What a whirlwind holiday for Jack Ma and his fintech empire. The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, summoned Ant Group for regulatory talks on December 26, announcing a sweeping plan for the fintech firm to “rectify” its regulatory violations. The meeting came less than two months after China’s financial authorities abruptly halted […]
The coronavirus pandemic — and a handful of other factors — slowed dealmaking for startups in India this year. Compared to their record $14.5 billion fundraise last year, Indian startups are ending 2020 with about $9.3 billion. This is the first time since 2016 that startups in India, one of the world’s largest startup communities, […]
Today we sat on the deck with our daughter Ella and her boyfriend Nick. Knowing of my fascination with all things Beatles, Nick gave me a Japanese 45 of “Get Back” flipped with “Don’t Let Me Down.” His gift coincided with a five minute cut of material from a newly authorized production of a new […]
Want this newsletter in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here. Remember when it was news that venture capitalists were open for business? Or when Zoom investing was only done by that one guy in Ann Arbor (ha, I kid!)? These past few months have felt busier than ever, with no holiday slowdown in […]
“The Mandalorian” just wrapped up its second season on Disney+, with an action-packed and surprise-filled finale. In many ways, it feels like a seamless continuation of the first season’s storylines, with the titular bounty hunter searching for a Jedi who can take responsibility for the alien moppet known to the internet as Baby Yoda, while […]
“Are you okay?” I don’t have a good answer to the question. Knowing full well that I’m talking back to an algorithm — even one asking the same question of everyone with a different band mad-libbed in — doesn’t soften the blow. Am I? Are we? Is anyone, really? In this case, it’s referring to […]
Chinese authorities investigate an e-commerce giant, Google may be tightening its grip on research and VCs weigh in on the year’s biggest surprises. This is your (briefer than usual) Daily Crunch for December 24, 2020. The big story: Alibaba faces antitrust probe China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said that it’s investigating the e-commerce giant […]
This was going to be the year of 5G. It was going to be the year the next-generation wireless technology helped reverse some troubling macro trends for the industry — or at the very least helped stem the bleeding some. But the best laid plans, and all that. With about a week left in the […]
SpaceX is set to significantly ramp up its Starship development program in the new year, in more ways than one. SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk noted on Twitter on Thursday that the company will seek to make use of both of its two launch pads at its development facility in Boca Chica, Texas with […]
Summarizing the performance of 10, 20 or 50 developers over the past 12 months, offering personalized advice and having the facts to back it up — is no small task.
If you didn’t think much about seed in 2020, you’re not alone. Late, huge rounds consumed most of the media’s oxygen, leaving smaller startups to compete for scraps of attention.
If the portfolio of a corporate venture capital firm can be taken as a signal for the strategic priorities of their parent companies, then National Grid has high hopes for automation as the future of the utility industry. The heavy emphasis on automation and machine learning from one of the nation’s largest privately held utilities […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today is our holiday look-back at the year, bringing not only our own Danny and Natasha and Chris and Alex into the mix, but also five venture capitalists who we got to leave us their […]
From the beginning, the plan for Sidewalk Labs (a subsidiary of Alphabet and — by extension — a relative of Google) to develop a $1.3 billion tech-enabled real estate project on the Toronto waterfront was controversial. Privacy advocates had justified concerns about the Google-adjacent company’s ability to capture a near-total amount of data from the […]
Brightpearl, which allows retailers to streamline their operations thus boosting sales, has raised $33 million in funding to scale its business. This Series C round was led by Sage, which has put $23 million into the U.K. company. Previous backers Cipio Partners, Notion Capital and Verdane also participated, putting in $10 million. The Bristol, U.K.-based startup […]
China’s top market watchdog has begun a probe into Alibaba over alleged anti-competition practices at the e-commerce firm, the latest of Beijing’s efforts to curb the country’s ever-expanding internet titans. The State Administration for Market Regulation said Thursday in a brief statement that it is investigating Alibaba over its “choosing one from two” policy, in […]
Google is currently under fire for apparently pushing out a researcher whose work warned of bias in AI, and now a report from Reuters says others doing such work at the company have been asked to “strike a positive tone” and undergo additional reviews for research touching on “sensitive topics.” Reuters, citing researchers at the […]
Telegram will introduce ads, TikTok’s parent company is moving into drug discovery and President Trump continues his battle against Section 230. This is your Daily Crunch for December 23, 2020. The big story: Telegram prepares to monetize Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging app will introduce advertising next year on public one-to-many channels. Durov […]
Following through on his previous threat, President Trump has vetoed the $740 million National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a major bill that allocates military funds each year. In tweets early this month, Trump said he would sink the NDAA if it wasn’t altered to include language “terminating” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, an […]
