in a new window)
Singapore, Central Region
$4.0MCorporate Round
Daoyuan Education(opens in a new window)
Beijing, Beijing
$1.5MA
VIPThink(opens in a new window)
Guangzhou, Guangdong
$15MA
Yuanchuang Excellence(opens in a new window)
Shenzhen, Guangdong
$300KAngel
Spacetek(opens in a new window)
Gumligen, Bern
100K CHFDebt Financing
Yaoshi Network Technology(opens in a new window)
Shenzhen, Guangdong
$1.5MAngel
ThreeKit(opens in a new window)
$10MSeed
Infinitum Electric(opens in a new window)
$1.8MA
Boston Metal(opens in a new window)
$20MA
Freedom Electronics(opens in a new window)
$24M
Tracefy(opens in a new window)
300K EURGrant
Bungie takes back its Destiny and departs from Activision
6 hours agoDevin Coldewey
Bungie, creator of the popular Halo and Destiny franchises, is splitting from publisher Activision and will go its own way, the company announced today. It’s almost certainly good news for ga…
An AR glasses pioneer collapses
In the first days of 2017, Osterhout Design Group arrived at CES with a two-story booth and huge …
6 hours agoLucas Matney
Shareholder suit alleges Google covered up its sexual harassment problems with big payouts
7 hours agoKate Clark
A new lawsuit may require Andy Rubin to return his $90 million payout.
PeakSpan Capital just closed on $265 million more to fund business software companies
8 hours agoConnie Loizos
PeakSpan Capital, a four-year-old, Burlingame, Calif.-based venture firm, has closed its second fund with $265 million in capital commitments, according to a new SEC filing that shows that 68 inves…
Ford is shutting down its Chariot shuttle service
8 hours agoKirsten Korosec
Ford is shutting down Chariot, the shuttle startup that it purchased just two years ago that was supposed to be a part of the automaker’s fresh effort to move beyond the traditional business …
The pre-seed diligence framework
8 hours agoGaurav Jain
By now it’s clear that seed is the new Series A. Seed rounds have tripled in size and companies have been around for 2.4 years before they raise a seed round. A new stage has emerged to fill the ga…
Nissan’s new Leaf e+ is packing more than just 226 miles of range
9 hours agoKirsten Korosec
Electric vehicle competition is heating up and it’s pushing some of the first entrants to add range and other features in hopes of keeping up with automakers that are just bringing EVs to the…
Amazon’s IMDb launches a free streaming service, Freedive
9 hours agoSarah Perez
Amazon’s IMDb movie website today announced the launch of a free streaming service, called Freedive. The service offers viewers in the U.S. access to an ad-supported collection of TV shows li…
Report: Amazon to double down on gaming with a new streaming service
10 hours agoIngrid Lunden
Earlier this week, when Razer announced that it would integrate Amazon’s Alexa into its gaming platform, I wondered if this was a strong signal of how Amazon may be starting to lay the ground…
Mayfield gets a new partner as it celebrates 50 years in the business
11 hours agoConnie Loizos
Venture firms can come and go, as anyone who lived through the boom and bust of the late ’90s internet bubble can attest. Some firms have staying power, however, and among these is Mayfield, …
How to get your money’s worth from your startup lawyer
11 hours agoDaniel McKenzie
You will never know as much as your lawyers do about the legal services they provide to you. It is a classic asymmetry of information, where the party that knows less gets the worse deal. In this c…
GM is smartening up its Bolt EV smartphone app
12 hours agoKirsten Korosec
GM is sprucing up its smartphone app for owners of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt through a collaboration with charging network companies EVgo, ChargePoint and Greenlots. The idea is to take aggre…
Holoride’s in-car VR solution is the best thing at CES 2019
12 hours agoMatt Burns
After days of demos and announcements and miles of walking, I’m confident in declaring Holoride the best thing at this year’s CES. The designation of “The best thing at CES 2019&#…
Microsoft Bing not only shows child pornography, it suggests it
Illegal child exploitation imagery is easy to find on Microsoft’s Bing search engine. But e…
12 hours agoJosh Constine
The next phase of WeChat
Thousands of people gathered Wednesday night in a southern Chinese city to hear Zhang Xiaolong, T…
12 hours agoRita Liao
More tickets released for TechCrunch Winter Party at Galvanize
12 hours agoEmma Comeau
