Bellabeat, the company behind a variety of health and wellness wearable devices aimed at women, is now selling its first smartwatch. The device, which is simply called “Time,” was announced earlier this month right in the midst of holiday shopping season. Like other fitness trackers, the watch is capable of basic tasks like counting your […]

The Consumer Electronics Show, like Burning Man, is a massive event in the middle of the desert. Also like Burning Man it is populated by some of the greatest minds in technology. But, unlike Burning Man, these people are all dressed and only a few of them are on hard psychotropic drugs. Also CES is […]

There were countless gadgets released in 2018. It’s the end of the year, so Brian and I rounded up the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Some where great! Like the Oculus Go. Or the Google Home Hub. But some were junk, like the revived Palm or PlayStation Classic. CES 2019 […]

We will be holding a small event during CES in Las Vegas and we want to see you! We’re looking to meet some cool hardware and crypto startups, so the good folks at Work In Progress have opened up their space to us and 200 of you all to hold a meetup and pitch-off. The […]

SoftBank’s Vision Fund is set to continue its recent spree of investments in Asian tech unicorns. The mega fund — which is targeted at $100 billion — is planning to invest upwards of $1 billion into Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing leader Grab, two sources with knowledge of the plan told TechCrunch. The investment could reach as much […]

IBM today announced that it has developed a small sensor that sits on a person’s fingernail to help monitor the effectiveness of drugs used to combat the symptoms of Parkinson’s and other diseases. Together with the custom software that analyzes the data, the sensor measures how the nail warps as the user grips something. Because virtually any […]

If you’ve ever found yourself lugging a big suitcase from meeting to meeting, a startup called Bounce could make your life easier. Using Bounce, you’ll be able to pay for short-term storage at hotels, dry cleaners and other local businesses. The San Francisco-based startup is announcing that it has raised $1.2 million in seed funding […]

The story of the game Star Citizen and Cloud Imperium, the company developing it, is almost too ludicrous to believe: a crowdfunding effort to create a space sim of unparalleled size and realism, raising hundreds of millions, with backers paying thousands for ships and gear in a game that’s years from release. Yet it’s real […]

Meet Spot, a beautifully designed mobile app to control your cryptocurrencies. Spot looks like a portfolio-tracking app. But the company has built a strong foundation to add more features in the coming months. Spot wants to be your unique gateway to the world of cryptocurrencies. “Spot’s vision isn’t to build a portfolio tracker — we […]

A new startup using AI to look after elderly people at home has raised a new round of funding to apply its platform to detect changes in gait or behavior, falls or stumbles. In other words, it could start to predict changes in long-term health. CherryHome, the home AI security system created by startup Cherry […]

A year ago, crypto was reaching ever new highs, and I was talking about whether ICOs would supplant the VC funding round and warning about Kim Jong Un’s crypto trading operations. And then the world turned upside down. Crypto prices are near rock-bottom prices, with Bitcoin hanging around $4,000 and Ethereum around $113, down from […]

One of the biggest providers of domain names and web hosting in Europe is changing hands today. One.com, which has around 1.5 million customers mainly across the north of the region, has been sold by private equity firm Accel-KKR to Cinven, another PE player that focuses on investments in Europe. Terms of the deal are […]

Back in March came the surprising news that a satellite communications company still more or less in stealth mode had launched several tiny craft into orbit — against the explicit instructions of the FCC. The company, Swarm Technologies, now faces a $900,000 penalty from the agency, as well as extra oversight of its continuing operations. […]

Mystery drone operator/s have grounded flights at the U.K.’s second largest airport, disrupting the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of people hoping to get away over the festive period. The BBC reports that Gatwick Airport’s runway has been shut since Wednesday night on safety grounds, after drones were spotted being flown repeatedly over the […]

Smart speakers that let you control services and other connected devices in your home will continue to be a popular gift choice during the holiday season and into next year, when usage is set to rise by 15 percent, to 74.2 million people in the U.S., working out to 26.8 percent of the U.S. population, […]

Welcome to TechCrunch’s 2018 Holiday Gift Guide! Need more gift ideas? Check out our Gift Guide Hub. Buying the right stuff as a new parent is tough. Buying the right things for a new parent? Even harder. There’s just way, way too much junk out there marketed at new parents. A lot of it seems […]

Twitter and Facebook announced this morning they’ve removed a combined total of 30 accounts that were working to spread misinformation in Bangladesh, 10 days before the country’s general elections. According to Facebook, the company removed nine Facebook Pages and six Facebook accounts that were engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Twitter said it removed 15 accounts that […]

Twitter was down 11 percent today after a Citron Research report called the platform, the “Harvey Weinstein of social media” and set a low target price of $20. As of publishing today, the stock was down more than 11 percent at $29.29 a share. In their report Citron did not mince words, basing their conclusions on […]

