Zoom is making some drastic changes to prevent rampant abuse as trolls attack publicly shared video calls. Starting April 5th, it will require passwords to enter calls via Meeting ID, as these may be guessed or reused. Meanwhile, it will change virtual waiting rooms to be on by default so hosts have to manually admit […]

Sick of sharing those generic Zoom video call invites that all look the same? Wish your Zoom link preview’s headline and image actually described your meeting? Want to protect your Zoom calls from trolls by making attendees RSVP to get your link? ZmURL.com has you covered. Launching today, ZmURL is a free tool that lets […]

Voice-based social networks and gaming as a new form of identity were among the top emerging trends in consumer social startups, according to an Extra Crunch survey of top social tech investors. Meanwhile, anonymity and dating apps with a superfluous twist were spaces where investors were most pessimistic. Extra Crunch assembled a list of the […]

It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020. You can decide which best describes Quibi, Hollywood’s $1.75 billion-funded attempt at a mobile-only Netflix of six to 10-minute micro-TV show episodes. Quibi manages to miss every trend and tactic that could help make its app popular. The […]

It’s a brutal time for marijuana startups. I’m hearing some are raising at 1/5th of their 2019 valuation amidst rampant competition, tall taxes, and slow legalization. The struggles for marijuana’s best-known startup, delivery service Eaze, continue as today it’s losing one of its top partners. $75 million-funded weed brand empire Caliva has dropped Eaze in […]

Could avatars that show what co-workers are up to save work-from-home teams from constant distraction and loneliness? That’s the idea behind Pragli, the Bitmoji for the enterprise. It’s a virtual office app that makes you actually feel like you’re in the same building. Pragli uses avatars to signal whether co-workers are at their desk, away, […]

Home fitness and games as gathering places are a few of the startup verticals propelled by unprecedented shifts in behavior due to shelter-in-place orders. We surveyed the top investors in consumer and social apps to learn about 2020’s startup trends, the M&A climate, the threat of incumbents copying new entrants, underserved demographics and which features […]

Would you pay with a “Google Card?” TechCrunch has obtained imagery that shows Google is developing its own physical and virtual debit cards. The Google card and associated checking account will allow users to buy things with a card, mobile phone or online. It connects to a Google app with new features that let users […]

Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have teamed up to launch their first product together since leaving the Facebook mothership. Rt.live is an up-to-date tracker of how fast COVID-19 is spreading in each state. “Rt” measures the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. The higher above the number 1, […]

Forget the calendar invite. Just jump into a conversation. That’s the idea powering a fresh batch of social startups poised to take advantage of our cleared schedules amidst quarantine. But they could also change the way we work and socialize long after COVID-19 by bringing the free-flowing, ad-hoc communication of parties and open office plans […]

Leaked images obtained by TechCrunch reveal that Google considered and designed a feature that would let people donate money to websites to help support news publishers, bloggers and musicians. But Google scrapped the idea and chose not to build out the product, despite these kinds of businesses and creators often struggling to earn revenue. Last […]

Facebook is co-opting some of the top video chat innovations like Zoom’s gallery view for large groups and Houseparty’s spontaneous hangouts for a new feature called Rooms. It could usher in a new era of unplanned togetherness via video. Launching today on mobile and desktop in English speaking countries, you can start a video chat […]

“I didn’t know what the term ‘freight forwarder’ meant until a year into starting the business.” Considering his shipping logistics startup Flexport was last valued at $3.2 billion, that quote from my first interview with CEO and founder Ryan Petersen back in 2016 seems even more surprising now. But it also hints at why he’s […]

How do you leave the place that made you? You figure out what it made you for. TechCrunch made me a part of the startup ecosystem I love. Now it’s time to put that love into action to help a new generation of entrepreneurs build their dreams and tell their stories. So it’s “TC to […]

“If your kids aren’t sleeping, you aren’t sleeping,” says Moshi founder and CEO Ian Chambers. As mindfulness apps grow increasingly popular among adults, Moshi is looking to bring mindfulness and meditative techniques to children. The app today announced the close of a $12 million Series B financing led by Accel, with participation from Latitude Ventures […]

Michael Ovitz didn’t invent the idea of a talent agency, but one might argue that he perfected it. He founded the CAA in 1975, and grew it into the world’s leading talent agency, serving as chairman for 20 years. Now, Ovitz is investing in a brand new type of talent agency called Human Capital. Human […]

