Our world-famous TechCrunch Pitch-Off is coming to Stockholm! We’ll invite a panel of investors to judge 10, 2 minute pitches (no demos). If you want to pitch, make sure to apply here. We will select 8-10 companies to compete. If you don’t want to pitch but just want to come alon … | Continue reading
Capital Float, an online lending platform for small businesses in India, announced today that it has closed a $25 million Series B. Read More | Continue reading
Opera is on a roll lately. Over the last few weeks, the company added a built-in ad blocker and VPN service to its desktop browser, for example. Today, the company is launching a new early release developer version for its Windows and OS X users that includes a power-saving mode. … | Continue reading
From HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey to Samantha in Spike Jonze’s Her, for decades we have been obsessed with the idea that artificial intelligence powered-computers will one day be able to interact with people, follow spoken instructions and make decisions independently, like a hum … | Continue reading
It’s actually very tasty. Really. I certainly had my doubts, eating a tortilla that came out of a pod, but 90 or so seconds after Flatev co-founder and CEO put the little Keurig-esque plastic saucer in the machine, a pipping hot and legitimately delicious corn tortilla popped dow … | Continue reading
Astrobotic Technology, the company that plans to deliver payloads to the moon, has completed a $2.5 million seed round led by Space Angels Network. The company was originally spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2007 to compete for the Google Lunar XPRIZE (GLXP). As of today … | Continue reading
The following is an excerpt from The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology by William Mougayar. In it, Mougayar waxes ecstatic about the future of distributed databases. At its core, the blockchain is a technology that permanently … | Continue reading
The healthcare industry, with its maddening inefficiencies and an economic model that incentivizes disease care over health care, desperately needs a Silicon Valley-style overhaul. Why is the nation’s $3 trillion creaky, monstrous and convoluted healthcare sector seemingly imperv … | Continue reading
Google is moving beyond Cardboard. The company will reportedly be announcing a standalone Android VR headset at next week’s Google I/O event. Tech journalist Peter Rojas has tweeted that Google will launch an untethered Android VR headset next week according to his multiple sourc … | Continue reading
The competition has been incredibly fierce, but we now have a winner. At the very beginning, there were 22 startups. We hand-picked all these great companies from the wild world of startup land so that they could compete in our highly competitive startup competition — the Startup … | Continue reading
Just a day after announcing a $50 million round of funding, Internet performance management company Dyn is revealing there’s been a change in leadership — co-founder Jeremy Hitchcock is stepping down as CEO.“I’ve done a nice and effective job of getting the company from A to B, b … | Continue reading
Airbnb is under fire for allowing hosts on its platform to list homes in Israel’s occupied territories. And today the issue became the subject of a protest at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, after one of its board members took the stage for an interview. Sequoia’s … | Continue reading
General Michael Hayden is no stranger to government — or to your data. As the former director of the NSA and the CIA, he oversaw controversial surveillance programs and had authority over some of the government’s most closely kept secrets. Since he retired from his post at the CI … | Continue reading
It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes backpack designs get creative. Typically, backpacks are boring, with little variation in their shape, their materials…even their colors. Read More | Continue reading
We all saw it coming, but it’s still hard to swallow. Well-designed calendar app and service Sunrise will be removed from the stores in the next few days. The servers will be shutting down on August 31st. Read More | Continue reading
One of the latest Snapchat trends (at least in our little tech bubble) is venture capitalists using the social media platform as a way to dish out advice to aspiring entrepreneurs. People like Mark Suster, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Justin Kan preach on topics ranging from how to ask f … | Continue reading
TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016’s “wildcard” participant GeoOrbital has a different take on the electric bike. Instead of putting a motor on the bike, they put it in the wheel. This crazy idea was actually prompted by something founder Michael Burtov saw in the movie “Tron.” He though … | Continue reading
Carmelo Anthony, already a superstar forward for the New York Knicks, is looking ahead to his next act as a venture capital mogul. Coupling his longtime interest in technology with a desire to promote entrepreneurship, Anthony and his partner Stuart Goldfarb (also a pretty big de … | Continue reading
Agrilyst, the winner of our Disrupt SF 2015 Battlefield competition, today announced that it has raised a $1 million seed round for its indoor agriculture analytics service. The round was led by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures with participation from Metamorphic Ventures and a number of … | Continue reading
Messenger and WhatsApp may be the 800-pound gorillas in the chat space thanks to Facebook’s significant reach, but Waterloo-based Kik is rapidly building a young, dedicated audience of users that are already showing interest in bots. Read More | Continue reading
Those panoramas trapped on your phone will finally get a better viewing experience, both on News Feed and the Oculus-powered Samsung Gear VR, which Facebook now says has 1 million monthly users — the first time it’s released monthly usage stats.Facebook’s upcoming “360 Photos” fe … | Continue reading
If the idea of wearing spider silk intrigues, the idea of managing a farm full of spiders isn’t all that appealing. A startup called Bolt Threads has developed a means of brewing spider silk and other insect fibers, and spinning then into yarn, making them accessible to makers of … | Continue reading
Following Facebook Moments’ expansion to the E.U. and Canada earlier this week, Google is launching new features on its own photo-sharing service, Google Photos, aimed at making its app both more competitive with Moments and more social. The company is adding support for both com … | Continue reading
Pinterest announced this morning it’s adding former Amazon exec Michelle Wilson to its board of directors. Wilson has a background in global growth and talent acquisition, both of which are key areas of focus for the popular bookmarking service. Wilson was previously a senior exe … | Continue reading