Silicon Valley loves a party, and we’re ready to help you get your swerve on. We’ve just released a fresh batch of tickets to the 2nd Annual TechCrunch Winter Party. Our fabulous midwinter fete tak…
Daily Crunch: How the government shutdown is damaging cybersecurity and future IPOs
13 hours agoTaylor Nakagawa
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe …
Lyft partners with Segway to deploy more durable scooters
14 hours agoMegan Rose Dickey
Lyft is gearing up to roll out its next generation of shared scooters in partnership with Segway Ninebot. This comes on the heels of Segway-Ninebot’s announcement of its newest scooter, the M…
Meet Caper, the AI self-checkout shopping cart
The Amazon boogie-man has every retailer scrambling for ways to fight back. But the cost and effo…
14 hours agoJosh Constine
Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S10 February 20 in San Francisco
15 hours agoBrian Heater
CES has never been much of a mobile show for Samsung — not with Mobile World Congress a little over a month away. But the company did use its big platform this week to announce the announcement of …
The rise of (societal) resilience tech
15 hours agoDanny Crichton
If you follow millennials on Twitter (and god help you), then you know that Anne Helen Petersen’s piece this past weekend “How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation” struck a deep chord for man…
Check out the trailer for Jordan Peele’s new YouTube series ‘Weird City’
15 hours agoJordan Crook
Mastermind Jordan Peele is a very busy man these days, working on new projects including the movie “Us,” an upcoming Twilight Zone reboot, a Netflix stop-motion animated movie called &#…
Revolut hires Freetrade co-founder and former CTO as head of Wealth & Trading Product
16 hours agoSteve O’Hear
The London fintech industry is pretty close-knit, full of strong personalities and, at times, fiercely competitive. Within this context it is quite common for employees — and sometimes even f…
Mr Jeff bags $12M Series A to replace trips to the laundromat
16 hours agoNatasha Lomas
If you thought the on-demand laundry space had run out of startup steam, here’s a bit of a conditioner: Spanish startup Mr Jeff has bagged a $12 million Series A, led by All Iron Ventures. Th…
Google built an entire theme park ride in the CES parking lot — because it can
For a lot of companies, the whole point of CES is to get attention — and in this sea of noise, th…
16 hours agoTC Video
Uber’s India rival Ola nears $6 billion valuation ahead of huge funding round
16 hours agoJon Russell
Ola, India’s local rival to Uber, has seen its valuation jump to nearly $6 billion as it prepares to take in a large round of financing. The ride-hailing firm, which was founded in 2010, has …
OneLogin snares $100M investment to expand identity solution into new markets
17 hours agoRon Miller
OneLogin is not a young startup by any means. The identity access management company was founded in 2009 and has watched while companies like Ping Identity, Duo Security and Okta had tidy exits. Bu…
Badi gets $30M for AI-aided room rentals
17 hours agoNatasha Lomas
Should you let AI help you pick your roommates? Barcelona-based urban room rental startup Badi thinks so, and it’s just closed a $30 million Series B funding round less than a year after a $1…
Emeritus, which develops online courses with universities, raises $40M
19 hours agoJon Russell
The funding streak for educational startups in Asia continues into 2019 after Emeritus, a U.S-Indian company that partners with universities to offer digital courses, landed a $40 million Series C …
Advisor to Europe’s top court favors regional limit to ‘right to be forgotten’
19 hours agoNatasha Lomas
Google will be cheered by the view of an influential advisor to Europe’s top court vis-à-vis the territorial scope of the so-called ‘Right to be Forgotten.’ Since a 2014 Court of …
The company behind YouCam Makeup app launches a new set of AR tools for beauty brands like Ulta
19 hours agoCatherine Shu
Released in 2014, the year before Snapchat put face filters on the road to ubiquity, Perfect Corp .’s YouCam Makeup app gave many smartphone users their first taste of augmented selfies. At the beg…
TransferWise applying for Brussels license in bid to navigate a ‘no deal’ Brexit
23 hours agoSteve O’Hear
TransferWise, the London-headquartered international money transfer company, is applying for a new licence in Brussels, in a bid to navigate a possible “no deal” Brexit as the U.K. prep…