The tech industry (and the world at large) is not experiencing temporary anxiety — the uncertainty we’re all coping with is the new normal. Sudden shifts in behavior have made some startups targeting slow-moving, old-school industries more relevant than they could have imagined, such as those in telehealth, distance learning and remote work. Most, however […]

Founders have always faced big challenges, but they pale in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Moving your business forward will require new thinking, new tools and new opportunities along with tried-and-true essentials. We’ve got you covered on all fronts. Case in point — catching investor attention in this climate will require a pitch par […]

Is “Too Hot to Handle” the dumbest show on Netflix … or the most diabolically brilliant? The reality TV series brings a group of twentysomethings together on a secluded tropical retreat, then — after a brief getting-to-know-you period — warns them that anything even coming close to sex will result in a reduction of the […]

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 […]

The Netflix crime drama “Ozark” might not be exactly what you think of when you hear the phrase “high octane.” While there are a few big explosions, there are far more scenes of people talking urgently to each other while filmed in muted tones. A more apt description might be “high pulse rate.” Once you […]

23andMe. MongoDB. Eventbrite. Evernote. Bird. Square . Tumblr. Unity. YouTube. Xoom. Roelof Botha has had a seat on each of these companies’ boards, but his list of investments is much, much longer. The Sequoia partner, leading the firm’s U.S. business, is legendary in Silicon Valley and the broader tech world, and we’re very excited that […]

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 […]

If you think that action movies generally suffer from an excess of characterization, then “Extraction” is the movie for you. Almost everything about the film that’s not an action scene is dealt with in a perfunctory way, starting from the sketchy characterization of our hero Tyler Rake (played by Chris Hemsworth) — he’s muscular, good […]

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 […]

Figma, the design platform that lets folks work collaboratively and in the cloud, has today announced the close of a $50 million Series D financing. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with partner Peter Levine and cofounding partner Marc Andreessen managing the deal for the firm. New angel investors, including Henry Ellenbogen from Durable […]

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 […]

Last month, the Extra Crunch Live team hosted conversations with folks from all over the venture community that ranged from the pre-seed world with Charles Hudson to shark territory with Mark Cuban. We’re starting off May with a packed agenda, including talks with Hunter Walk of Homebrew and Kirsten Green of Forerunner Ventures.  Kirsten Green […]

Sequoia’s Roelof Botha, who runs the firm’s US business, has a portfolio that’s rather impressive. It includes 23andMe, MongoDB, Eventbrite, Evernote, Bird, Square, Tumblr, Unity, YouTube, and Xoom to name just a few. And his perspective on the startup ecosystem as a whole is unique in that Sequoia invests in companies at the very early […]

IRL, the recently pivoted calendar app that aggregates live virtual events, has today launched a web version of the platform. The company, which has $11 million in funding from Goodwater Capital, Founders Fund and Floodgate, started as a social planning app that helped folks find each other in the real world, based on interest and […]

Eight glasses of water a day. That’s the old recommendation you and I have heard growing up. And while we all know the importance of hydration to our health, some methods of hydration are more efficient than others. At least, that’s the premise that Hydrant was built on. The company, a wellness brand that launched […]

Optimization. Efficiency. Data-driven decisions. If I had a nickel for every time I hear these words from founders I’d be long retired. And yet, the process involved in achieving resource optimization, efficiency and making truly data-driven decisions is laborious to say the least, and usually involves an immense amount of talent and resources. And then […]

“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 […]

Announcement Number: TN-20-EI-00899-DH
Closing Date: 09 April 2021

Announcement Number: TN-20-EI-00890-MP
Closing Date: 07 May 2020

Announcement Number: TN-19-DOE-1529-OCDH
Closing Date: 16 September 2020

Announcement Number: TN-20-EI-00898-DE
Closing Date: 07 May 2020

Announcement Number: TN-19-DOE-1530-OCDH
Closing Date: 16 September 2020

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 Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) has set up a dedicated webpage and will be organizing webinars to examine the trade impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on least developed countries (LDCs).

The WTO Secretariat has published a new report on the treatment of medical products in regional trade agreements (RTAs) amid current supply shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report examines the extent medical products are traded among preferential partners and the difference in liberalization rates within and outside these trade agreements.

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.

Food security is increasingly dependent on international trade, making it critical to keep trade in food flowing, WTO Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff noted on 30 April. In remarks delivered on his behalf by WTO Agriculture Division Director Edwini Kessie at the “Trade Dialogues on Food” webinar, he said that, on balance, governments have been quick to recognize the value of international trade for global food security during the COVID-19 crisis and are taking concrete action to protect the global food supply chain from disruption. His remarks are below:

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.