Atlassian is about as ubiquitous to software engineers as Google is to the rest of us. The Sydney-based company, which launched in 2002, develops tools and services for enterprise collaboration and marched efficiently to a public offering in 2015. So it goes without saying that we’re thrilled to have Atlassian co-founder and co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes […]

Material Bank, a logistics platform for the architectural and design industry, has announced the close of a $28 million Series B financing today, led by Bain Capital Ventures. Bain’s Merritt Hummer led the round on behalf of the firm and will join the board of directors at Material Bank, along with Jeff Sine, cofounder and […]

Mark Cuban isn’t impressed that you’ve raised money. “If you think the accomplishment is raising money first, we’re probably not gonna get along,” said Cuban in an Extra Crunch Live interview. “If your orientation is ‘I got to raise the money first,’ you don’t really have a company yet, and you really haven’t accomplished anything […]

We’ll admit it: Some of your Original Content podcast hosts are a little skeptical about improvised comedy. Of course, we can enjoy improv when it’s done well. It’s just that we’ve seen it done less well, often by friends who are so enthusiastic without being particularly funny. And our friends aside, live improv has rarely […]

“Waco,” a Paramount Network series that recently started streaming on Netflix, dramatizes the tragic real-life standoff between the FBI, the ATF and the Branch Davidians. A couple of your Original Content podcast hosts only had a fuzzy idea of what actually went down in Waco, Texas in 1993. And all of us were surprised by […]

Trade Policy Review: European Union The fourteenth review of the trade policies and practices of the European Union takes place on 18 and 20 February 2020. The basis for the review is a report by the WTO Secretariat and a report by the European Union.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo issued a joint call on 24 April for governments to refrain from imposing export and other trade restrictions on key medical supplies and food and to quickly lift those put in place since the start of the year.

The government of Canada contributed CAD 450,000 (just over CHF 300,000) in 2020 to help developing countries and least-developed countries (LDCs) comply with international food safety, animal and plant health standards, with the aim of increasing their access to agricultural markets.

Canada has contributed over CAD 90,000 (approximately CHF 60,000) in 2020 to enhance the trading capacities of developing countries and least-developed countries (LDCs). This donation to the WTO’s DDA Global Trust Fund will finance training workshops and seminars for government officials, with the aim of deepening their understanding of current trade issues and challenges and improving their negotiating skill-set.

The WTO Secretariat has published a new information note looking at how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected e-commerce, including the implications for cross-border trade. It notes the increased use of e-commerce as consumers adapt to lockdowns and social distancing measures and draws attention to several challenges, such as the need to bridge the digital divide within and across countries.

A new report issued by the WTO on 8 May seeks to help least developed countries (LDCs) better understand the trade-related implications of graduation from LDC status. The product of a joint effort between the WTO and the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF), “Trade Impacts of LDC Graduation” looks at how graduation may affect LDCs’ participation in world trade, including their access to export markets, and implications for their WTO commitments.

High-priced, handmade boutique sports cars typically make their debut where the well-heeled and the media gather. Pagani took a different approach this time around. The Italian supercar manufacturer unveiled its new nearly $3.5 million Huayra Roadster BC in CSR2, the mobile game produced by Zynga . The physical car will eventually get its moment. Pagani […]

By the end of 2019, the global gaming market is estimated to be worth $152 billion, with 45% of that, $68.5 billion, coming directly from mobile games.

Early Stage SF is around the corner, on April 28 in San Francisco, and we are more than excited for this brand new event. The intimate gathering of founders, VCs, operators and tech industry experts is all about giving founders the tools they need to find success, no matter the challenge ahead of them. Struggling […]

The worlds of virtual and augmented reality have yet to land on the applications and hardware to truly spark mass-market, consumer interest in the space, but in the meantime, a startup building mixed reality services for business users has raised a round of funding, underscoring the opportunity in enterprise. Spatial, which has developed a “holographic” […]

TC Early Stage SF goes down on April 28, and we are getting pretty damn excited about it! The show will bring together 50+ experts across startup core competencies, such as fundraising, operations and marketing. We’ll hear from VCs on how to create the perfect pitch deck and how to identify the right investors for […]

Efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 have led to a global economic downturn, but the gaming industry is booming. With hundreds of millions of people sequestered in their homes, game usage has spiked. And while the economic repercussions will persist after people cease physical distancing, gaming is positioned to fare well during a recession. […]

This evening’s Square E3 press was…something. After more than an hour of Final Fantasy remasters, the publisher closed things out with far and away its most eagerly awaited game. Licensing some white hot IP, the RPG masters at Square are offering up their own take on Earth’s mightiest heroes. Bay Area-based Crystal Dynamics addressed what […]

DoorDash has reached an agreement with Square to purchase on-demand food delivery and catering business Caviar. DoorDash has agreed to pay Square $410 million in cash and preferred DoorDash stock. Square bought Caviar about five years ago in a deal worth about $90 million. Now, Caviar has found a new home with DoorDash, the on-demand […]

Seed fundraising is rarely easy, but it certainly used to be a lot less complicated than it is today. In a simpler world, a seed investor (or maybe two) would lead a round, which meant that they would write the terms of the deal in a term sheet and then pass that document to their […]

Smart rings are still a relatively young category in the wearable hardware world, but the Oura Ring seems to be a standout in terms of early success. The Oura Ring hardware is sleek and packed with sensors, allowing it to measure a user’s sleep patterns, take your body temperature and track activity, and now Oura […]

Jack Dorsey announced in a series of tweets today that he is shifting $1 billion in his Square equity to create a fund dedicated to COVID-19 relief. The Twitter and Square CEO is calling the fund Start Small and posting a tally of disbursements and recipients in a public spreadsheet. Dorsey said in his announcement […]

EIA releases the findings of the Annual Energy Outlook 2020 with long-term projections of U.S. energy supply, demand, and prices, including cases with different assumptions about macroeconomic growth, world oil prices, and technological progress. The event will feature a presentation by EIA Administrator Dr. Linda Capuano followed by a panel discussion on the challenges and market trends facing the electricity sector.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released updated projections of future U.S. energy production and use in its Annual Energy Outlook 2020 (AEO2020) today.

In the April Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts that the United States will again become a net importer of crude oil and petroleum products in the third quarter of 2020 and remain a net importer in most months through the end of 2021. Fewer barrels are available for export as U.S. crude oil production continues to decline. In addition, net exports of petroleum products will be lowest in the third quarter of 2020, when U.S. refinery runs decline in response to lower demand for refined products.

While plenty of tech stocks have seen their market caps dive in the past month, Groupon has taken a harder hit than most. The company’s share price has dropped more than 70% in the past five weeks. The reckoning came for Groupon’s leadership today with both CEO Rich Williams and COO Steve Krenzer ousted. In […]

Airbnb says it will subsidize housing for 100,000 workers at the front lines of COVID-19 care, Groupon gets a new CEO and Stripe invests in a universal checkout startup. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 26, 2020. 1. Airbnb to provide free or subsidized housing for 100,000 COVID-19 healthcare workers Airbnb’s effort will work by […]

When Roger Lee, the co-founder of Human Interest, heard that San Francisco imposed shelter-in-place orders, he started blogging about layoff news and posting crowdsourced lists of employees who were laid off. His goal was to increase awareness about layoffs and give recruiters a place to search for candidates. However, one week and 40 startup layoffs […]

Apple and Google ask for developer feedback on their contact tracing efforts, Facebook sees a “significant reduction” in ads and Microsoft makes life easier for IT managers. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 30, 2020. 1. Apple and Google release first seed of COVID-19 exposure notification API for contact tracing app developers This is a […]

While global stay-at-home orders have been a blow to most companies, they’ve also created opportunities for businesses helping to keep people entertained. So if you’re a YouTube creator hoping to capture some additional eyeballs while everyone’s stuck at home, online video agency Butter Works has released an interactive report outlining the most promising topics for […]

We’ll admit it: Some of your Original Content podcast hosts are a little skeptical about improvised comedy. Of course, we can enjoy improv when it’s done well. It’s just that we’ve seen it done less well, often by friends who are so enthusiastic without being particularly funny. And our friends aside, live improv has rarely […]