Front started out as an app to manage shared email addresses. With Front, you can collaborate, comment, assign and reply to those pesky emails that you receive on your support@, jobs@ or contact@ email addresses. After adding more channels, Front has released a major update to re … | Continue reading
With Silicon Valley pretty much a trash fire right now it would behoove small cities to look elsewhere when trying to create centers of innovation. While Brooklyn, that gem of an island surrounded by bodies of water containing guns, dolphins, and scum, is not perfect, it’s a pret … | Continue reading
Weaveworks announced a $15 million Series B round today led by GV (the artist formerly known as Google Ventures). Accel, which invested in its earlier $5 million Series A also participated. The company has raised $20 million so far with this round. Weaveworks has created a set of … | Continue reading
uBeam could be vaporware, according to a blogger claiming to be uBeam’s former VP of Engineering. They accuse the startup of being unable to fulfill promises made about its technology. uBeam says it’s building a device that could wirelessly charge your phone or other electronics … | Continue reading
The (in)famous former Top Gear presenter trio: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, who last summer signed to Amazon’s Prime video streaming platform to make a new car show this year, have revealed what it’s going to be called — and it’s The Grand Tour. Read More | Continue reading
Google announced today that it will no longer allow payday lenders to advertise on its systems because the loans often come with high interest rates and quick repayment requirements that push borrowers into debt. Payday lenders offer quick cash to low-income people, who are then … | Continue reading
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY we had Robyn Exton of Her, Dawoon Kang of Coffee Meets Bagel and Whitney Wolfe of Bumble discuss the latest trends in the mobile dating space.Two of the apps, Her and Bumble, both let you use their platform to find friendship as well as relationship … | Continue reading
Earlier this year, a report in The Information claimed that Google-owned Nest was working on a rival to Amazon’s Echo — a service that would bring together a number of other connected devices and services to help people organise and manage their homes alongside Nest’s own thermos … | Continue reading
Google is launching an update to its Translate apps for iOS and Android today.There are three main parts to today’s announcement: offline support for iOS, Tap To Translate on Android, and Word Lens support for Chinese across platforms.With this new version, the Translate team is … | Continue reading
Five years have passed since Soledad O’Brien covered race in Silicon Valley as part of her documentary series Black in America. Now she’s ready to take a second look. Today, O’Brien discussed the documentary and the broader issues it raised while on-stage as part of TechCrunch’s … | Continue reading
DoorDash CEO Tony Xu says the company is cash flow positive in some of its early markets — but the company still has to invest in its growth. That’s the reason that the company raised $127 million in a new venture financing round. But it wasn’t without hiccups: DoorDash reportedl … | Continue reading
4 years after her appearance at Disrupt SF 2012, Jessica Alba took the Disrupt NY stage to discuss The Honest Company’s latest news. Alba started by touching on the company’s early days, which was plagued with the usual technology issues faced by young startups, like website down … | Continue reading
Former Citigroup CFO Sallie Krawcheck launched her anticipated new startup, a digital investment platform for women called Ellevest, this morning from the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 conference’s stage. Krawcheck is not your typical startup founder, which makes her entry in the in … | Continue reading
Instagram’s new icon is pink. Well, it’s pink and purple and yellow and orange. It’s definitely different. And that’s not all the company has changed today. Instagram this morning is rolling out a radical redesign of its mobile application, which not only includes this new, brigh … | Continue reading
I can finally tick this one off my ‘European VCs that are raising a new fund’ list. Cherry Ventures, the Berlin-based VC, has raised a new €150 million early-stage fund, its second fund since coming into existence. Read More | Continue reading
Europe’s Competition Commission has blocked a proposed merger that would have seen the number of major carriers in the UK mobile market reduced from four to three. Read More | Continue reading
Include is TechCrunch’s diversity program, launched in 2014, aimed at facilitating opportunities for underrepresented groups in tech to take their startups to the next level. The Office Hours program is part of that effort. Once monthly, TechCrunch works with VC partners to provi … | Continue reading
On this, the final day of Disrupt, we present to you celebrities. Jessica Alba will grace our stage, as will Carmelo Anthony and Soledad O’Brien and the only man to be the director of the NSA and CIA, General Michael Hayden. And that’s just a fraction of our Day 3 speaker list. T … | Continue reading
Soracom, a Tokyo-based startup that provides a communication platform for developers of connected devices, announced today that it has raised a 2.4 billion yen (about $22 million) Series B from World Innovation Lab, Infinity Venture Partners, and other investors, to enter the Uni … | Continue reading
Navigation system turned wearable manufacturer Garmin debuted a new running watch today that packs in a slew of tracking tools. The high-end Forerunner 735XT features built-GPS tracking, along with built-in heart-rate monitoring, the latter of which presents a number of available … | Continue reading
Timing is everything, right? Just a few days after recovering from a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, orderbird, which claims to be the leading iPad point of sale (POS) solution in German speaking markets, is announcing that it’s closed €20 million in Series C funding. Read More | Continue reading
There’s no such thing as a free lunch or free energy, right? Not necessarily. Drayson Technologies, the London startup founded by Lord Paul Drayson, a very successful serial entrepreneur and former U.K. government science minister, is commercialising technology that harvests ener … | Continue reading
Naspers, the 101-year-old, internet and entertainment group, is finally planting a flag in the U.S., establishing a Naspers Ventures unit that will operate largely out of San Francisco. The 30,000-person company, which is based in Cape Town, South Africa and tends to focus on les … | Continue reading
There is a highly divisive and costly practice that software companies have inflicted on their customers for nearly a decade. This practice brings with it significant emotional duress, time investment and financial penalties — all of which divert meaningful resources from revenue … | Continue reading