Another week, another email newsletter. This time, the story is Punchbowl, a politics-centric newsletter founded by a crop of recent Politico alums including Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan. Ben Smith has the story, as does Maxwell Tani at the Daily Beast with some more juicy details. Why do we need another newsletter analyzing […]
A somewhat nebulous, but high-profile and potentially heavily moneyed joint venture is coming to an end: Haven, the JV created by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, is being “disbanded” according to CNBC, three years after its original formation. One of the main reasons is that each partner in the venture was apparently just pursuing […]
Aeva, the lidar company started by two former Apple engineers, has raised an additional $200 million in private investment from Hong Kong hedge fund Sylebra Capital ahead of its debut as a publicly traded company. The Mountain View, California-based startup announced in fall 2020 that it was merging with special purpose acquisition company InterPrivate Acquisition […]
Research papers come out far too rapidly for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. This column aims to collect the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in but not limited to artificial intelligence — and […]
A court in Italy has dealt a blow to unalloyed algorithmic management after a legal challenge brought by three unions. The Bologna court ruled that a reputational-ranking algorithm used by on-demand food delivery platform Deliveroo discriminated against gigging delivery workers by breaching local labor laws. The ruling, reported earlier in the Italian press, found Deliveroo’s ranking […]
One Way Ventures, a venture capital firm that backs immigrant founders, has closed its second fund at $57.5 million. The close comes three years after One Way announced its debut fund, a $28 million investment vehicle. The new fund will allow One Way to grow their check size from $500,000 to $1 million, giving them […]
Healthcare startup Color has raised a sizable $167 million in Series D funding round, at a valuation of $1.5 billion post-money, the company announced today. This brings the total raised by Color to $278 million, with its latest large round intended to help it build on a record year of growth in 2020 with even […]
The new year is kicking off with the launch of a new streaming service — Discovery+, which offers programming from Discovery’s networks including HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, OWN, Travel Channel, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Discovery+ actually launched in the United Kingdom and Ireland last fall through a deal with Sky, but the company […]
A new agreement between Hulu and ViacomCBS will bring 14 new channels to Hulu’s live TV streaming service, while also renewing the deal that allows Hulu to carry various CBS broadcast stations and Showtime. According to ViacomCBS, the new multiyear distribution deal will for the first time allow Hulu + Live TV subscribers to stream […]
Slack did its best to ease the working world back into their jobs this morning by breaking, ensuring that everyone’s return to the grind would be as chaotic and unproductive as possible. Precisely when the downtime began is not clear, though problems amongst the TechCrunch staff began a little after 10 o’clock in the morning. […]
Industrial sensor giant Teledyne is set to acquire sensing company FLIR in a deal valued at around $8 billion in a mix of stock and cash, pending approvals with an expected closing date sometime in the middle of this year. While both companies make sensors, aimed primarily at industrial and commercial customers, they actually focus […]
Venmo this morning announced it will begin to offer a new check-cashing service, “Cash a Check,” in the Venmo mobile app. The feature, which is being rolled out to select users starting today, can be used to cash printed, payroll and U.S. government checks, including the new stimulus checks, the company says. Though typically there […]
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 […]
ShareChat, an Indian social network that added Twitter as an investor in 2019, may soon receive the backing of two more American firms. The Bangalore-based startup is in advanced stages of talks to raise money from Google and Snap, as well as several existing investors, including Twitter, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. […]
A U.K. district court judge has refused to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. In a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this morning, Judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition on grounds that Assange is a suicide risk and extradition to the U.S. prison system would be oppressive, given the likely impact on his […]
A group of more than 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union, The New York Times first reported. With the help of Communication Workers of America Union’s Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), the union will be open to both employees and contractors. Of the roughly 227 workers […]
The battle is heating up between Tesla and its Chinese challenger Xpeng as the latter makes clearer its stance on the future of autonomous driving. Over the weekend, Xpeng, which counts Xiaomi and Alibaba among its investors, announced that it will be using lidar sensors from Livox, a startup with close ties to the Chinese […]
Bangalore-based CRED is kickstarting the new year on a high note. The two-year-old startup, led by high-profile entrepreneur Kunal Shah, said on Monday it has raised $81 million in a new financing round and bought shares worth $1.2 million (about 90 million Indian rupees) from employees. The Series C financing round, as first reported by […]
TMYTEK recently raised a Series A+ round of about $10 million for products that make it easier to test 5G millimeter wave equipment. So far, the company’s clients include KDDI, NTT DoCoMo and research institutions. But the Taiwanese startup has aspirations to sell its own base stations, too, competing with well-established players like Nokia, Ericsson, […]
