Online language learning continues to be a huge opportunity for startups, with the most engaging experiences meeting a surge of interest from consumers looking for more productivity out of the hours that they spend on their smartphones. In one of the more recent developments, a language learning app called EWA — which has built a […]

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There’s no shortage of digital banks in Nigeria and, in general, in Africa. As the region continues to experience rapid growth in mobile usage and the corresponding growing young population, these fintechs think this is the right time to provide financial services to every market category, from the banked to the unbanked. We’ve covered a […]

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TikTok is already one of the world’s fastest-growing social media platforms, where it’s even overtaken YouTube on watch time in select markets and sports over 1 billion monthly active users. Now, the company is looking to expand the range of activities its users can do when they tire of flipping through short videos. A report […]

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Take-Two has completed its $12.7 billion acquisition of mobile games giant Zynga, the company announced on Monday. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Zynga shareholders received $3.50 in cash and 0.0406 shares of Take-Two common stock per share of Zynga common stock. The deal, which was first announced in January, will bring Zynga’s popular […]

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Apple’s Vision Pro hasn’t exactly reshaped the market, but the company isn’t giving up on headsets that combine the digital and real worlds. A new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Apple’s next big mixed reality release could come as early as next year, with the launch of a Vision headset costing around $2,000 […]

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One of the most attention-grabbing aspects of “Roadrunner,” the Morgan Neville-directed documentary about Anthony Bourdain, was Neville’s use of generative AI to replicate Bourdain’s voice. Looking back now, Neville told Wired that he saw this as a “fun” way to “keep [Bourdain’s] voice going in the film.” But his approach drew intense criticism — while […]

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Penguin Random House, the trade publisher, is adding language to the copyright pages of its books to prohibit the use of those books to train AI. The Bookseller reports that new books and reprints of older titles from the publisher will now include the statement, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced […]

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Drone-maker DJI filed a lawsuit Friday against the U.S. Department of Defense over its inclusion on a DoD list of “Chinese military companies.” A DJI spokesperson said the company filed the suit after “attempting to engage with the DoD for more than sixteen months” and deciding “it had no alternative other than to seek relief […]

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Mira Murati, the OpenAI CTO who announced her departure last month, is raising VC funding for a new AI startup, according to Reuters. This startup will reportedly focus on building AI products based on proprietary models and could raise more than $100 million in this round. When she left, Murati wrote on X that OpenAI […]

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As founders plan for an increasingly AI-centric future, Gusto co-founder and head of technology Edward Kim said that cutting existing teams and hiring a bunch of specially trained AI engineers is “the wrong way to go.” Instead, he argued that nontechnical team members can “actually have a much deeper understanding than an average engineer on […]

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Uber and Lyft need to do more to support disabled passengers, especially those who are blind or visually impaired, according to protesters who gathered outside the companies’ headquarters on October 15. Wired spoke to protesters who shared stories about drivers passing them by or refusing to let them bring their guide dogs on a ride. […]

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AI search engine Perplexity is in fundraising talks and hopes to raise around $500 million at an $8 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. If a deal happens with those terms, it would more than double Perplexity’s valuation from its $3 billion valuation when it raised from SoftBank over the summer. The WSJ […]

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Software engineers, developers, and academic researchers have serious concerns about transcriptions from OpenAI’s Whisper, according to a report in the Associated Press. While there’s been no shortage of discussion around generative AI’s tendency to hallucinate — basically, to make stuff up — it’s a bit surprising that this is an issue in transcription, where you’d […]

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The popularity of an Instagram video can affect its actual video quality: According to Adam Mosseri (the Meta executive who leads Instagram and Threads), videos that are more popular get shown in higher quality, while less popular videos get shown in lower quality. In a video (via The Verge), Mosseri said Instagram tries to show […]

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The time has finally come to announce the five finalists of the Startup Battlefield. It all started earlier this year when the TechCrunch editorial team selected 200 companies from thousands that applied. From there, the team then chose the 20 finalists who pitched this week onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 to investor judges and packed […]

