The Latest

Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week.

IPOs are back and the Equity crew is feasting

DoorDash is launching AI-powered voice ordering technology that will allow restaurants to increase their sales by answering all of the calls they receive, the company announced on Monday. The system…

DoorDash launches AI-powered voice ordering technology for restaurants

Reports that X’s (formerly Twitter) downloads decreased after Elon Musk’s rebranding of the microblogging social network only tell part of the story. Twitter’s renaming also saw its weekly active users…

X saw weekly active users and rankings drop post rebrand, but Twitter Lite installs grew

Earlier this month HashiCorp announced it was changing the open source license it uses for Terraform and its other developer tools. The change triggered an uproar in the open source…

Splinter group officially launches OpenTF fork of HashiCorp Terraform

India is launching its first space-based solar observatory mission called Aditya-L1 to study the sun — just days after the successful landing of the country’s moon rover mission Chandrayaan-3. The…

India to launch solar observatory mission Aditya-L1 this week

The conversational commerce company developed a customer relationship management tool that provides customizable columns and sales funnel automation for sales made via WhatsApp and other social media.

Leadsales targets LatAm businesses with conversational commerce tool for WhatsApp

Treatments like botox are becoming more ubiquitous, spurring growth in the number of medspas, or centers that offer botox, IV hydration and laser treatments from certified providers like registered nurses.…

Moxie raises $15.7M to make opening med spas easier

Ihar Mahaniok designed Geek Ventures to provide immigrant-focused networking events so founders have an opportunity to grow their professional networks and break into the U.S. market.

Geek Ventures targets immigrant founders with its first fund

Devolut enables merchants a returns option that doesn’t require boxes or labels. It also provides a network of “city points” where consumers can go to return merchandise.

Devolut leverages e-commerce growth in Latin America to develop reverse logistics tool

Jio Financial Services, the financial services unit of Mukesh Ambani-run Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, plans to expand to merchant lending and insurance, Ambani said at Reliance’s annual general meeting in…

Reliance’s financial services unit to offer insurance, merchant lending

Where we’ll be next

Jio Platforms on Monday launched the AirFiber, a wireless plug-and-play 5G hotspot, as the top Indian telecom operator races to make a dent in the broadband market. With the Jio…

Reliance’s 5G hotspot Jio AirFiber to hit stores next month in broadband push

Mukesh Ambani will lead Reliance Industries for five more years and groom and mentor his children to take the $200 billion Indian oil-to-telecom giant to greater heights of growth and…

Reliance appoints Ambani’s children to board in succession plan

Bluesky introduced a bunch of updates on Friday to its mobile apps and website, including a new tab to see your own likes, notification support for apps and an emoji…

After Threads, Bluesky also adds a way to see your own likes

Chinese electric vehicle upstart XPeng is acquiring the smart EV assets of ride-hailing giant Didi for $744 million, marking another significant alliance that the Tesla challenger has struck in recent…

Tesla’s China rival XPeng buys ride-hailing giant Didi’s smart EV assets for $744M

Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B.

The battery business is booming and Zeekr kicks off its IPO roadshow

Early-stage companies need to paint a compelling picture for another round of funding. That’s where startups often fall down. Here’s how to fix that.

Never express your ‘use of funds’ slide as percentages

We asked authors whose work is closely tied to tech and startups this simple question: “What book have you read this summer that you think others might enjoy?”

Looking for your next book? These 9 authors have reading recommendations for you

Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. Better.com finally went public last week, and the stock’s performance was worse…

Better.com’s public market debut was Miserable.com

Hello, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that covers the biggest happenings in tech over the past few days. Haven’t been able to follow the…

Microsoft brings Python to Excel, Cruise reduces fleet following crash, and MrBeast creates controversy

Featured Article

A Brazilian phone spyware was hacked and victims’ devices ‘deleted’ from server

A Portuguese-language spyware called WebDetetive has been used to compromise more than 76,000 Android phones in recent years across South America, largely in Brazil. WebDetetive is also the latest phone spyware company in recent months to have been hacked. In an undated note seen by TechCrunch, the unnamed hackers described how they found and exploited…

1:00 pm PDT • August 26, 2023
A Brazilian phone spyware was hacked and victims’ devices ‘deleted’ from server