Estonia-based Sentinel, which is developing a detection platform for identifying synthesized media (aka deepfakes), has closed a $1.35 million seed round from some seasoned angle investors — including Jaan Tallinn (Skype), Taavet Hinrikus (Transferwise), Ragnar Sass & Martin Henk (Pipedrive) — and Baltics early stage VC firm, United Angels VC. The challenge of building tools […]
Hardware season is in full swing. Apple’s big Watch event kicks off tomorrow and Samsung is readying itself for a third (!) Unpacked event on September 23. Now Google’s getting in on the fun. After opting to skip a virtual version of I/O earlier this year, the company has confirmed that it will be doing […]
For Jim Breyer, the mantra, “Silicon Valley is a state of mind” has always been behind Breyer Capital, his personal investment fund. While many of his investments and board seats (which have included Facebook, Blackstone, 21st Century Fox, Dell, Etsy, Marvel Entertainment and Walmart) backed that thesis, Breyer had never established an office for his […]
Courier is an API platform with a no-code twist that helps developers add multichannel user notifications to their applications. The company today announced that it has raised a $10.1 million Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Matrix Partners, Twilio and Slack Fund also participated in this round. Previously, the company raised a […]
Blue Origin, along with it partners Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper, was one of three companies to be awarded contracts by NASA to develop human lunar landers for future Moon missions. Blue Origin’s so-called ‘National Team’ is focused on developing a Human Landing System (HLS) for NASA to support its efforts to return human […]
Welcome to Day One of Disrupt 2020, our biggest Disrupt ever! Over the next five days (cue Star Trek theme), you’ll explore strange new technology, seek out new opportunities and new collaborations. You’ll boldly immerse yourself with the global startup community. There’s still time to register if you haven’t picked up your pass to attend. […]
If this was a normal year, we would be settling in for an iPhone event right about now. This is, however, very much not a normal year. And while we are, in fact, getting an Apple hardware event tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, it’s looking entirely possible — even likely — that we […]
In a press briefing today, scientists rom the Royal Astronomical Society announced a potentially revolutionary scientific discovery: They’ve detected the presence of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, which suggests the possible presence of biological life. Phosphine is a gas that’s a known biosignature, which means it’s only present when some for of life is […]
ARM Holdings, the UK semiconductor company, made history for the second time today, becoming the country’s biggest tech exit when Nvidia announced over the weekend that it would buy it from SoftBank for $40 billion in an all-stock deal. (ARM’s first appearance in the record books? When SoftBank announced in 2016 that it would acquire […]
As TikTok’s fate in the U.S. remains murky, YouTube today announced the launch of a new short-form video experience it’s calling YouTube Shorts. The feature will allow users, initially in India, to upload 15-second or less short-form videos using a new set of creator tools, including a multi-segment camera, similar to TikTok, speed controls, and […]
Microsoft has concluded a years-long experiment involving use of a shipping container-sized underwater data center, placed on the sea floor off the cost of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. The company pulled its ‘Project Natick’ underwater data warehouse up out of the water earlier this year at the beginning of the summer, and spent that last few […]
The European Commission has begun testing backend infrastructure that’s needed to make national coronavirus contacts tracing apps interoperate across the bloc’s internal borders. It’s kicked off test runs between the backend servers of the official apps from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Latvia, and the newly established gateway server — which is […]
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 big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can […]
We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch memberships are now available in Australia. That adds to our existing support in: United States Canada Argentina, Brazil, Mexico UK Select European countries We’ve been polling readers for the past year and a half about where to expand, and Australia was one of the most requested regions. Join […]
Indulging in American food companies’ favorite pastime of marketing innovations that no one needs but potentially everyone wants, Beyond Meat is launching Beyond Meatballs in grocery stores nationwide this week. The new product can be put on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, and comes pre-spiced with a blend of Italian spices, according to […]
The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation. Thrive Capital led the round, with additional funding by existing investors Benchmark, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital and CRV, as well as new investor D1 Capital. With this, […]
Another big M&A play is going down in the the world of media. Publishing group Red Ventures today announced that it is buying CNET Media Group from ViacomCBS for $500 million. The deal will include the eponymous CNET tech site, as well as ZDNet, Gamespot, TVGuide, Metacritic, and Chowhound. The news puts paid to speculation that had been […]
Another class action style lawsuit has been lodged against a tech giant in the UK alleging violations of privacy and seeking major damages. The latest representative action, filed against Google-owned YouTube, accuses the platform of routinely breaking UK and European data protection laws by unlawfully targeting up to five million under-13-year-olds with addictive programming and […]
Facebook today is rolling out a new feature that will allow friends and family to watch videos together over Messenger. The feature, called “Watch Together,” works with all Facebook Watch video content, including its original programs, user uploads, creator content, live streams, and soon, music videos. At launch, the co-watching experience can be used by […]
Google was at the leading edge of large technology companies seeking to go completely carbon neutral, having declared that status in 2007, and subsequently matching all of its global electricity consumption with renewable energy. Now, the company says that it is breaking new ground by becoming the first major company to effectively eliminate its entire […]
