TechCrunch Startup News
2,977 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago - ★★★★ - 16 ratingsListen to select TechCrunch articles on startups coverage—who's raising, who's exiting, who's changing the world.
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Early-stage US VC Joyance to scout for health and wellness startups in Europe
May 02, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutesEarly-stage US VC Joyance to scout for health and wellness startups in Europe Good news for European startups with a health or wellness bent. Joyance Partners, a $20M US VC firm that invests in early-stage startups in the health and ‘better living’ space is launching into the European market with a dedicated European partner. The move could be seen as taking advantage of leaps in the capability of European startups, especially in the health and AI space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Golden unveils a Wikipedia alternative focused on emerging tech and startups
May 01, 2019 16:31 - 5 minutesJude Gomila, who previously sold his mobile advertising company Heyzap to RNTS Media, is taking on a new challenge — building a “knowledge base” that can fill in Wikipedia’s blind spots, particularly when it comes to emerging technologies and startups. While Gomila is officially launching Golden today, it’s already full of content about things like the latest batch of Y Combinator startups and morphogenetic engineering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Altice USA buys digital news network Cheddar for $200M
May 01, 2019 08:00 - 5 minutesCable television provider Altice USA has confirmed plans to pay $200 million for the millennial-focused, digitally-native news network Cheddar in all-cash, or all-cheddar, rather, deal. The price tag comes at a 25 percent premium to the media startup’s $160 million Series D valuation. Jon Steinberg, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Cheddar and former president and chief operating officer of BuzzFeed, will become president of Altice News. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit po...
Caribou Biosciences CEO, Rachel Haurwitz will talk CRISPR’s present and future applications at DisruptSF
April 30, 2019 16:31 - 3 minutesSeven years ago, Rachel Haurwitz finished her last day as a student in the University of California laboratory where she helped conduct some of the pioneering research on the gene editing technology known as CRISPR, and became employee number one at Caribou Biosciences, a company founded to commercialize that research. In those seven years, the market for CRISPR applications has grown tremendously and Caribou Biosciences is at the forefront of the companies propelling it forward. Learn more a...
Some reassuring data for those worried unicorns are wrecking the Bay Area
April 30, 2019 08:00 - 7 minutesJoanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor A record $2.5B went to US insurance startup deals last year, and big insurers are in all the way Space tech rockets higher The San Francisco Bay Area is a global powerhouse at launching startups that go on to dominate their industries. For locals, this has long been a blessing and a curse. On the bright side, the tech startup machine produces well-paid tech jobs and dollars flowing into local economies. Learn more a...
FutureLearn takes $65M from Seek Group for 50% stake in UK online degree platform
April 29, 2019 16:31 - 6 minutesEdtech and recruitment continue to converge. London-based online degree platform, FutureLearn, is taking £50 million (~$64.6M) from Australian-based online job matching group, Seek, in exchange for a 50 per cent stake in the business — just days after the same group led a massive Series E in U.S. online learning giant Coursera. U.K. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Movie subscription service Sinemia is ending US operations
April 29, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutesOver the past few months, Sinemia has gone from promising MoviePass competitor to the source of frustration for moviegoers across the country. After rumors surfaced earlier this week that it would be backing away from its troubled subscription-based movie ticket offering, it posted official word tonight that it will be shutting down operations in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Wheely raises $15 million for its luxury ride-hailing app
April 26, 2019 16:33 - 3 minutesLondon-based startup Wheely has raised a $15 million Series B round led by Concentric with Oleg Tscheltzoff, Misha Sokolov and other investors also participating. The company wants to build an Uber competitor focused on the luxury market. It’s a bit ironic when you think about it as Uber started as a luxury company. But everybody knows someone with horrific Uber stories. That’s why Wheely is building a reliable and predictable ride-hailing experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
Chive Media’s out-of-home TV spinoff Atmosphere raises $10M
April 26, 2019 08:00 - 4 minutesWhen Chive Media Group spun out its out-of-home TV business last year, co-founder and CEO Leo Resig said the structure should help the new company, called Atmosphere, raise venture capital. Looks like those fundraising efforts were successful, with Atmosphere announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by S3 Ventures, with participation from Capstar Capital. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Postmates has launched in 1,000 new cities since December
April 25, 2019 16:31 - 3 minutesPostmates is expanding like crazy ahead of an initial public offering expected later this year. The food delivery business has launched in 1,000 new cities since December, the company announced today. San Francisco-based Postmates now operates its on-demand delivery platform, powered by a network of local gig economy workers, in 3,500 cities across all 50 states. Postmates does not yet operate in any international markets aside from Mexico City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcas...