WhatsApp chat groups are being used to spread illegal child pornography, cloaked by the app’s end-to-end encryption. Without the necessary number of human moderators, the disturbing content is slipping by WhatsApp’s automated systems. A report from two Israeli NGOs reviewed by TechCrunch details how third-party apps for discovering WhatsApp groups include “Adult” sections that offer […]

Before Ram Palaniappan founded Earnin, he developed a system for employees at a payments company called UniRush, where he spent eight years as president. If you needed money before payday, he would write you a check from his checking account and when payday rolled around, employees would reimburse him. Despite being paid what Palaniappan thought were […]

After a long year fighting underage use of its products, Juul Labs has today struck a deal with Altria Group, the owners of Philip Morris USA and makers of Marlboro cigarettes. The deal values Juul at $38 billion, according to Bloomberg, and injects the company with a fresh $12.8 billion in exchange for a 35 […]

Boosted has scored some serious cash as it looks to move beyond the world of electric skateboards to conquer new forms of personal transportation. The startup announced today that it has closed a $60 million round of Series B funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and iNovia Capital. Stanford-StartX Fund and Bay Meadows also participated in the round. […]

Social game developer Zynga has entered into an agreement to acquire Small Giant Games, the startup behind the popular mobile game Empires & Puzzles, in a deal expected to total $700 million. Zynga, which has tumbled since its 2011 Nasdaq initial public offering, will initially acquire 80 percent of Small Giant Games for $560 million, composed […]

Gamelearn, which develops video games to deliver corporate training, has scored $5 million in Series A funding. Participating in the new financing round is previous backer Kibo Ventures, along with Oak3Capital, All Iron Ventures, UL Invest, and Inveready. The Madrid-based startup says that it will use the new capital to boost the company’s production of […]

In the city, we’re constantly saturated with the radio waves from 10 or 20 different routers, cell towers and other wireless infrastructure. But in rural communities there might only be one internet connection for a whole village. LibreRouter is a hardware and software project that looks to let those communities build their own modern, robust […]

Renewable energy is the future, but at present no one is tracking just who’s got solar panels on their roof, in their back yard, or a shared neighborhood installation. Fortunately, solar panels generally work best when exposed to the light. That makes them easy to spot, and count, from orbit — which is just what […]

Google just released an advert for Google Assistant and its band of merry products. It’s really good. Basically, the ad is “Home Alone” reimagined, but this time Macaulay Culkin plays an adult Kevin who is home alone with a house full of devices controlled by Google Assistant. Obviously. And for the sake of objectivity, I […]

In a new blog post, Facebook VP of Product Partnerships Ime Archibong addressed the company’s latest user privacy controversy. The rebuttal is the second round of Facebook’s push back against Tuesday’s report by the New York Times detailing some of Facebook’s special partnerships and extensive data sharing with major tech players. In the new post, […]

The G-Shock is so nerdy that it has become cool, and this latest model, the GMWB5000GD-9, is no exception. Based on the original G-Shock models, this decidedly unsmart (but not dumb) watch features solar charging, atomic timekeeping and a simple Bluetooth connection to your phone. Plus, now it comes in gold or silver-toned metal, a […]

WhatsApp is making group calls easier with a change to the way its mobile app works. Before, users would have to start a 1:1 video call, then add participants — there wasn’t an option to begin a group call at once, the company says. Now, the design has been updated so you can start group […]

When it comes to shift workers communicating with each other in the workplace when they are not face-to-face, gone are the days of cork announcement boards. Now, the messaging app is the medium, and today one of the startups tackling that opportunity in a unique way has raised a round of funding to get to […]

Facebook users might have already moved on to the company’s next notable outrage, but the company is still answering for its privacy missteps from earlier this year. Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against Facebook on Wednesday, alleging that the company has not fulfilled its responsibility to protect user data. Racine’s office […]

Snapchat is looking to increase user engagement with the app with the launch of a new feature called Lens Challenges. Users can opt to participate in the challenges by creating a snap with a Lens that’s themed to a particular song, dance, holiday, event and more, the company explains. For example, one of the first […]

PetaGene, the Cambridge, U.K.-based genomics data compression startup, has raised $2.1 million in further funding. Leading the round is U.S. venture firm Romulus Capital, with participation from other unnamed investors Silicon Valley and London. It brings total funding to $3.2 million. Previous investor Entrepreneur First, the company builder backed by Greylock Partners, also followed on. […]

M&A activity was brisk in the enterprise market this year, with 10 high-profile deals totaling almost $88 billion. Companies were opening up their wallets and pouring money into mega acquisitions. It’s worth noting that the $88 billion figure doesn’t include Dell paying investors more than $23 billion for VMware tracking stock to take the company […]

