June 2018
Urban Airship has raised $25 million in Series F funding. The company started out as a platform supporting push notifications, but has since expanded to include other marketing channels like…
AT&T launches a low-cost live TV streaming service, WatchTV
AT&T this morning announced the launch of a second TV streaming service, called WatchTV, days after its merger with Time Warner. The lower-cost alternative to AT&T’s DirecTV Now will offer…
Featured Article
Taste test: Burger robot startup Creator opens first restaurant
Creator’s transparent burger robot doesn’t grind your brisket and chuck steak into a gourmet patty until you order it. That’s just one way this startup, formerly known as Momentum Machines, wants to serve the world’s freshest cheeseburger for just $6. On June 27th, after eight years in development, Creator unveils its first robot restaurant before opening…
Intel’s CEO resigns as information about a ‘past consensual relationship’ surfaces
In a press release touting “another record year,” Intel dropped a bombshell, announcing that CEO Brian Krzanich is resigning, amid revelations of a “past consensual relationship” with an employee. “Intel…
Uber drivers made more than $600 million in tips in one year
Since finally launching in-app tipping for drivers last year, Uber has facilitated more than $600 million worth of payments in tips to its drivers. In August, Uber hit $50 million…
Twitter this morning announced it has agreed to buy San Francisco-based technology company Smyte, which describes itself as “trust and safety as a service.” Founded in 2014 by former Google and…
China’s VIPKID, which links English tutors with online learners, raises $500M at $3B+ valuation
The online language school market is continuing to heat up, and a startup that connects English teachers with an audience of students spanning China and 35 other countries for live…
While French banks are just catching up to Apple Pay, French startup Lydia is adding support for Samsung Pay. If you have a recent Samsung phone, you can now add…
Silexica, which optimises how disparate applications work together on autonomous cars, raises $18M
As we inch closer to building increasingly autonomous cars, the complexities that these vehicles will present as programmable hardware are increasing, with some 250 applications ranging from cameras to navigation…
CivTech Scotland wants to procure what no one knows exists
Here’s a tale of two organizations. When it comes to banking, I can walk up to an ATM anywhere in the world, slide in a card, hit a couple of…
Indian food delivery startup Swiggy raises $210M at a $1.3B valuation
India’s food delivery race is hotting up after Swiggy, one of the startups vying for pole position, landed $210 million in new capital for expansion and joined the billion-dollar startup unicorn…
Singapore-based game studio Mighty Bear raises $2.5M ahead of debut release
Mighty Bear, a game studio startup that grew out of King.com’s former office in Singapore, has landed new funding as it readies its debut title for smartphones. The startup was…
Drip Capital is raising a $20 million funding round from Accel, Wing VC and Sequoia India. The company is helping small exporters in emerging markets access working capital in order…
Official near-earth object plan will look into nuking asteroids and other ‘planetary defense missions’
Space is a big place, and mostly empty — but there’s no shortage of objects which, should they float our direction, could end life as we know it. A new…
Lyft announced today that taking a business trip and then actually turning in your travel receipts just got a whole lot easier. A new feature for business profiles will allow employers…
Truepic raises $8M to expose Deepfakes, verify photos for Reddit
How can you be sure an image wasn’t Photoshopped? Make sure it was shot with Truepic. This startup makes a camera feature that shoots photos and adds a watermark URL…
Featured Article
Review: Waxed canvas bags from Filson, Ona, Croots and more
Welcome to Bag Week 2018. Every year your faithful friends at TechCrunch spend an entire week looking at bags. Why? Because bags — often ignored but full of our important electronics — are the outward representations of our techie styles, and we put far too little thought into where we keep our most prized possessions.…
StreetCred is building a blockchain-based marketplace for location data
While applications like Google Maps and Yelp seem to provide an inexhaustible source of information about local restaurants, stores and other points of interest, they also can come up short…
New $71.3 billion Disney bid for Fox tops Comcast’s
In a (perhaps not so shocking) turn of events, the Walt Disney Company has reentered its tug-of-war with Comcast over the acquisition of Fox’s film and TV divisions with a…
California legislators stealthily ‘eviscerate’ state’s net neutrality bill
A group of legislators in California have sneakily but comprehensively “eviscerated” the state’s imminent net neutrality bill, removing a huge amount of protections in a set of last-minute amendments. State…
The race to develop autonomous and electric vehicles could be a race to the bottom for the automotive industry — at least in the near-term. A new global study by…
Trump signs an executive order to detain families together at the border indefinitely
President Trump has signed an executive order to reverse a practice recently enacted by his own administration that resulted in the separation of children from their families at the border.…
If all of the big tech co’s agree on one thing at the moment, it’s that artificial intelligence and machine learning point the way forward for their businesses. As a…
Oracle could be feeling cloud transition growing pains
Oracle is learning that it’s hard for enterprise companies born in the data center to make the transition to the cloud, an entirely new way of doing business. Yesterday it…
French startup Tiller has raised a $13.9 million Series B round (€12 million) from Ring Capital. Omnes Capital and existing investors 360 Capital Partners also participated in today’s funding round.…
In a push into Europe, WeWork competitor Knotel acquires Ahoy!Berlin
Coworking and flexible office space has become a hot business in the last few years, as attested by the rise and rise of WeWork. Startups and entrepreneurs needed flexible working…
Google Play now makes it easier to manage your subscriptions
Mobile app subscriptions are a big business, but consumers sometimes hesitate to sign up because pausing and cancelling existing subscriptions hasn’t been as easy as opting in. Google is now…
Instagram hits 1 billion monthly users, up from 800M in September
Instagram’s meteoric rise continues, dwarfing the stagnant growth rates of Snapchat and Facebook. Today Instagram announced that it has reached 1 billion monthly active users, after passing 800 million in…
Sesame Workshop will produce children’s shows for Apple
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind beloved public television series Sesame Street, will be creating children’s TV programs for Apple. The partnership will involve multiple shows, including live action and…
Instagram launches IGTV app for creators, 1-hour video uploads
Instagram is ready to compete head-on with YouTube. Today at a flashy event in San Francisco, the company announced it will begin allowing users to upload videos up to one…
