Mojiit, the Los Angeles-based company behind the popular avatar generation service Mojichat, has landed one of its highest-profile users with the launch of Odell Beckham Jr.’s live stream over the weekend. As Odell Beckham Jr. did his first live stream with the gaming superstar Dr. Disrespect, he turned to Mojichat to create the pop-up onscreen […]
Polestar is a young automaker spun out of Volvo and Geely. Now, just four years old, it has two cars on the market with more launching soon. Like many startups, the company is weathering early storms coming from government regulators and early recalls. Earlier this week, the EPA released its findings on the Polestar 2’s […]
This morning, YCharts, a financial data and charting service, announced that it has been purchased by LLR Partners, a private equity firm. The companies are dubbing the transaction a “growth recapitalization,” indicating that the smaller firm won’t be stripped of its talent in hopes of driving near-term positive EBITDA. The deal was an all-cash transaction, […]
The road to sustainable vehicles likely ends at electric cars, yet the route to this goal isn’t clear. There are multiple ways to get there, and Porsche is looking at synthetic fuels as a potential path. These so-called eFuels are produced from CO2 and hydrogen. If produced using renewable energy, they can help vehicles powered […]
So much for progress. New data out this week from PitchBook indicates that the number of rounds raised by female-founded and co-founded companies fell year-over-year, with dollars invested in those rounds collapsing to 2017-era levels. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every […]
Pakistan has banned popular short video app TikTok, citing circulation of videos that it deemed “immoral and indecent.” The move comes months after the South Asian country raised serious concerns about the nature of some videos on ByteDance’s app and the impact they posed on society. Pakistan issues ‘final warning’ to TikTok and blocks Bigo […]
Heading into the third quarter and earnings season, TechCrunch is excited to announce that Yext CEO Howard Lerman will join us for a live Q&A next Tuesday as part of our continuing Extra Crunch Live series. The series recently hosted pairs of investors from Accel and Index Ventures and has hosted business leaders, from Mark Cuban to […]
The advent of low-cost Android smartphones and the world’s cheapest mobile data has paved the way for millions of social media influencers in India to amass a following of tens of millions of users in recent years. These influencers, also known as creators, share their daily vlogs, thoughts on a wide range of issues, and […]
High-end speaker manufacturer Devialet is launching its first pair of earbuds. Called Devialet Gemini, the in-ear earbuds feature active noise canceling and cost £279 in the U.K. — they will be available in the coming weeks. The Devialet Gemini are completely wireless, which means that there’s no cord between each earbud, like on Apple’s AirPods. […]
Lalamove, an on-demand logistics service active in China, Southeast Asia and Latin America, has officially entered the U.S. seven years after launch. As the COVID-19 pandemic keeps millions of Americans home, Hong Kong-based Lalamove believes it can seize the growing demand for delivery services in the country. It makes its debut in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, […]
If you’ve been following the SPAC boom, you may have noticed something about these blank-check vehicles that are springing up left and right in order to take public privately held companies. They are being organized mostly by men. It’s not surprising, given the relative dearth of women in senior financial positions in banking and the […]
According to details from a shocking new affidavit, the FBI uncovered a group planning “violent action against multiple state governments,” including a detailed plot to capture or kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Individuals involved in the plot organized across Facebook groups, in-person events and at least two encrypted chat apps that the FBI did not […]
Alphabet’s self-driving technology company hits a major milestone, Apple TV+ extends its free subscription period and Affirm files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for October 8, 2020. The big story: Waymo opens up driverless ride-hailing Waymo hit a major milestone today: It’s offering fully driverless rides to (some) members of the public. […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Natasha was on vacation, so Danny and your humble servant had to endeavor alone. She’s back next week, so we’ll be back to full strength as a collective soon enough. But even with […]
Everyone is familiar with carrier pigeons, but what about carrier moths? This research project uses the nocturnal insects as a delivery service for tiny electronic packages that weigh less than a hundredth of an ounce. The system was created by graduate students at the University of Washington and its prolific tiny gadget creator Shyam Gollakota. […]
TuSimple and Waymo are in the lead in the emerging sector of autonomous trucking; TuSimple founder Xiaodi Hou and Waymo trucking head Boris Sofman had an in-depth discussion of their industry and the tech they’re building at TC Mobility 2020. Interestingly, while they’re solving for the same problems, they have very different backgrounds and approaches. […]
The pandemic has affected just about every business in the world, but tech has also geared up to fight back in its own way, as we found out from speakers at Disrupt 2020. But technology has opted to take a back seat to frontline workers and find ways to support them rather than attempt to […]
This afternoon Affirm, a startup focused on providing point-of-sale credit to consumers making online purchases, announced that it has filed to go public. The filing is confidential, so there’s little to be gleaned about the company’s performance from the news. That Affirm was exploring a public offering was reported by the Wall Street Journal back […]
If we want podcasting to continue to scale beyond its current and projected advertising revenue heights, we need to resolve some fundamental challenges.