Dataiku wants to turn buzzwords into an actual service. The company has been focused on data tools for many years, before everybody started talking about big data, data science and machine learning. And the company just raised $101 million in a round led by Iconiq Capital, with Alven Capital, Battery Ventures, Dawn Capital and FirstMark […]

Flux, the London fintech that has built a technology platform for banks and merchants to power itemised digital receipts and a lot more, has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding. The round is led by VC firm e.ventures (which has previously backed the likes of Farfetch, Sonos and Groupon), with participation from existing investors […]

Price f(x), a startup that offers cloud-based pricing software, has raised €25 million in Series B funding. Leading the round is European B2B technology growth investor Digital + Partners, and consulting firm Bain & Company. Prague-based Credo Ventures and London-based Talis Capital, which both backed Price f(x) at Series A, have also participated in this […]

It was several years ago, at a tech conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., that the venture capitalist Bill Gurley issued one of what would become repeated warnings that startups were staying private too long. Comparing companies that refuse to go public to undergrads whose college careers extend several years past the point that they should, […]

If you’re concerned about what you eat, there’s a good chance you’ve looked at the food in the supermarket, or in your fridge, and wondered where it actually comes from. Now urban farming incubator Square Roots is introducing a new way for you to check full history of the produce that you’re about to purchase. […]

Pinterest may follow Lyft and Uber to the public markets in the first half of 2019, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The visual search engine and shopping tool is expected to tap underwriters in January and complete an initial public offering as soon as April. The company was valued at just […]

Coinbase acquired Earn.com for at least $120 million back in April. And the company now plans to transform Earn.com into Coinbase Earn, a website with educational content to learn more about cryptocurrencies. Users who complete those classes will earn tokens. Coinbase bought Earn.com partly so that it could appoint Earn.com co-founder and CEO Balaji Srinivasan […]

Adtech cybersecurity company Devcon announced today that it has raised $4.5 million in seed funding. Over the past couple of years, ad fraud has become a bigger concern in the industry, but Devcon co-founder and CEO Maggie Louie said most existing solutions focus on things like verifying ad quality and confirming that impressions aren’t coming […]

Shopping for someone who prefers hiking and camping to the great indoors can be tricky. Not only are outdoor enthusiasts usually less impressed by traditional gifts (clothes, games, etc.) but their preferred realm of technical gear is vast and confusing. If you’d rather not go deep on the research yourself, we’ve got some solid touchpoints […]

Dogs have a much wider range of hearing than humans, and noises that don’t bother us can give them a very ruff time. Fireworks are especially tough on many pups, and also hard on owners who have to calm their panicking pets. To potentially help them, Ford has developed a noise-cancelling kennel prototype that it […]

Years ago, Google’s Street View program expanded from streets to virtually everywhere, thanks to Google’s Trekker program that put 360-degree Street View cameras into a single backpack. Today, Google announced its upgraded Trekker backpack, which is significantly smaller and lighter than before. The old one weighed in at about 44 pounds. It’s not just a […]

Bumble has come up with a new way for its dating app and related businesses to generate revenue. The company this week launched filters — a way to sift through potential matches by a set of specific criteria. For example, Bumble Date users can now filter matches by astrological sign or relationship type, among other […]

By any measure Facebook hasn’t had the best of years in 2018. But while toxic problems keep piling up and, well, raining acidly down on the social networking giant — from election interference, to fake accounts, faulty metrics, security flaws, ethics failures, privacy outrages and much more besides — the silver lining of having a core […]

Twitter is giving users the ability to easily switch between seeing the latest tweets first and seeing the company’s algorithmically chosen “Top Tweets” when they open the app. The company began testing this feature a few weeks ago, but they are officially rolling it out globally to all iOS users today, with Android and desktop […]

Rothy’s, a three-year-old, San Francisco-based company that makes a variety of colorful flats for women, has some more walking-around money today. According to Bloomberg, the company just closed on $35 million in funding from Goldman Sachs’ asset management unit. The round brings the young company’s total funding to $42 million, including an early $5 million […]

Facebook’s ongoing efforts to repair its image as a greedy, neglectful accessory to the spread of misinformation and other nefarious practices has taken a turn to civil rights and specifically how it serves non-white users, which proportionately account for the social network’s most active members. Today — the first day of #LogOutFacebook, a week-long boycott of […]

Uber has been granted permission by the state of Pennsylvania to reinstate tests of its autonomous vehicles, as first reported by Reuters. A spokesperson for Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that the ride-hailing giant received a letter of authorization from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and clarified that the company has not yet resumed self-driving operations. Uber […]