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Over the last three days, 20 startups participated in the incredibly competitive Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. These 20 companies were selected as the best of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for a chance to take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. After three days of intense pitching, we have a winner. The […]

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Lawsuits against X (formerly Twitter) will soon be heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The shift was first announced last month as part of a broader set of changes to X’s terms of service and privacy policy. Now, with the changes set to take effect on November 15, The […]

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UNest, a fintech startup that provides financial planning tools for parents saving on behalf of their children, announced today that it raised $26 million in Series B funding led by The Artemis Fund. Existing investor Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures participated alongside new investors including Franklin Templeton, Launchpad Capital, AltaIR Capital, OneWay Ventures, Unlock Venture Partners […]

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The fintech giant Square is changing its name to Block, effective December 10. The name change, which has been in the works for over a year, is intended to house the company’s various products — including music streaming service Tidal, Cash App, TBD, and of course, Square — under one brand. This announcement comes just […]

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It’s Friday, which means the whole crew was aboard for this particular episode. We had Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex on the mics. And, frankly, we […]

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Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, we took a break from contextualization for some guides to consumption. This week, we’re looking at what’s happening in the mind of one Jack Dorsey. You can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny. the big thing While […]

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The NFT auction marketplace OpenSea had a blockbuster 2021 and as a result is seeing its private valuation grow more quickly than almost any other startup. The crypto firm announced late Tuesday that it closed a $300 million Series C round led by Paradigm and Coatue. The raise valued the startup at a massive $13.3 […]

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Companies across the board are fighting to recruit and retain employees as the war for talent rages on. Employee benefits are no longer viewed as a cookie-cutter, standard set of offerings — rather, they are valuable tools employers can use to differentiate themselves from competitors and attract top candidates. Forma, which just changed its name […]

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In 2010, Bastian Gotter invested up to $200,000 into IROKOtv, an African video-on-demand company Jason Njoku, his friend and co-founder, launched in Lagos, Nigeria. For the next couple of years, Gotter, as CFO, was instrumental in turning IROKO — after raising over $30 million from VCs, including Tiger Global — into a household name in […]

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Mandolin, the digital fan engagement platform, launched two new products today with the aim of assisting artists with turning fans into superfans and maximizing revenue. Fan Navigator helps artists collect fan data and teaches them how to engage fans with digital experiences. Mandolin’s Fan Pages also drive fan engagement with a page for the artist […]

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Frugal founders and savvy shoppers take heed. TechCrunch Disrupt, which takes place in person on October 18–20 — and online October 21 — can be a serious boon to your business. But our early-bird pricing disappears in a cloud of ruffled feathers on Friday, July 29 at 11:59 p.m. PT. You have just 48 hours […]

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We’re T-minus 24 hours until the TechCrunch Disrupt early bird flies south and takes up to $1,300 in savings with it. If you’re serious about realizing your startup dreams, you need to be kind to your bottom line. Disrupt is packed with many long-tail opportunities, but this one ends in just 24 hours. Buy your […]

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It takes a veritable army to make TechCrunch Disrupt — which takes place October 18–20 in San Francisco — the well-oiled experience that savvy startuppers have come to know and love. And we couldn’t do it nearly as well without our incredible volunteers. If you’re looking for a no-budget way to experience Disrupt up close […]

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We see how hard early startup community members work to build their dreams. You’re all wicked busy, and that’s why we’re extending our early-bird pricing on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place on October 18–20 in San Francisco. You get one extra week to save up to $1,300, so shake your tail feathers and buy […]

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We’re coming down to the wire, folks. Your chance to save early-bird pricing on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt ends this Friday. Our three-day flagship tech startup conference offers superior ROI at full price, but why spend more when you don’t have to? To-do today: Buy your early-bird pass to TechCrunch Disrupt by Friday, August 5 […]

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Time is running out on one of the biggest opportunities in Disrupt history. We stop accepting applications to the Startup Battlefield 200 tonight, August 5, at precisely 11:59 p.m. PDT. No more deadline extensions, no last-minute exceptions. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Lollygagger alert: Drop what you’re doing and go apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 right […]