Are women better gamers than men? This startup’s AI-driven research says yes
April 25, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutesAre women better gamers than men? This startup’s AI-driven research says yes Last year the Gosu.ai startup, which has developed an AI assistant to help gamers play smarter and improve their skills, raised $1.9M. Using machine learning, it analyzes their matches and makes personal recommendations, and allows the gamer to be taught by a virtual assistant. Because they have this virtual assistant they can now do some interesting research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.co...
Blueshift announces $15M Series B to expand AI-fueled cross-channel marketing tool
April 24, 2019 16:31 - 3 minutesBlueshift is startup founded by tech industry veterans, who saw first-hand how difficult cross-channel marketing was. They decided to launch a company and build a cross-channel marketing platform from the ground up that uses AI and machine learning to make sense of the growing amount of customer data. Today, the startup announced a $15 million Series B round to keep it going. The round was led by Softbank Ventures Asia, a fund focused on AI startups like Blueshift . Learn more about your ad c...
Luxury consignment e-tailer The RealReal to enter the unicorn club with new funding
April 24, 2019 08:00 - 4 minutesThe RealReal, an online retailer for authenticated luxury consignment, has authorized the sale of up to $70 million in new shares, per a Delaware stock authorization filing discovered by the Prime Unicorn Index. If the company raises the entire amount, it would reach a valuation of $1.06 billion, cementing its status as the newest e-commerce unicorn. The filing doesn’t guarantee The RealReal will sell the full amount of authorized shares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices...
Vine reboot Byte begins beta testing
April 23, 2019 16:32 - 3 minutesTwitter shut down Dom Hoffman’s app Vine, giving away the short-form video goldmine to China’s TikTok. Now a year and half since Hoffman announced he’d reimagine the app as V2 then scrapped that name, his follow-up to Vine called Byte has finally sent out the first 100 invites to its closed beta. Byte will let users record or upload short, looped vertical videos to what’s currently a reverse-chronological feed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Down To Shop is a tongue-in-cheek mobile shopping network
April 23, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutesCyrus Summerlin and Max Hellerstin, who previously created the Push for Pizza app (which allowed users to order a pizza with the push of a button), are officially launching their new startup today,Down to Shop. The app bills itself as both a modern reinvention of QVC and “the funnest way to shop.” It allows users to watch funny videos featuring products that can be purchased directly from the app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From lab-grown meat to fermented fungus, here’s what corporate food VCs are serving up
April 22, 2019 16:33 - 8 minutesJoanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor A record $2.5B went to US insurance startup deals last year, and big insurers are in all the way Space tech rockets higher In a foodie’s ideal world, we’d all eat healthy, minimally processed cuisine sourced from artisanal farmers, bakers and chefs. In the real world, however, most of us derive the lion’s share of calories from edibles supplied by a handful of giant food conglomerates. Learn more about your ad choic...
Zoom, the profitable tech unicorn, prices IPO above range
April 22, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutesZoom, a relatively under-the-radar tech unicorn, has defied expectations with its initial public offering. The video conferencing business priced its IPO above its planned range on Wednesday, confirming plans to sell shares of its Nasdaq stock, titled “ZM,” at $36 apiece, CNBC reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Birth control delivery startup Nurx taps Clover Health’s Varsha Rao as CEO
April 19, 2019 16:31 - 3 minutesVarsha Rao, Airbnb’s former head of global operations and, most recently, the chief operating officer at Clover Health, has joined Nurx as its chief executive officer. Rao replaces Hans Gangeskar, Nurx’s co-founder and CEO since 2014, who will stay on as a board member. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lyric raises $160 million Series B led by Airbnb
April 19, 2019 08:00 - 4 minutesLyric, a platform for folks who struggle to decide between a hotel and an Airbnb, has today announced the close of a $160 million Series B financing led by none other than Airbnb . Other investors who participated in the round include Tishman Speyer, RXR Realty, Obvious Ventures, SineWave, Dick Costolo, Adam Bain, as well as existing investors Barry Sternlicht, NEA, SignalFire, FifthWall and Tusk Ventures. Lyric is a hospitality platform for business travelers. Learn more about your ad choic...