Crypto mining giant Bitmain is reportedly getting a new CEO as its IPO plan stalls
1 day agoJon Russell
Bitmain, the Chinese crypto miner maker, looks like it has reached an interesting point in its pathway to going public. There’s been little heard since the company filed to go public in Hong …
Banking startup N26 raises $300 million at $2.7 billion valuation
1 day agoRomain Dillet
Fintech startup N26 is raising a Series D round of $300 million. Following this new funding round, the company is now valued at $2.7 billion. Insight Venture Partners is leading the round, with Sin…
Hulu redesign may drop the confusing screen called ‘Lineup,’ simplify navigation
1 day agoSarah Perez
Hulu is preparing to update its streaming app in order to make it simpler to navigate to and discover content you want to watch. Some of the changes coming in the weeks ahead are smaller, but worth…
Oil and gas giants Chevron and Occidental are backing tech to combat carbon emissions
1 day agoJonathan Shieber
Carbon Engineering, a Canadian company developing technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and process it for use in enhanced oil recovery or in the creation of new synthetic fuels, …
Chamberlain Group acquires Lockitron and Tend for its myQ smart garage hub
1 day agoCatherine Shu
Chamberlain Group, which owns several security and access brands including the myQ smart garage hub, has added two new companies to its portfolio: connected door lock maker Lockitron and Wi-Fi home…
Astronomers spot more mysterious radio signals from far outside the galaxy
1 day agoDevin Coldewey
Whenever some new “cosmic puzzle” crops up, you always have to be ready for the other shoe to drop. But just because something isn’t an alien message or Ringworld doesn’t me…
Hands-on with Ledger’s Bluetooth crypto hardware wallet
1 day agoRomain Dillet
French startup Ledger unveiled a new hardware wallet at CES this week. While the device isn’t going to ship until March, the company let me play with a prototype version of the device. The Ledger N…
With SEC workers offline, the government shutdown could screw IPO-ready companies
1 day agoKate Clark
The weeks-long government shutdown may have lasting effects on the IPO market.
Hey, look, it’s a hamster wheel for your cat
1 day agoBrian Heater
Has a stationary lifestyle and a penchant for lasagna left your cat overweight and sluggish? Sure, kicking dogs off the sides of tables and mailing cats to Abu Dhabi are decent legwork, but what ab…
The world’s first 1-terabyte SDXC card is here
1 day agoDevin Coldewey
Do you frequently record super-slow-motion 8K video? Do you want to back up your entire computer to your coin pocket? Then these measly 512-gigabyte SD cards probably aren’t cutting it. Fortu…
AWS gives open source the middle finger
1 day agoFrederic Lardinois
AWS launched DocumentDB today, a new database offering that is compatible with the MongoDB API. The company describes DocumentDB as a “fast, scalable, and highly available document database t…
A simple bug makes it easy to spoof Google search results into spreading misinformation
1 day agoZack Whittaker
A bug that anyone can easily exploit in Google makes it easy to kick out manipulated search results that look entirely real. The search manipulation bug was documented by Wietze Beukema, a London-b…
The state of seed
1 day agoKate Clark
Seed deal activity declined again in 2018, marking the fourth consecutive year in which deal count shrank and deal sizes swelled.
Misty’s adorable robotics platform ships in April for $2,399
Misty is building an accessible robotics platform for developers. You can read more about Misty h…
1 day agoTC Video
Twitter and NBA game streaming deal is about connecting with cord-cutters and younger fans
1 day agoSarah Perez, Ingrid Lunden
Twitter is already working with the NBA to stream video of pre-game warm-ups, in-game and post-game highlights and post-game behind-the-scenes content. Now, the company will for the first time ever…
Halo’s second-gen brain stimulating headphones run $399
1 day agoBrian Heater
Two and a half years after doing pushups onstage at Disrupt New York, Bay Area-based sports health company Halo Neuroscience is back with the second generation of its brain stimulating headphones. …
E-scooter startup Bird is raising another $300M
1 day agoKate Clark
The scooter “unicorn” is said to be fundraising on a flat pre-money valuation of $2 billion.
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