This week, Automattic revealed it has signed all the paperwork to acquire Tumblr from Verizon, including its full staff of 200. Tumblr has undergone quite a journey since its headline-grabbing acquisition by Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo in 2013 for $1.1 billion, but after six years of neglect, its latest move is its first real start since […]

Tandem is amongst the most sought after companies of Y Combinator's summer batch.

After months of rumors, Verizon finally sold off Tumblr for a reported $3 million — a fraction of what Yahoo paid for the once mighty blogging service back in 2013. The media conglomerate (which also owns TechCrunch) was clearly never quite sure what to do with the property after gobbling it up as part of […]

Zhihu may not be as well known outside of China as WeChat or ByteDance’s Douyin, but over the past eight years, it has cultivated a reputation for being one of the country’s most trustworthy social media platforms. Originally launched as a question-and-answer site similar to Quora, Zhihu has grown to be a central hub for […]

Yahoo Mail is getting a mobile update, with new versions of the iOS and Android app launching today. Many of you probably haven’t tried out Yahoo Mail in years, but Senior Director of Product Management Josh Jacobson noted that it’s one of the top productivity apps in the Apple App Store, where it has been […]

So you’ve had a data breach. Don’t worry, it’s not just you. These days it happens to everyone, no matter how large or small your company is. It’s almost inevitable, some might say, and not a case of if but when. A lot is already out of your control. Whether a hacker broke in and […]

Late last night the Financial Times reported that HuffPost, arguably one of the crown jewels of Verizon Media Group’s remaining network of media properties (which includes TechCrunch), is up for sale. Verizon has been shedding media properties in a retreat from the strategy that it had begun to execute with the acquisition of AOL for […]

Startup founders have a million things to worry about every day. Finding product-market fit, great talent and and a sustainable plan for constant growth are top of mind, but perhaps most importantly, they need to keep the lights on, whether it’s by raising venture capital or managing cash flows while bootstrapping. The flip side to […]

Your chances of closing your first big sale are going to be directly related to how well you’re targeting prospective customers.

When in April of last year, the photo-hosting service SmugMug acquired the photo-hosting service Flickr from Verizon’s digital media subsidiary, SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill said he was committed to breathing new life into the service, calling it “core to the entire fabric of the Internet.” MacAskill didn’t reveal at the time how much SmugMug — […]

Time is supposed to make technology better. The idea is simple: With more time, humans make newer, better technology and our lives improve. Except for when the opposite happens. Google is a good example of this. I’ve been harping on the matter for a while now. Google mobile search, in case you haven’t used it […]

The proliferation of data breaches based on leaked passwords, and the rising tide of regulation that puts a hard stop on just how much user information can be collected, stored and used by companies have laid bare the holes in simple password and memorable-information-based verification systems. Today a startup called Persona, which has built a […]

Beyond Meat, the publicly traded producer of plant-based protein replacements for meat, is currently giving other companies in the alternative meat space an education in just how finicky appealing to consumer tastes can be. On the same day that the Canadian Tim Hortons restaurant chain is dropping Beyond Meat products from its menus, the company […]

Shares of One Medical are worth $19.50 this morning after the venture-backed unicorn priced its IPO at $14 per share last night. The company opened at $18 before rising further, according to Yahoo Finance data. At its current price, One Medical is worth about 40% more than its IPO price, a strong debut for the […]

As a cell phone plan, Yahoo Mobile seems pretty straightforward — there’s just one pricing tier, where you pay $39.99 per month for unlimited calls, data and mobile hotspot usage. But you may be wondering why Yahoo is getting into the phone business. It makes more sense when you recall that Yahoo is owned by Verizon, […]

Ecosia, a not-for-profit search engine which uses ad generated revenue to fund planting trees, is set to get a visibility boost in Chrome. A change Google is making to its chromium engine will see it added as a default search engine choice in up to 47 markets for the version 81 release of Google’s web […]

Billionaire. Entrepreneur. Investor. Shark. Mark Cuban is one of tech’s best-known entrepreneurs, so we are amped to have him join us for an upcoming Extra Crunch Live, our virtual speaker series that connects the brightest minds in tech directly with our Extra Crunch audience. Starting out as a salesman for one of Dallas’s earliest PC […]