It’s hard to believe that you still had to convert your BTC into USD in order to buy ETH on Coinbase. The company is finally adding direct cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency conversions. The feature works with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), 0x (ZRX) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). It is only available to U.S. customers […]

SpaceX is raising $500 million at a valuation of $30.5 billion, according to a WSJ report citing people familiar with the matter. The company is said to be raising the capital in part to help fund its ambitious Starlink internet service project. According to the announced plan, SpaceX intends to launch 11,000 satellites to plaster […]

Our distinct skill sets and shortcomings mean people and robots will join forces for the next few decades. Robots are tireless, efficient and reliable, but in a millisecond through intuition and situational awareness, humans can make decisions machine can’t. Until workplace robots are truly autonomous and don’t require any human thinking, we’ll need software to supervise […]

If you are a mother who has taken a break from full-time employment to raise kids, you may have also experienced the challenge that is jumping back into the working world after your break. You may find you need more time flexibility; you have been out of the job market for years and so your […]

Just when you didn’t think there could be any more drama over the Pentagon’s decade-long, $10 billion JEDI contract RFP, the plot thickened again last week when Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined the U.S. government as a defendant in Oracle’s lawsuit over the Pentagon’s handling of the contract RFP process. Earlier this month, Oracle filed […]

B-Social, a London fintech that currently offers a “social finance” app and beta debit Mastercard, has raised £3.2 million in seed-round funding from undisclosed high-net-worth individuals. However, the fundraise is just the first step in a journey in which B-Social wants to eventually become a fully licensed bank that reimagines banking around everyday social interactions. […]

Having a package stolen off your front porch sucks. No matter what’s inside the box, it just feels… violating. Someone came into your space and took your stuff just because they could probably get away with it. And even if you go to the cops with license plates and high-res face photos, they’ll often respond […]

Russian efforts to influence U.S. politics and sway public opinion were consistent and, as far as engaging with target audiences, largely successful, according to a report from Oxford’s Computational Propaganda Project published today. Based on data provided to Congress by Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter, the study paints a portrait of the years-long campaign that’s […]

Twitter accidentally exposed the ability to pull an account’s phone number country code and whether the account had been locked by Twitter. The concern here is that malicious actors could have used the security flaw to figure out in which countries accounts were based, which could have ramifications for whistleblowers or political dissidents. The issue […]

K Health, the startup providing consumers with an AI-powered primary care platform, has raised $25 million in Series B funding. The round was led by 14W, Comcast Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners, with participation from Lerer Hippeau, BoxGroup and Max Ventures — all previous investors from the company’s seed or Series A rounds. Other previous investors include Primary Ventures […]

India-based educational startup Byju’s was widely reported to have raised a massive $400 million round, and now the company is making things official. The 10-year-old company revealed today it has pulled in a total of $540 million from investors to go after international opportunities. The round is led by Naspers, the investment firm famous for […]

Federico Antoni Contributor Federico Antoni is managing partner at ALLVP, an early-stage VC based in Mexico. He is a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. More posts by this contributor Not another AI post The rise and rise of Mexican fintech Every year I teach an MBA course at Stanford about […]

Meeshkan, a Finnish startup that made quite a splash at the recent Slush conference, has quietly raised €370,000 in pre-seed funding to continue developing its “ChatOps” product for machine learning developers. Deployed on Slack, the bot allows developers to “rapidly stop, restart, fork, tweak, monitor, deploy and test machine learning models” without interrupting the collaborative […]

Lightspeed China Partners, the China-focused affiliate of Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, has set a $360 million target for its fourth flagship venture fund, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. If the target is reached, the fund will be Lightspeed China’s largest yet, per PitchBook. Lightspeed China’s previous two funds […]

Moonbug, a kid-focused media business founded by a pair of entertainment executives, has brought in a $145 million Series A investment led by The Raine Group, a merchant bank that supports technology, media and telecom efforts. Venture capital firms Felix Capital and Fertitta Capital also participated in the financing. Moonbug, headquartered in London, acquires and […]

RightHand Robotics announced a $23 million Series B this week. That brings the pick and place robotic arm manufacturer’s total funding up to around $34 million, including last year’s $8 million Series A. The robotics startup has impressed investors with the dexterity and speed of its robotic picking system, having recruited some big VC names […]

Fintech startup N26 recently launched in the U.K. with a single product offering. You could sign up to a free account that gives you free payments around the world, but no insurance and no free withdrawals in foreign currencies. The company just added a second tier to its lineup in the U.K. And N26 is […]

Colin Kroll, the 35-year-old co-founder and CEO of the HQ Trivia app, has been found dead of an apparent drug overdose in his apartment, TechCrunch has confirmed. A spokesman for the NYPD told us that a female called 911 for a wellness check on Kroll’s apartment and he was found dead inside at 08:00 hours […]