Pinterest prices IPO above range
April 18, 2019 16:32 - 4 minutesPinterest priced shares of its stock, “PINS,” above its anticipated range on Wednesday evening, CNBC reports. The company will sell 75 million shares of Class A common stock at $19 apiece in an offering that will attract $1.4 billion in new capital for the visual search engine. The NYSE-listed business had planned to sell its shares at between $15 to $17 and didn’t increase the size of its planned offering prior to Wednesday’s pricing. Valued at$12. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit po...
Airbase launches with $7M Series A to simplify spending control systems
April 18, 2019 08:00 - 4 minutesAirbase is a startup with a plan to change the way you think about accounting around spending. Instead of multiple workflows, it wants to create a simpler one involving, well, Airbase. It’s a bold move for any startup to take on something as entrenched as financials, but it’s giving it a shot, and today the company launched with a $7 million Series A investment. First Round Capital was lead investor. Maynard Webb, Village Global, BoxGroup and Quiet Capital also participated. Learn more about...
Unicorns: A tale of two continents
April 17, 2019 16:34 - 4 minutesVictor Basta Contributor Victor Basta is the founder of the boutique investment firm Magister Advisors. More posts by this contributor Venture investing in the US and Europe are totally different industries If you’re hoping to create a unicorn on a budget, look to the European technology sector for inspiration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
ZenGo wants to become the crypto wallet for the masses
April 17, 2019 08:00 - 4 minutesKZen is about to release ZenGo, a mobile app to manage your cryptocurrencies securely and more easily. There are already countless crypto wallets out there, but the startup thinks they’re all either too complicated or too insecure. If you own cryptocurrencies, chances are they’re sitting on an exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance. If somebody manages to log in to your account, nothing is stopping them from sending those assets to other wallets and stealing everything. Learn more about your a...
Airbnb officially owns HotelTonight
April 16, 2019 16:33 - 2 minutesAirbnb has completed its acquisition of the last-minute hotel booking application, HotelTonight, the company announced on Monday. The deal is Airbnb’s largest M&A transaction yet and will accelerate the home-sharing giant’s growth as it gears up for an initial public offering. Airbnb reportedly began talks to acquire HotelTonight months ago and finally confirmed its intent to acquire the business in early March. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
YC alum Keeper raises $1.6M to help gig workers pay taxes
April 16, 2019 08:01 - 4 minutesEvery year around this time, Uber drivers, Wag dog walkers, Bird scooter chargers, social media influencers and other gig economy workers face the unsightly challenge of paying their taxes. Companies like Uber and Lyft classify their drivers as independent contractors, which means you aren’t given any benefits and the company doesn’t withhold any of your taxes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Armis nabs $65M Series C as IoT security biz grows in leaps and bounds
April 15, 2019 08:01 - 3 minutesArmis is helping companies protect IoT devices on the network without using an agent, and it’s apparently a problem that is resonating with the market, as the startup reports 700 percent growth in the last year. That caught the attention of investors, who awarded them with a $65 million Series C investment to help keep accelerating that growth. Sequoia Capital led the round with help from new investors Insight Venture Partners and Intermountain Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...
WTF is Baillie Gifford?
April 12, 2019 16:31 - 5 minutesThe SoftBank Vision Fund has been screaming from the venture headlines the last few months, driven by eye-popping rounds (and valuations!) into some of the most notable startups around the world. Yet, SoftBank isn’t the only player rapidly buying up the cap tables of top startups. Indeed, another firm, more than a century old, has been fighting for that late-stage equity crown. Baillie Gifford . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Public health startup Cityblock raises $65M Series B
April 12, 2019 08:01 - 4 minutesRedpoint Ventures has led a $65 million Series B in Cityblock, a healthcare company focused on providing improved care to low-income neighborhoods. The business launched roughly 18 months ago out of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation incubator known for projects like mobility data startup Coord, which itself raised a $5 million round in October. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Online used car startup Shift adds another $40M, snags COO in road to IPO
April 11, 2019 08:00 - 6 minutesOnline used car startup Shift Technologies has tacked on another $40 million in equity funding, hired a new COO with Amazon and Enjoy roots and scaled up its engineering staff — all in the past several months — as the company aims to double its revenue this year. The recent activity, along with what executives have told TechCrunch is a diligent focus on unit economics, is all directed toward a larger objective to take the company public sometime in 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...
