Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You […]
The medical industry is sitting on a huge trove of data, but in many cases it can be a challenge to realize the value of it because that data is unstructured and in disparate places. Today, a startup called Mendel, which has built an AI platform both to ingest and bring order to that body […]
Hydrogen-based generators are an environmentally-friendly alternative to ones powered by diesel fuel. But many rely on solar, hydro or wind power, which aren’t available all the time. Brisbane-based Endua is making hydrogen-based power generators more accessible by using electrolysis to create more hydrogen and storing it for long-term use. The startup’s technology was developed at […]
More signs of the global market righting the ship after a disastrous 2020. New figures from Gartner point to 26% increase in global sales year over year for the first quarter of 2021. The overall increase is an impressive one, though it comes after a couple of years of market slow down, followed by a […]
Astra, the space launch startup with plans to go public via a SPAC merger, will acquire electric propulsion maker Apollo Fusion, the company said Monday. Electric propulsion systems are effective at moving spacecraft from lower to higher orbits, even to the moon, Astra Chief Engineer Benjamin Lyon said in a blog post Monday, pointing to […]
And we’re back. Well, not back-back. But we’re here in the San Jose McEnery Convention Center of the mind. The parking is awful and the hotels all got booked up five months ago, so we’re taking the CalTrain in from Redwood City (of the mind). We’ve got a full house at this morning’s virtual kick […]
Tata Digital, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Tata Sons, said on Monday it has signed a deal to invest up to $75 million in fitness startup CureFit. As part of the deal, CureFit co-founder and chief executive Mukesh Bansal will join Tata Digital as President and also continue in his role at the Bangalore-headquartered startup. […]
Lightspeed has picked up two more companies in what is shaping up to be an acquisition spree for the Canadian point-of-sale software provider. The company today announced that it would acquire e-commerce platform Ecwid for $500 million; and NuOrder, a B2B ordering platform servicing wholesales, brands and retailers, for $425 million. Together, the two deals underscore […]
The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every weekend in your inbox. Hello and welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to all the ways people and packages move (today and in the future) from Point A to […]
Many people in emerging markets depend on informal public transport to move across cities. But while there are ride-hailing and bus-hailing applications in some of these cities, there’s a dire need for journey-planning apps to improve mobility for users and reduce the time they spend commuting. South African-founded startup WhereIsMyTransport is one such company filling […]
France’s competition watchdog, L’Autorité de la concurrence, has fined Google up to €220 million (~$268M) in a case related to self-preferencing within the adtech market which the watchdog found constituted an abuse by Google of a dominant position for ad servers for website publishers and mobile apps. L’Autorité began looking into Google’s adtech business following complaints from […]
In 2014 Alexis Patjane was at a local hookah bar in Mexico City with some friends and the bar ran out of tobacco. They thought maybe they could buy some online and have it delivered to the bar in real-time, but it turns out that service didn’t exist. At the time, Patjane was running a […]
Jeff Bezos is going to be one of the passengers on his spaceflight company Blue Origin’s first ever human space launch on July 20. The Amazon founder announced the news via his Instagram on Monday morning, revealing that his brother Mark will also be coming along for the ride. Bezos and his brother will join […]
One of Google’s strong advantages in the world of online video has been the sheer size of YouTube: currently, the site has more than 2.3 billion monthly active users and over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute. Now, Google and YouTube are hoping to leverage some of that heft as it goes head to […]
Cash is the predominant method of sending and receiving payments in the Middle East. If you owe someone a cup of coffee or a trip over a long period, repaying via cash is your best bet. This is one problem out of many financial issues that haven’t been addressed in the region. The good news […]
Today, Apple is holding a (virtual) keynote on the first day of its developer conference, and the company is expected to talk about a ton of software updates. At 10 AM PT (1 PM in New York, 6 PM in London, 7 PM in Paris), you’ll be able to watch the event right here as […]
1971 is the name of the year and an Apple TV+ documentary series billed as The Year That Music Changed Everything. It’s also the number of hours the former President kept up his blog From the Desk Of. No, that’s not true. But it is satisfactual. The thesis of the movie 1971 is that music […]
Fixing workplace misconduct reporting is a mission that’s snagged London-based Vault Platform backing from Google’s AI focused fund, Gradient Ventures, which is the lead investor in an $8.2 million Series A that’s being announced today. Other investors joining the round are Illuminate Financial, along with existing investors including Kindred Capital and Angular Ventures. Its $4.2M […]
Tesla CEO Elon has made it official and publicly cancelled plans to produce the Model S Plaid+, a supercharged version of the upcoming Plaid version of the electric vehicle that will be delivered to the first customers this month. Musk’s reason: Plaid is so good that another variant isn’t needed. “Model S goes to Plaid […]
There has been a wave of businesses over the past several years hoping to offer broadband internet delivered from thousands of satellites in low-earth orbit (LEO), providing coverage of most of the earth’s surface. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen excitement in the category. Companies and people that you have heard of — Bill […]