Fresh off of a large round of layoffs, Lyft reported its Q1 results this afternoon. The ride-hailing company disclosed that it generated revenue of $955.7 million in the first three months of 2020, up 23% from its year-ago Q1 revenue result of $776 million. The company’s net loss of $398.1 million was also an improvement […]

“Is Greta Thunberg a hypocrite?” Google that phrase and you will get thousands of results. It just goes to show that, to a large extent, the “Q&A” model is broken on the internet. Where once Yahoo Answers and Quora were considered the bright young things of Web 2.0’s “Read/Write Web,” today there is only the […]

Orca Security, an Israeli cloud security firm that focuses on giving enterprises better visibility into their multi-cloud deployments on AWS, Azure and GCP, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series A round led by GGV Capital. YL Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments also participated in this round. Together with its seed […]

This morning let's peek at Uber's numbers ahead of earnings and see what we can learn about its 2019 in the micro-mobility world.

Treasury Prime, a startup that built software tooling to help banks automate and accelerate routine tasks, announced today that it has closed a $9 million Series A. The new capital was sourced from Amias Gerety of QED, Jason Lemkin of SaaStr, and Hans Morris of NYCA Partners. The capital event is yet another funding round […]

This afternoon Airbnb, a well-known private company that connects travelers with places to stay, announced that it was laying off around a quarter of its workforce. The company cited revenue declines and a need to curtail costs in a memo that TechCrunch viewed. In the note, written by Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky, the […]

AskRobin, an Estonia-founded fintech that operates a financial services marketplace for “underbanked” customers in Latin America, has picked up $1.7 million in funding. The seed round is backed by VC funds Change Ventures, Vereeni Early Stage Fund, BENE Asia Capital, and Lemonade Stand. In addition, a number of tech entrepreneurs from Estonia participated, such as […]

Banked, a London-based fintech using open banking to enable account-to-account payments at checkout (and beyond), has raised £2.35 million in further seed funding. The round was led by Force Over Mass, with participation from previous investors Backed and Acrew Capital, along with a number of high-net-worth individuals, such as Paul Forster (co-founder of Indeed.com). It […]

Burst Oral Care, a startup that sells an electric toothbrush boasting charcoal bristles and 33,000 sonic vibrations per minute, has raised a Series C of undisclosed size. Although we don’t know the amount of the round, the Series C was led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, and Burst says it more than doubled the valuation […]

Today we're taking stock of what's happening to a number of unicorns, both public and private.

A new data set from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) details how startups are reacting to the post-unicorn era as COVID-19-related disruptions upset the global economy and remake the risk tolerance of private investors. What SVB’s new report shows is unsurprising: venture capital deal volumes are falling, startups are tapping existing debt capacities to add cash […]

Countingup, the business current account that “automates” your accounting, has raised £4 million in self-described bridge funding. Leading the round is ING Ventures, with co-investment from Triple Point, CVentures, and BiG Start Ventures. Founded by Tim Fouracre, who previously founded cloud accounting software Clear Books, and now boasting 20,000 business customers, Countingup’s long term vision […]

Deep Render, a London startup and spin-out of Imperial College that is applying machine learning to image compression, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Pentech, with participation from Speedinvest. Founded in mid-2017 by Arsalan Zafar and Chri Besenbruch, who met while studying Computer Science at Imperial College London, Deep Render […]

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. As the economy has worsened, the market for many goods and services has slowed. Some SaaS products have found themselves immune, or even boosted by recently changes in consumer and business consumption patterns and travel […]

Today at 10am PDT, two-thirds of the Equity crew are sitting down with Hunter Walk, a venture capitalist with Homebrew and well-known seed-stage investor. Continuing TechCrunch’s running series of Extra Crunch Live discussions with prominent people in the tech industry, bringing Walk in for a discussion is fitting. Our recent chat with Sequoia Roelof Botha’s […]

Lime has announced that it has raised a $170 million funding round. Uber is the leading investor with existing investors Alphabet, Bain Capital Ventures, GV and others also participating. The Information first reported on the new funding round before the official announcement. As part of the deal, Lime is also acquiring Uber’s micromobility subsidiary Jump. […]

Zoom announced this morning that it has acquired Keybase, a startup with encryption expertise. It did not reveal the purchase price. Keybase, which has been building encryption products for several years including secure file sharing and collaboration tools, should give Zoom some security credibility as it goes through pandemic demand growing pains. The company has […]

