Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Our beloved Danny was back, joining Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris to chat through yet another incredibly busy week. As a window into our process, every week we tell one another that the next week we’ll cut the show down to […]
Manish Maheshwari, the head of Twitter India, has taken a new role at the company and is relocating to the U.S., the latest in a series of developments for the American social giant after a tense stand-off with New Delhi this year. Maheshwari is moving on from the high-profile position, a role he assumed in […]
A group of senators sent new Amazon CEO Andy Jassy a letter Friday pressing the company for more information about how it scans and stores customer palm prints for use in some of its retail stores. The company rolled out the palm print scanners through a program it calls Amazon One, encouraging people to make […]
Food delivery apps offer convenience for customers, but a host of headaches for restaurants, like commissions as high as 40% and very few tools to build customer loyalty. Based in Singapore, Tablevibe wants to help restaurants reduce their reliance on third-party delivery apps and help them get more direct orders and returning customers. The startup […]
Disney’s streaming service is seeing improved growth, after initially seeing slower numbers of subscriber additions in Q2 as COVID lockdowns and mask mandates came to an end. Today, Disney+ beat analyst expectations for subscriber growth in Disney’s blowout third quarter, reaching 116 million paid subscribers — above the 114.5 million Wall Street had expected — […]
Both companies were heavily impacted by the onset of COVID-19: Airbnb saw its revenues collapse in 2020, while DoorDash managed a simply incredible 2020 as folks stayed home and ordered in.
Earlier this year, Nothing launched the Ear (1) with a grand idea: earbuds as fashion accessories. Sure, the company talked a lot about the non-invasiveness of transparent design, but at the end of the day, the product’s launch on StockX betrayed a focus on the fashion forward. In that respect, Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds 2 […]
Operating in the cloud is soon going to be a reality for many businesses whether they like it or not. Points of contention with this shift often arise from unfamiliarity with cloud operations.
Medal.tv, a short-form video clipping service and social network for gamers, is entering the livestreaming market with the acquisition of Rawa.tv, a Twitch rival based in Dubai, which had raised around $1 million to date. The seven-figure, all-cash deal will see two of Rawa’s founders, Raya Dadah and Phil Jammal, now joining Medal, and further […]
The unprecedented liquidity entering the venture market in the past year has spurred trends that require VCs to adapt to an environment where startup founders have far more leverage than they used to.
Lowercarbon Capital, a climate-tech focused fund founded by longtime investor Chris Sacca and his wife Crystal Sacca, has closed on $800 million in capital, Sacca announced today in a post on the firm’s site. According to Sacca, the commitments came exceedingly fast — in “just a few days.” Writes Sacca: “It turns out that raising […]
With two giants calling the shots and collecting whatever tolls they see fit, mobile software makers have long complained that app stores take an unfair cut of the cash that should be flowing directly to developers. Hearing those concerns, a group of senators introduced a new bill this week that, if passed, would greatly diminish […]
Box has been in an ongoing dispute with activist investors Starboard Value over control of the board, an argument that is expected to come to a head on September 9th at the annual shareholder meeting. In an effort to show shareholders that the numbers are continuing to improve under the current leadership, Box took the […]
VCs need to stop engaging in self-delusion about why a valuation that is too high might be OK. Here are three common lies investors tell themselves to rationalize an undisciplined valuation decision.
Starbucks offers an integrated wallet and payments within its app, and Lyft offers its drivers a debit card. But that doesn’t make them fintech companies.
If you’ve ever sold a house, you know what a pain it is to go through the process of listing, showing and negotiating the sale of your home. It’s so much of a pain that many people put it off as long as possible because they don’t want to deal with it. The result is […]
