TechCrunch

The company that would become Tonal had to fight through multiple VC rounds of skeptical investors ready to say that two-letter word that stops all progress.

Company building, brand building, launch strategy and marketing tactics are key to the success of most startups — and that’s what this second part of the Tonal EC-1 is all about.

Once a fitness tech company like Tonal launches its product, it immediately faces another challenge: how to keep those users engaged.

Why should any customer spend upward of $3,000 on a Tonal device? The answer will determine Tonal’s eventual success, and that’s the theme we will explore in this fourth and final part of the EC-1.

Cameo, the celebrity video site you’re probably familiar with if you’ve celebrated a birthday in the last three years, announced this morning that it’s raised a $100M Series C. The round, which was led by Jonathan Turner with e.ventures, puts the site’s value at just north of $1 billion. Cameo has been building a good […]

SpaceX is set to make a change to its Crew Dragon spacecraft for its forthcoming history-making all-civilian launch, currently set for September 15. That Dragon will replace its International Space Station docking mechanism with a transparent dome, through which passengers will be able to take in an awe-inspiring surround panorama of space and the Earth […]

Meet Stockly, a French startup that keeps the inventory of various e-commerce websites in sync. When you see an out-of-stock item on an e-commerce website, chances are you leave that website and try to find the same item on another site. If you operate an e-commerce website, Stockly lets you sell items even when they’re […]

The autonomous vehicle startup Aurora Innovation said Tuesday it has reached an agreement with Volvo to jointly develop autonomous semi trucks for North America. The partnership, which the two companies say will span several years and is through Volvo’s Autonomous Solutions unit, will focus on trucks built to operate autonomously on highways between hubs for […]

MobiKwik said on Tuesday it was investigating claims of data breach after a website claimed to have exposed private information of nearly 100 million users of the Indian mobile payments startup. Over the weekend, a site on the dark web claimed it had 8.2 terabytes of MobiKwik user data. The data included phone numbers, email […]

Capitolis, which makes technology for capital markets players such as investment and merchant banks, has closed on a $90 million Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The financing included participation from existing backers Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, S Capital, Spark Capital, SVB Capital, Citi, J.P. Morgan and State Street and brings Capitolis’ […]

Self-driving and robotics startup Cartken has partnered with REEF Technology, a startup that operates parking lots and neighborhood hubs, to bring self-driving delivery robots to the streets of downtown Miami. With this announcement, Cartken officially comes out of stealth mode. The company, founded by ex-Google engineers and colleagues behind the unrequited Bookbot, was formed to […]

Substack didn't invent the paid newsletter, but the startup's early success with the model is enticing previous backers to more than double down on the media startup.

PayPal this morning announced the launch of Checkout with Crypto, a new feature that will allow consumers to check out at millions of online businesses using cryptocurrency. The feature expands on PayPal’s current investments in the cryptocurrency market, which include its partnership with Paxos to power its service that allows customers to buy, sell and […]

From the early success of Crypto Kitties to the explosive growth of NBA Top Shot, Dapper Labs has been at the forefront of the cryptocurrency collectible craze known as NFTs. Now the company is reaping the benefits of its trailblazing status with a new $305 million financing led by some of the biggest names in […]

Slice, the online ordering platform for independent pizzerias, announced two new offerings this morning — a point-of-sale system designed specifically for those businesses, as well as a rewards program for diners. The launch of the new Slice Register builds on last year’s acquisition of point-of-sale company Instore, and the appointment of its CEO Matt Niehaus […]

Shares of Spotify are up a fraction this morning after the company announced that it will acquire Betty Labs, the company behind the Locker Room, which focuses on live audio. Prior to the deal, Betty Labs had raised more than $9 million, per Crunchbase data. Spotify is best known for its music streaming business, but […]

Apple this morning announced that it will be returning to an all-virtual format for a second year. The company went online-only for the first time in 2020, as Covid-19 ground in-person events to a halt. While vaccine rollouts have begun in much of the world, the return of the in-person event industry still seems iffy […]

AI has become a fundamental cornerstone of how tech companies are building tools for salespeople: they are useful for supercharging (and complementing) the abilities of talented humans, or helping them keep themselves significantly more organised; even if in some cases — as with chatbots — they are replacing them altogether. In the latest development, 6sense, […]

SpaceX conducted yet another high-altitude test flight of its Starship prototype spacecraft on Tuesday, the fourth of these so far. Like all the flight testing and construction of Starship prototypes, this one took off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas development facility – a location recently renamed ‘Starbase’ by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Unfortunately, things didn’t […]

Cybersecurity training is one of those things that everyone has to do but not something everyone necessarily looks forward to. Living Security is an Austin-based startup out to change cybersecurity training something you look forward to, not dread. And the company has just closed on a $14 million Series B to continue its expansion beyond […]