Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The full Equity crew was on hand to debate the current venture capital market, curious about how risk-on, or risk-off things really are today. Danny, Natasha and I framed the conversation around a number of […]
Buying someone a gadget is a time-honored tradition, but these days it can be particularly fraught, considering you may buy them a fitness tracker that also monitors emotions, or a doorbell that snitches to the cops. Mozilla has put together a helpful list of popular gadgets with ratings on just how creepy they are. “Privacy […]
If you’re on a Mac running a relatively new version of macOS (Catalina or Big Sur, seemingly) and it’s having all sorts of weird issues right now: you’re not alone. We’re seeing a flood of reports from both users and developers of an issue preventing apps — particularly those not made by Apple — from […]
Disney+, the streaming service that launched one year ago today, grew to 73.7 million paid subscribers as of early October. That’s according to The Walt Disney Company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which covers the company’s finances through October 3. The company previously said Disney+ had 60.5 million subscribers as of August 3. The release also includes […]
Reports on November 9 that a COVID-19 vaccine looks incredibly effective moved the market. Software stocks sold off and long-suffering industries hammered by the pandemic saw their fortunes rise. It was odd to see airlines soaring and 2020 high-fliers like Zoom taking blows. But amidst all that noise, another sector that has great import for startups […]
The twenty-first century could be a period of unprecedented economic growth and social change for the African continent, which is poised for explosive change — but much of that change is predicated on an outmoded trade infrastructure that hasn’t changed much since the beginnings of the last century. That’s the problem that Sote wants to […]
Christian Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse employee, filed a lawsuit against the company today alleging Amazon failed to provide personal protective equipment to Black and Latinx workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The class action suit alleges Amazon failed to properly protect its warehouse workers and violated elements of New York City’s human rights law, as […]
A Y Combinator-backed startup that is helping major companies efficiently listen to how happy — or unhappy — their employees are just raised a new financing round from some high-profile executives. InFeedo, a four-year-old “people analytics” SaaS startup with headquarters in Gurgaon, said on Thursday it has raised $3.2 million in a new financing round […]
When I send an email, it’s special. A crafted, beautiful thing that — who am I kidding, it’s mostly automatic. So why not automate it? OthersideAI is taking this idea (with a $2.6 million seed round) beyond the auto-responders and smart replies, using OpenAI’s GPT-3 language generation engine to turn bullet points into full, personalized […]
Selfie filters have improved immensely over the past several years, but companies on the forefront of the tech see plenty of room to grow. The cosmetics world has also seen some rapid change in the past several years as makeup has proven particularly ripe for up-and-coming direct-to-consumer and influencer-endorsed brands to take hold. Plenty of […]
For all the myriad ways Amazon has made shopping more convenient, the last-mile delivery can be an issue. The company’s Key service is an attempt to address those issues, offering a way for packages to get delivered even when residents aren’t home or are otherwise unreachable. Currently the company offers home, car and garage delivery […]
Facebook today announced its new Snapchat-like feature for disappearing messaging, Vanish Mode, is arriving on Messenger and Instagram. The feature, meant for more casual conversations, allows users to set chats to automatically delete after the message is seen and the chat is closed. In Vanish Mode, Messenger and Instagram users can send text chats, emoji, […]
A lot of the focus in online education — and, let’s face it, education overall — has been about professional development for knowledge workers, education for K-12 and how best to deliver cost-effective, engaging higher learning to those in college and beyond. But in what might be a sign of the times, today a startup […]
As subscriptions become an increasingly alluring business model, fintechs will be forced to consider whether or not this proven strategy is worth the risk.
PayPal announced today it’s dropping the waitlist to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency in the U.S. With the move, all customers in the U.S. will be able to purchase cryptocurrency directly from within their PayPal accounts. U.S. customers will also be alerted to the new feature through both an email and a push notification in […]
Listen up, space fans and aficionados. You have just 48 hours left to secure an early-bird ticket to TC Sessions: Space 2020, a two-day virtual conference dedicated to early-stage space startups and the community that supports them. Join the brilliant minds, leading founders, shrewd investors and boundary-pushing engineers determined to shape the future of space […]
The day has finally arrived. The latest version of macOS is here, after a seemingly endless wait. That wasn’t just your imagination, either. Sure time is basically meaningless now, but this one did take a while to arrive, with nearly five months between its announcement at WWDC and today’s public release. There are, no doubt, […]
In 2009, Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani tried to convince people to learn online through live classes. But what he discovered instead was that everyone wanted an online repository of content that allowed them to learn at their own pace, whenever and wherever. So, he canned his idea and Udemy created what is now called a […]
Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python programming language, today announced that he has unretired and joined Microsoft’s Developer Division. Van Rossum, who was last employed by Dropbox, retired last October after six and a half years at the company. Clearly, that retirement wasn’t meant to last. At Microsoft, van Rossum says, he’ll work […]