As businesses struggle to reinvent themselves in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yelp is launching new features to help highlight these changes. For one thing, it’s adding a new information category called virtual service offerings, which will allow businesses to showcase the fact that they’re providing things like virtual consultations, classes, tours and performances. […]

Taika Waititi already reinvigorated the Thor franchise. Now he’s looking to do the same for Star Wars. Waititi is probably best-known for directing “Thor: Ragnarok” — easily the best of the Thor movies and one of the most delightful films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. More recently, he wrote and directed the Nazi comedy “Jojo […]

The world has changed dramatically since May 2019 when we last surveyed venture capitalists about the trends they were seeing in media, entertainment and gaming. Since then, COVID-19 and the resulting physical distancing measures have created plenty of demand for companies helping to inform and entertain us as we’re stuck at home. At the same […]

Founder and CEO Lara Vandenberg told me she created Publicist to support the ways in which the communications and marketing industry is changing — changes that are only accelerating due to COVID-19. Vandenberg was previously senior vice president of communications and marketing at Knotch, and she told me, “More companies now are being better served […]

YouTube is giving advertisers a few more tools to reach consumers and measure ad effectiveness on TVs. These tools already exist for YouTube on other platforms, but now the Google -owned video service is bringing them to connected televisions. In a blog post, it says this is in response to how YouTube viewership has grown […]

“Waco,” a Paramount Network series that recently started streaming on Netflix, dramatizes the tragic real-life standoff between the FBI, the ATF and the Branch Davidians. A couple of your Original Content podcast hosts only had a fuzzy idea of what actually went down in Waco, Texas in 1993. And all of us were surprised by […]

The average retail price for home heating oil rose 2.3 cents from last week to $3.08 per gallon. That's down 2.3 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $2.99 per gallon, up 1.8 cents from last week, but down 10.9 cents from a year ago.

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline rose to $2.58 a gallon on Monday. That's up 7 tenths of a penny from a week ago, based on the weekly price survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The average retail price for home heating oil rose 4.7 cents from last week to $3.12 per gallon. That's up 3.2 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $3.04 per gallon, up 5.4 cents from last week, but down 5.1 cents from a year ago.

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline fell to $2.57 a gallon on Monday. That's down 8 tenths of a penny from a week ago, based on the weekly price survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In December 2019, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and a group of other oil producers announced they were deepening the production cuts originally announced in December 2018. However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that global oil production will rise in 2020 despite the cuts, as expected growth in non-OPEC crude oil production will offset OPEC's reduced output. Non-OPEC production will be driven by continued growth in the United States. Outside of the United States, growing crude oil production in Brazil, Norway, and Canada will also contribute to supply growth over the next 24 months. In its January Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA reports that U.S. crude oil production in 2019 hit a record annual average of 12.2 million barrels per day. EIA forecasts U.S. production will reach 13.3 million barrels per day in 2020 and 13.7 million barrels per day in 2021. Most of the production growth occurs in the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico.

The average retail price for home heating oil fell 1 cent from last week to $3.11 per gallon. That's down 3 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $3.01 per gallon, down 1.9 cents from last week, and down 10.6 cents from a year ago.

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline fell to $2.54 a gallon on Monday. That's down 3.3 cents from a week ago, based on the weekly price survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The average retail price for home heating oil fell 3 cents from last week to $3.07 per gallon. That's down 10 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $2.99 per gallon, down 2.3 cents from last week, and down 15 cents from a year ago.

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline fell to $2.51 a gallon on Monday. That's down 3.1 cents from a week ago, based on the weekly price survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The average retail price for home heating oil fell 6.8 cents from last week to $3.01 per gallon. That's down 16.4 cents from a year ago, based on the residential heating fuel survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating oil prices in the New England region are at $2.92 per gallon, down 6.8 cents from last week, and down 22.7 cents from a year ago.

The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline fell to $2.46 a gallon on Monday. That's down 5.1 cents from a week ago, based on the weekly price survey by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.