Stilt, a Y Combinator alum that provides financial services for immigrants without Social Security numbers or credit reports, announced today that it has closed a $7.5 million seed round. It also launched FDIC-insured pre-approved global bank accounts today. The startup has raised equity from investors including Liron Petrushka; Hillsven Capital; Streamlined Ventures; Gokul Rajaram; Bragiel […]

Zoom acquires some encryption expertise, Uber makes a big investment in scooters and we review the new 13-inch Macbook Pro. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 7, 2020. 1. Zoom acquires Keybase to get end-to-end encryption expertise Keybase, whose encryption products include secure file sharing and collaboration tools, should give Zoom some security credibility as […]

Target, which already owns on-demand delivery service Shipt, is in the process of acquiring technology assets from same-day delivery service Deliv. The retailer is characterizing the deal as more of an R&D type of acquisition and not one that will have an immediate consumer-facing impact. Deal terms were not disclosed, but we understand the deal […]

Founders hunting down capital in the middle of this pandemic may feel like they’re on a fool’s errand, but some investors are still offering financing, even if the terms might not be as good as they once were. One avenue that appears to remain open: corporate venture capital. The corporate route offers its own set […]

Let's take a look at why the SaaS cohort is the apple of Wall Street's eye.

A team of researchers from Apple and Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute have presented a system for embedded AIs to learn by listening to noises in their environment without the need for up-front training data or without placing a huge burden on the user to supervise the learning process. The overarching goal is for […]

A German research institute that’s involved in developing a COVID-19 contacts tracing app with the backing of the national government has released some new details about the work, which suggests the app is being designed as more of a “one-stop shop” to manage coronavirus impacts at an individual level, rather than having a sole function […]

Apple and Google have provided a number of updates about the technical details of their joint contact tracing system, which they’re now exclusively referring to as an “exposure notification” technology, since the companies say this is a better way to describe what they’re offering. The system is just one part of a contact tracing system, […]

Germany has U-turned on building a centralized COVID-19 contacts tracing app — and will instead adopt a decentralized architecture, Reuters reported Sunday, citing a joint statement by chancellery minister Helge Braun and health minister Jens Spahn. In Europe in recent weeks, a battle has raged between different groups backing centralized vs decentralized infrastructure for apps […]

Brave, a maker of a pro-privacy browser, has lodged complaints with the European Commission against 27 EU Member States for under resourcing their national data protection watchdogs. It’s asking the European Union’s executive body to launch an infringement procedure against Member State governments, and even refer them to the bloc’s top court, the European Court […]

More details have emerged about a coronavirus contacts tracing app being developed by UK authorities. NHSX CEO, Matthew Gould, said today that future versions of the app could ask users to share location data to help authorities learn more about how the virus propagates. Gould, who heads up the digital transformation unit of the UK’s […]

Is it feast or famine for food delivery startups during the coronavirus pandemic? The UK’s Deliveroo has confirmed it’s axing more than 350 staff — or around 15% of its global headcount. Late yesterday the Telegraph reported that the London-based startup will be cutting 367 staff and furloughing a further 50 out of a total headcount […]

A number of UK computer security and privacy experts have signed an open letter raising transparency and mission creep concerns about the national approach to develop a coronavirus contacts tracing app. The letter, signed by 177 academics, follows a similar letter earlier this month signed by around 300 academics from across the world, who urged […]

The makers of the world’s most ethical smartphone, the Fairphone 3, have teamed up for a version of the device with even less big tech on board. The Netherlands-based device maker has partnered with France’s /e/OS to offer a “de-Googled” version of its latest handset, running an Android AOSP fork out of the box that’s […]

Prague based Resistant AI has nabbed a $2.75M seed round. The security startup’s machine learning technology is designed to be deployed on top of AI systems used for financial decision making to protect customers in markets such as financial services and ecommerce from attacks such as targeted manipulation, adversarial machine learning and advanced fraud. The […]

Google is facing anger from the German startup ecosystem for refusing to restructure ad payments linked to travel and transport bookings that were subsequently wiped out by the coronavirus crisis. TechCrunch has seen a letter addressed to Google that’s co-signed by eight travel industry startups in which the tech giant is asked for flexibility in […]