Klaviyo raises $150M Series B after building company the old fashioned way
April 10, 2019 16:32 - 5 minutesKlaviyo, a Boston-based email marketing firm founded in 2012, went about building its email marketing business the old fashioned way. First it built a profitable company, then it went looking for funding to accelerate the growth. Today, it announced a massive $150 million Series B with the entire sum coming from Summit Partners. The company had raised just $8.5 million before today’s announcement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
New privacy assistant Jumbo fixes your Facebook & Twitter settings
April 10, 2019 08:00 - 7 minutesJumbo could be a nightmare for the tech giants, but a savior for the victims of their shady privacy practices. Jumbo saves you hours as well as embarrassment by automatically adjusting 30 Facebook privacy settings to give you more protection, and by deleting your old tweets after saving them to your phone. It can even erase your Google Search and Amazon Alexa history, with clean up features for Instagram and Tinder in the works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adcho...
Scaling a nonprofit, startup style
April 09, 2019 16:34 - 13 minutesIt’s been a year since All Raise emerged with the support of dozens of venture capital’s most powerful women. The 34 founding members had a lofty goal: Double the capital going to female founders in five years and double the representation of female VCs in 10 years. After a few experiments, some trial and error and the first-of-its-kind Women Who Venture Summit, All Raise cemented its reputation as a force for change in Silicon Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.co...
Partnering with Visa, emerging market lender Branch International raises $170 million
April 09, 2019 08:00 - 5 minutesThe San Francisco-based startup Branch International, which makes small personal loans in emerging markets, has raised $170 million and announceda partnership with Visa to offer virtual, pre-paid debit cards to Branch client networks in Africa, South-Asia and Latin America. Branch — which has 150 employees in San Francisco, Lagos, Nairobi, Mexico City and Mumbai — makes loans starting at $2 to individuals in emerging and frontier markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices...
The Wing poaches Snap’s comms director
April 08, 2019 16:33 - 3 minutesWomen-focused co-working space The Wing has hired Rachel Racusen as vice president of communications. Racusen has been the director of communications at Snap, the developer of Snapchat, since late 2016. Racusen’s exit represents the latest in a series of departures at the “camera company.” Earlier this year, the company’s chief financial officer Tim Stone stepped down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Torch take $10M to teach empathy to executives
April 05, 2019 16:31 - 8 minutesWhen everyone always tells you ‘yes’, you can become a monster. Leaders especially need honest feedback to grow. “If you look at rich people like Donald Trump and you neglect them, you get more Donald Trumps” says Torch co-founder and CEO Cameron Yarbrough about our gruff president. His app wants to make executive coaching (a polite word for therapy) part of even the busiest executive’s schedule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clearbanc plans to disrupt venture capital with ‘The 20-Min Term Sheet’
April 04, 2019 16:32 - 6 minutesRaising venture capital isn’t easy; for some, it’s impossible. Clearbanc offers startups a fundraising alternative — despite itself being well-capitalized by VCs — and is today launching a new campaign to back 2,000 businesses with $1 billion in non-dilutive capital by the end of 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How France’s new digital minister plans to regulate tech
April 04, 2019 08:01 - 6 minutesWhat happens when you’re working behind the scene with French President Emmanuel Macron and you suddenly become a minister? This is what’s happening to Cédric O this week who was appointed Minister for the Digital Economy on Sunday. I was the first journalist to interview him after his appointment. While Cédric O has been talking with the French tech ecosystem for years, he usually stays away from cameras and microphones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lyft’s stock has a blue Monday as shares slide after public debut
April 03, 2019 16:32 - 3 minutesToday, investors took off their rose-colored glasses (and pink-colored mustaches) and looked at Lyft’s shares with fresh eyes after Friday’s ebullient debut. And — judging by the company’s share price at the end of the day — what they saw wasn’t exactly to their liking. Lyft’s shares suffered a pretty blue Monday in trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange today, closing down $9.28 (or 11.85 percent). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
FireHydrant lands $1.5M seed investment to bring order to IT disaster recovery
April 03, 2019 08:00 - 4 minutesFireHydrant, a NYC startup wants to help companies recover from IT disasters more quickly, and understand why they happened with the goal of preventing similar future scenarios from happening again. Today, the fledgling startup announced a $1.5 million seed investment from Work-Bench, a New York City venture capital firm that invests in early stage enterprise startups. In addition to the funding, the company announced it was opening registration for its FireHydrant incident management platfor...
