Stephen Milbank Contributor Share on Twitter Stephen Milbank is the co-founder and Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at Button, a mobile commerce technology company that is powering a commerce-driven internet. The COVID-19 pandemic has already dramatically reshaped how Americans shop, with e-commerce expected to grow 20% in 2020 as a greater proportion of users shift […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. A few notes before we get into this. One, we have a bonus episode coming this Saturday focused on this week’s earnings reports. And, second, we did not record video this week. So, if you […]
Y Combinator -backed employment platform 70 Million Jobs is launching a new social network geared toward helping formerly incarcerated individuals connect with each other. While 70 Million Jobs focuses on helping people with criminal records find jobs, Commissary Club wants to serve as a place for folks to find community. “Folks with [criminal] records have […]
NASA just made history by landing a spacecraft on an asteroid. If that kind of technical achievement carbonates your glass of Tang, join us on December 16-17 for TC Sessions: Space 2020, an event dedicated to early-stage space startups. We’ve launched early-bird pricing, and $125 buys you access to all live sessions, plus video on […]
Workplace SaaS tools for teams have seen rocket ship growth in the past several years, and that adoption has given rise to a host of software tools geared towards improving individual productivity. Many of the startups behind these tools see building a cult following among individual users as the best way to set themselves up […]
Despite e-commerce firms Amazon and Walmart and others pouring billions of dollars in India, offline retail still commands more than 95% of all sales in the world’s second largest internet market. The giants have acknowledged the strong hold neighborhood stores (mom and pop shops) have in the country, and in recent quarters scrambled for ways […]
If you miss hanging out with your coworkers but don’t want to spend a single second more on Zoom, the latest product from Donut might be the answer. The startup is launching its new Watercooler product today while also announcing that it has raised $12 million in total funding, led by Accel and with participation from […]
Atmos wants to make designing a house as simple as a single click. Well, that vision is now getting a double click from VCs. The company, which we profiled back in July, announced today that it raised another $4 million, this time from Evan Moore at Khosla Ventures, real estate strategic investors like David Gerster […]
The Wanderlust Group, a Rhode Island-based startup focused on building software for the boating world, announced that it has closed a $14.2 million Series B round of capital this week. The new funds were provided by Allen & Company and the Alaris family office. (Post updated to amend investor list after publication.) Wanderlust had raised […]
YC-backed Goodcover, the insurtech startup that looks to pass unused premiums back to the policyholder, is today announcing the close of a $7.5 million Series A funding round. The funding was led by Goodwater Capital, with participation from Fuel Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Liquid 2 and TransRe. Goodcover launched out of Y Combinator […]
Disruption favors the small startup, and the pandemic has most certainly been disruptive. So it’s no surprise that accelerators and incubators are pumping out new startups that are ready to tackle the problems of 2020. One such accelerator is the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, which is graduating 11 new startups out of the program today with […]
One of the most interesting projects to watch these days in tech is RISC-V. The nonprofit organization and wider community is building an open-source and standardized instruction set architecture (ISA) that allows chip creators to design their own chips unencumbered by licensing and patents typical of other ecosystems, such as those of Arm. Building an […]
Spotify is planning further price increases, according to comments made by co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek during the company’s third quarter earnings on Thursday. The streaming service had added 6 million subscribers in Q3 to achieve a total 144 million paying customers across 320 million active users, but fell short on both sales and earnings, […]
In its latest quarterly financial report, Spotify announced that it had crossed 320 million active monthly users. That marks a 29% growth for the quarter, coming on the heels of what seems to be a rather successful launch into the Russian market. Of that number, it now counts 144 million paid users — a 27% […]
Intel has been doubling down on building chips and related architecture for the next generation of computing, and today it announced an acquisition that will bolster its expertise and work specifically in one area of future technology: artificial intelligence. The semiconductor giant today announced that it has acquired SigOpt, a startup out of San Francisco […]
Nutrium, a digital health startup which links dietitians and their patients via an app, has raised a €4.25 million seed round led by Indico Capital Partners, alongside the the Social Innovation Fund in Portugal (SIF) and previous investors. It now offers professional nutrition software to 80,000 nutrition professionals and 800,000 patients in more than 40 […]
The global recovery in venture capital activity did not miss Europe, new data indicates. According to a PitchBook report, European venture capital activity rose in Q3 2020, putting the continent on pace to set a new yearly record for aggregate VC activity (as measured in Euros). The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it […]
Hermeus, a company seeking to build a Mach 5 aircraft that would be capable of making the trip from New York to London in just 90 minutes has raised a $16 million Series A round, led by Canaan Partners and including contributions from existing investors Khosla Ventures, Bling Capital and the Rise of the Rest […]
It’s been quite a time for chip industry consolidation, and today Marvell joined the acquisition parade when it announced it is acquiring Inphi in a combination of stock and cash valued at approximately $10 billion, according to the company. Marvell CEO Matt Murphy believes that by adding Inphi, a chip maker that helps connect internal […]
Walmart over the years has been working to turn its physical retail stores into online fulfillment centers, and now, with its latest set of test stores announced today, the retailer will try out ideas to make that transition more seamless. Walmart says it will deploy personnel to four test stores across the U.S., where they’ll […]