February 24, 2020
Graphcore, the AI chipmaker, raises another $150M at a $1.95B valuation
The U.K. has a strong history when it comes to processors, but the global chip market has seen some ups and downs of late. Today comes some big news that…
Fintech startup Revolut is raising a large Series D round of funding. TCV is leading the $500 million round, valuing the company at $5.5 billion. Over the past few years,…
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VC firm Oxx says SaaS startups should avoid high-risk growth models
Oxx, a European venture capital firm co-founded by Richard Anton and Mikael Johnsson, this month announced the closing of its debut fund of $133 million to back “Europe’s most promising SaaS companies” at Series A and beyond. Launched in 2017 and headquartered in London and Stockholm, Oxx pitches itself as one of only a few…
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Forensic Architecture redeploys surveillance-state tech to combat state-sponsored violence
The specter of constant surveillance hangs over all of us in ways we don’t even fully understand, but it is also possible to turn the tools of the watchers against them. Forensic Architecture is exhibiting several long-term projects at the Museum of Art and Design in Miami that use the omnipresence of technology as a…
Mirantis co-founder launches FreedomFi to bring private LTE networks to enterprises
Boris Renski, the co-founder of Mirantis, one of the earliest and best-funded players in the OpenStack space a few years ago (which then mostly pivoted to Kubernetes and DevOps), has…
Allowance is going digital. Venmo has been spotted prototyping a new feature that would allow adult users to create for their teenage children a debit card connected to their account.…
CEO of Mexico-based Homie resigns after allegations of sexual harassment from job applicant
Jordi Greenham, the co-founder and CEO of Mexican long-term rentals startup Homie, has resigned after a sexual harassment investigation was carried out by the company’s ethics board. On February 14,…
Huawei’s ill-fated foldable returns with a more robust upgrade
MWC may have been canceled on account of rising coronavirus concerns, but the party still went on for Huawei (albeit to what appears to have been a mostly empty room).…
Busy week for SpaceX: funding, space tourism and next-gen spacecraft. There’s also a space station resupply mission coming up, and its first human spaceflight mission is imminent.
Intuit confirms that it is buying Credit Karma for $7.1B in cash and stock
The week is kicking off with a major piece of M&A in the world of financial technology startups. Today Intuit — the accounting, tax filing and financial planning software giant…
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Shipt shoppers are the latest gig workers to organize
Inspired by the work of Instacart shoppers over the last few years, a handful of workers at Target-owned Shipt, a grocery delivery service, are beginning to organize. With the help of two key Instacart shopper-activists, Vanessa Bain and Sarah Clarke, who goes by a pseudonym, Shipt workers are now demanding better wages and the elimination…
In Fortnite’s new spy-themed season, more is more
The new season of Fortnite’s second chapter finally landed last week, shaking up a reimagined map that burst dramatically out of a black hole in the game last year. Over…
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How to make a deal with a VC at a tech conference
Which one should you attend? How do you get in? And above all, what is it that you want to get out of this schmooze session?
New Netflix feature reveals the top 10 most popular programs on its service
Netflix is adding a new feature that will rank the 10 most popular programs on its service in your country, the company announced today. Its top 10 Overall list will…
With cinnamon, fruit and mint-flavored nicotine gum, is LA’s Lucy Goods the next Juul?
David Renteln, the Los Angeles-based co-founder of Soylent and the co-founder and chief executive of new nicotine gum manufacturer Lucy Goods, thinks there should be a better-tasting, less-medicinal offering for…
Katherine Johnson, legendary NASA mathematician and ‘hidden figure,’ dies at 101
Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who defied prejudice in the ’50s and ’60s to help NASA send the first men to the moon, has died at the age of 101. Only…
Deviceplane wants to bring over-the-air updates to Linux edge devices
Deviceplane, a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2020 class, is developing an open-source toolset to manage, monitor and update Linux devices running at the edge. “We solve the hard…
Facebook’s Creator Studio gains a mobile companion
Facebook’s Creator Studio has added a mobile companion. The insights dashboard for creators and publishers, which debuted globally in August 2018, is now available as a mobile app for both…
Daily Crunch: Sony unveils its first 5G smartphone
Sony announces a camera-centric phone, Microsoft offers more details about the next Xbox and a liquid biopsy startup raises $165 million. Here’s your Daily Crunch for February 24, 2020. 1.…
Boom says its supersonic XB-1 aircraft test program will be ‘fully carbon neutral’
Commercial aviation isn’t typically the place to look if you’re after carbon-light initiatives. Jet fuel isn’t generally very green, and airplanes burn a lot of it when traversing the skies.…
A team of Imagineers will discuss Disney’s tech breakthroughs at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI, March 3 at UC Berkeley
With TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 a little over a week away, you likely thought we were finished with our big announcements. Understandably. We have top executives from Amazon…
Cruise can now transport passengers in self-driving cars in CA
Cruise recently received a permit to transport passengers in its autonomous vehicles in California. Granted by the California Public Utilities Commission, the permit is part of the state’s Autonomous Vehicle…
ProtoPie helps designers translate their work to engineering without the hassles
It’s the golden age of design for software companies. Designers are becoming more visible and popular on engineering teams, figuring out everything from the visuals of color palette and fonts…
Target breaks into the top 10 list of US e-commerce retailers
Target’s investments in store remodels, same-day delivery and drive-up services are paying off. The retailer, which used to rank No. 11 in U.S. e-commerce sales, is now forecast to jump…
A boom, a bust, a reckoning, a race: Four takes on today’s startup market
Where are we today in the startup business cycle? We’ll summarize a few different perspectives on the question, and then come up with our best synthesis of the group.
Disney+ launches discounted annual subscriptions for European users
Disney is offering a discount on its new streaming service for select European markets ahead of its March 24th launch, the company announced on Monday. Customers who pre-order Disney+ before…
Coronavirus fears hit markets, bringing US shares down as tech and SaaS slip
Fears over the potential impact of the coronavirus spreading in Europe, Asia and the Middle East have sent stocks plummeting in Monday’s open — with tech stocks among the hardest…
Microsoft offers a closer look at the next Xbox
It’s been a few months since Microsoft announced the impending arrival of the Xbox Series X. The somewhat redundantly named console made cameo during the Game Awards, getting a late…
Waiting in a service station waiting room purgatory one day, Victor Darolfi had a simple thought. “I sat at America’s Tires for three hours and thought, hey, we use robots…
Databricks makes bringing data into its ‘lakehouse’ easier
Databricks today announced the launch of its new Data Ingestion Network of partners and the launch of its Databricks Ingest service. The idea here is to make it easier for…
