The Latest

Lightspeed Venture Partners and GIC have co-led the investment in ezCater only 10 months after its $100 million Series D.

Online catering marketplace ezCater gets another $150M at a $1.25B valuation

Well, on Friday we thought we’d have to wait another few weeks to hear about Valve’s plans for its first virtual reality headset, but the company (accidentally?) seems to have…

Valve Index VR headset is launching on June 15

A little over a year after it introduced Syndicates to the India market, AngelList — the U.S. service that helps connect companies with investors — is rolling out its own…

Flipkart co-founder and other top names join AngelList’s first investment syndicate in India

Just since months after raising $7 million in Series A funding, German SME banking provider Penta has been acquired by Finleap. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although I understand…

German fintech company builder Finleap acquires SME banking provider Penta

Sometimes, gentle reader, we report on things at TechCrunch because it’s information that we think you, as a member of our community, should know, given your interests and sensibilities. This…

Do yourself a favor and watch the trailer for the new film ‘The Dead Don’t Die’

Today, investors took off their rose-colored glasses (and pink-colored mustaches) and looked at Lyft’s shares with fresh eyes after Friday’s ebullient debut. And — judging by the company’s share price…

Lyft’s stock has a blue Monday as shares slide after public debut

The ubiquitous corporate messaging service Slack is following in the footsteps of Spotify’s subscription music service and heading to the New York Stock Exchange for trading through a direct listing,…

Slack reportedly chooses the New York Stock Exchange for its direct listing

There’s no shortage of so-called femtech startups raising money right now, and little wonder why. Aside from the growing market opportunity — the global fertility services market is expected to…

A startup trying to detect endometriosis through ‘smart tampons’ just landed $9 million in Series A funding

The story of how blood testing company Theranos rose to prominence, then collapsed following accusations of fraud, is getting told and retold in many forms: There’s reporter John Carreyrou’s book “Bad…

Original Content podcast: ‘The Inventor’ offers a compelling overview of the Theranos saga

Defy, the early-stage venture investment firm founded by Neil Sequeira and Trae Vassallo, is putting a new twist on the venture partner model as it brings Brian Lee and Sujal…

Early-stage investment firm Defy updates the venture partner model

Where we’ll be next

Bragi was a promising early contender in the Bluetooth earbud space. The company came to prominence in 2014 with a massively successful $3.3 million Kickstarter. And to its credit, it…

Bragi sells off hardware business, will focus on licenses and software

A new biography of Apple chief executive Tim Cook out this month describes the moment — and the deliberations — after the FBI issued an unprecedented legal order demanding Apple…

New book looks inside Apple’s legal fight with the FBI

Since its launch on our stage way back in 2010, Cloudflare has focused on making the internet faster and more modern — but the mobile internet has until recently been…

Cloudflare’s Warp is a VPN that might actually make your mobile connection better

Radio ads broadcast a message to listeners, but Pandora’s new voice ads will allow listeners to respond by speaking aloud — either to get more information about the product being…

Pandora to test interactive voice ads later this year

In the six weeks since we launched Extra Crunch, we’ve seen that readers and subscribers really want the latest practical tips and warnings about building a company — from the…

TechCrunch (Extra Crunch) is looking for great startup guest authors

Featured Article

Pokémon GO and the April Fools’ joke that made billions

It’s the morning of March 31st, 2014, and the Google Maps team is about to release its April Fools’ Day gag to the world. It wasn’t the first time this team had goofed around with an April Fools’ day joke. Google, as a whole, goes wild on April 1st. Maybe it’s for the resulting publicity.…

1:00 pm PDT • April 1, 2019
Pokémon GO and the April Fools’ joke that made billions

Soaring college tuition prices have left Americans drowning in debt without a correspondingly enhanced set of professional skills to show for it. In the past 11 years, US student debt…

WTF are ISAs and can they transform education and spark a startup wave?

Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce and Jetpack, is launching a new suite of products focused on the future of work — Happy Tools. Automattic is a remote company with…

WordPress.com parent company launches work collaboration platform Happy Tools

French startup ManoMano is raising a new funding round of $125 million (€110 million). The company operates an e-commerce website and marketplace focused on home improvement and gardening. ManoMano is…

ManoMano raises $125 million for its home improvement e-commerce platform

Featured Article

The best and worst April Fools’ jokes from around the web

The tech world sure does love a good prank. While some sat out on April Fools’, a number of big tech companies embraced the opportunity to waste time this way. So without any further ado, here are the April Fools’ pranks from around the web: The good 1) Google Tulip Google Tulip, in my humble…

10:07 am PDT • April 1, 2019
The best and worst April Fools’ jokes from around the web