Online catering marketplace ezCater gets another $150M at a $1.25B valuation
April 02, 2019 16:32 - 4 minutesIn 2007, Stefania Mallett and Briscoe Rodgers conceived of ezCater, an online marketplace for business catering, and began building the company in Mallet’s Boston home, mostly at her kitchen table. Recently, sitting at that same table, Mallett negotiated with Brad Twohig of Lightspeed Venture Partners the final terms of a $150 million Series D-1 at a $1.25 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jio Health combines online and offline healthcare in Southeast Asia, starting in Vietnam
April 02, 2019 08:01 - 4 minutesThe internet is often lauded for the potential to increase the impact of a range of primary services in emerging markets, including education, commerce, banking and healthcare. While many of those platforms are now being built, a few are finding that a hybrid approach combining online and offline is advantageous. That’s exactly what Jio Health, a “full stack” (forgive the phrase) healthcare startup is bringing to consumers in Southeast Asia, starting in Vietnam. Learn more about your ad choic...
Snap CEO’s sister Caroline Spiegel starts a no-visuals porn site
April 01, 2019 16:32 - 7 minutesIf you took the photos and videos out of pornography, could it appeal to a new audience? Caroline Spiegel’s first startup Quinn aims to bring some imaginationto adult entertainment. Her older brother, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, spent years trying to convince people his app wasn’t just for sexy texting. Now Caroline is building a website dedicated to sexy text and audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ride-hailing, bike and scooter companies probably raised less money than you thought
April 01, 2019 08:00 - 3 minutesJason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor To get big faster, younger unicorns start buying startups sooner Small VC funds continue to raise, despite pressure from above After years of fierce competition as private companies, Uber and Lyft aregoing publicon U.S. markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lyft prices IPO at top of range
March 29, 2019 16:31 - 3 minutesLyft raised more than $2 billion Thursday afternoon after pricing its shares at $72 apiece, the top of the expected range of $70 to $72 per share, per reports. This gives Lyft a fully-diluted market value of $24 billion. The company will debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday morning, trading under the ticker symbol “LYFT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Turns out The Correspondent isn’t opening a US newsroom after all
March 29, 2019 08:00 - 6 minutesDutch news organization The Correspondent surprised some of its supporters earlier this week, when co-founder and CEO Ernst Pfauth posted an update on Medium saying that the company would not be opening a newsroom in New York City. Which was odd, since the organizationraised $2.6 millionin a crowdfunding campaign last fall with the express purpose of launching in the United States. At least, that’s what I thought. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Goodly replaces lame office perks with student loan repayment
March 28, 2019 16:34 - 5 minutesThere are better employee perks than a ping-pong table. 70 percent of Americans graduate college with student loan debt. That’s 45 million people who owe $1.6 trillion. So when employers useGoodly to offer $100 per month in student loan payback for a $6 fee, talent sticks around. The startup found 86 percent of employees said they’d stay with a company for at least five years if their employer helped pay down their student loans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...
Unicorns aren’t profitable, and Wall Street doesn’t care
March 28, 2019 08:00 - 5 minutesIn Silicon Valley, investors don’t expect their portfolio companies to be profitable. “Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies,” a bible for founders, instead calls for heavy spending on growth to scale in an Amazon -like fashion. As for Wall Street, it’s shown an affinity for stock in Jeff Bezos’ business, despite the many years it spent navigating a path to profitability, as well as other money-losing endeavors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
Startups Weekly: A much-needed unicorn IPO update
March 27, 2019 16:36 - 7 minutesAs I’m sure everyone reading this knows, female-founded businesses receive just over 2 percent of venture capital on an annual basis. Most of those checks are written to early-stage startups. It’s extremely difficult for female founders to garner late-stage support, let alone cash $100 million checks. Maybe that’s finally changing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lyft’s IPO is hot, YC demo day, two new unicorns, and what’s Boy Brow?
March 26, 2019 16:33 - 3 minutesHello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm took us through an IPO, a big round, 943 startup pitches, two new unicorns, and some scooter news. A very 2019 mix, really. Up first we took a peek at the latest from the Lyft IPO saga. Recall that Lyft is beating Uber to the public markets, and we can report that it’s having a good time doing so. Learn more about your ad choic...
Robotics process automation startup UiPath raising $400M at more than $7B valuation
March 22, 2019 16:31 - 3 minutesUiPath, a robotics process automation platform targeting IT businesses, is raising more than $400 million in Series D funding from venture capital investors at a valuation north of $7 billion, sources have confirmed to TechCrunch following a report from Business Insider. We’ve reached out to the company for comment. UiPath, founded in 2005, has raised $409 million to date, meaning the new round of capital will double the total capital invested in the startup, as well as its valuation. Learn ...