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Team TechCrunch wants you! Forget the village, people. It takes a battalion of smart, eager people to produce a world-class tech conference as epic as TechCrunch Disrupt. That’s where you come in. We’re looking for volunteers interested in work exchange. You give us 10 hours of your time, and we’ll give you a three-day pass […]

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It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up… The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep a lid on the gory details of a third party app audit that its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally pledged would be carried out, back in 2018, as he sought to […]

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A multi-year investigation into TechCrunch’s parent entity Yahoo — looking at compliance with key transparency requirements of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including in relation to cookie banners displayed on its media properties — has taken a step forward today after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced that it has submitted a […]

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Yahoo is taking a nearly 25% stake in advertising network Taboola. In exchange for this move, Taboola is becoming Yahoo’s native advertising partner through a 30-year commercial agreement. If you’re not familiar with Taboola, you may have seen its content recommendation widgets on popular news websites, such as USA Today, Insider and The Weather Channel. […]

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Yahoo is acquiring Artifact, the AI-powered news app from Instagram’s co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the company announced on Tuesday. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Artifact will no longer operate as a stand-alone app, and its AI-powered personalization technology will be integrated across Yahoo, including the Yahoo News app in […]

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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 short-form week-starter in which we go over the weekend, look to the week ahead, talk about some neat funding rounds and dig into what is stuck on our minds. So, by section then: […]

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It’s no secret that a massive digital transformation is happening within financial services companies and amid the growing number of non-financial outfits that are also adding financial products to their offerings. Still, Sheel Mohnot, who was formerly a general partner at the fintech fund of 500 Startups, and Jake Gibson, co-founder of personal finance startup […]

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Weezy — an on-demand supermarket that delivers groceries in as fast as 15 minutes — has raised $20 million in a Series A funding led by New York-based venture capital fund Left Lane Capital. Also participating were U.K.-based fund DN Capital, earlier investors Heartcore Capital and angel investors, notably Chris Muhr, the Groupon founder. Although […]

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Gamification and social hooks have become cornerstones across every category of consumer apps these days, and today one that’s using these to build out a new e-commerce platform in Europe is announcing a seed round to give its growth a boost. Blidz — a social shopping app that offers big discounts (many items in categories […]

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UK-based Ravio reckons real-time data is the best way to arm businesses to win the global talent war. Its new-to-market compensation benchmarking tool lets users see how the compensation (wages and benefits) they offer their own staff compares to the market by pooling data across its employer customers (data is anonymized at the platform level) […]

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A host of major European tech founders and investors are today backing the launch of OneUkraine, a new charity providing sustainable humanitarian relief for the Ukrainian people. OneUkraine will be supporting Ukrainians at home and abroad, delivering humanitarian aid, and aiming to rebuild the tech and broader infrastructure of Ukraine by SMEs and startups on […]

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Raising venture capital is rarely an easy lift for startups, but 2022 is turning out to be a more challenging year than we’ve seen for some time. As venture capital continues its slowdown after an aggressive 2020 and record-breaking 2021, it’s clear that early-stage founders looking for their first dollars will require a new approach. […]

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Chicago-based Groupon today laid off more than 500 of its employees — 15% of its 3,416-person headcount — according to posts from former employees on social media. The reduction impacted workers in teams including merchant development, sales, recruiting, engineering, product and marketing. Groupon confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch after the publication of the story. “Our […]

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The sale of New South Wales' and Queensland's utility assets will be among the most eagerly anticipated power deals globally in 2015, according to a PwC report released today.

Governments must apply renewed focus to achieve fiscal balance and sustainably reduce the cost of delivery.

PwC has acquired infrastructure advisory firm Appian Group, bolstering the firm’s focus on health and social infrastructure, PwC Managing Partner, Deals Sean Gregory announced today.

Australia lags behind the world's best corporate performers in all ten indicators of digital intelligence needed to drive financial performance.

The number of detected cyber security incidents in Australia was the highest worldwide in the last 12 months with an increase of 109 percent, compared to a 38.5 percent increase globally.

Australian CEOs are less confident about domestic growth than their regional peers, and less certain of their ability to capture a return in Asia Pacific markets.