The Latest
Remember when you would “poke” your friends on Facebook to get their attention, annoy them or just start a poke war? Well, Facebook is trying to bring back that experience…
Featured Article
Nala set out to offer remittance services, it’s building a B2B payment platform too
Payments company Nala pivoted to offer remittance service in 2021, tapping the growing money transfer market in Africa, and demand for reliable and affordable services. Nala founder Benjamin Fernandes said they intended to build their products on this premise right from the outset. Over the last two years, the Tanzanian fintech, through its consumer fintech…
8:06 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Apps
Linktree is now allowing users to highlight links better with featured layout function
6:00 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Link-in-bio startup Linktree introduced new features today including a featured layout to highlight links better, the ability to fetch the latest posts from Instagram and support for a more prominent…
Featured Article
Honda’s hydrogen fuel cell-powered CR-V isn’t as dumb as you think
Just like battery-electric cars 20 years ago, hydrogen fuel cell cars suffer from the old chicken and the egg problem. Nobody wants to buy a fuel cell vehicle until the supporting infrastructure is in place, but it’s tough to invest in infrastructure when nobody owns a fuel cell vehicle. Honda says it’s playing the long…
6:00 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Apps
What is Bluesky? Everything to know about the app trying to replace Twitter
6:00 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is most certainly bluer. It’s been more than a year since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now…
Venture
Ethos Fund closes first fund to invest in founders bridging US and Vietnamese tech ecosystems
6:00 am PDT • March 19, 2024
The five-person firm is one of the few, if not the only, funds focused exclusively on strengthening opportunities between these two countries.
Startups
TigerEye founders build on prior startup experience to create business simulation tool
5:15 am PDT • March 19, 2024
TigerEye CEO Tracy Young and her husband and CTO Ralph Gootee helped build their previous startup, PlanGrid, into a $100 million ARR business before selling it to Autodesk for $875…
Startups
Final chance to host your own Side Event at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024
5:00 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Time is running out to be a part of the action at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024! Want to make a splash in Boston’s tech scene? Don’t miss your opportunity to…
Privacy
Meta offers lower cost for EU ad-free subscription under privacy review
4:58 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Meta has proposed to drop the price of an ad-free subscription in the European Union — currently the only way regional users of its social networks, Facebook and Instagram, can…
Commerce
Who needs free shipping? Delivery startup Ingrid banks $23M to provide a viable alternative
2:33 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Ingrid, a startup out of Stockholm, Sweden, has raised €21 million (~$23 million) to improve the last, messy mile of online shopping — delivery.
Where we’ll be next
Oct 28th
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
San Francisco, CA
Jun 11th
StrictlyVC – Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
May 21st
StrictlyVC – London
London
Transportation
Uber leads $100M investment in African mobility fintech Moove as valuation hits $750M
12:32 am PDT • March 19, 2024
Moove, an African mobility fintech that offers vehicle financing to ride-hailing and delivery app drivers, has raised $100 million in a funding round as it plots expansion into new markets.…
Apps
Truecaller adds a new AI feature to detect and block more spam calls
9:30 pm PDT • March 18, 2024
Caller ID app Truecaller today blocks between 38 billion and 40 billion spam calls annually for its 374 million+ users. Now, in hopes of getting more people to sign on…
Featured Article
LACERA decreases venture capital allocation range, but experts say it doesn’t signal a trend
The Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA) voted to decrease its allocation range to venture capital at a March 13 meeting. The board of investments voted to decrease its allocation range to venture capital and growth equity from between 15% and 30% of the pension system’s private equity portfolio, to between 5% and 25%.…
4:16 pm PDT • March 18, 2024
Documentation startup Mintlify says dozens of customers had GitHub tokens exposed in a data breach at the start of the month and publicly disclosed last week. Mintlify helps developers create…
Enterprise
Nvidia launches NIM to make it smoother to deploy AI models into production
3:00 pm PDT • March 18, 2024
At its GTC conference, Nvidia today announced Nvidia NIM, a new software platform designed to streamline the deployment of custom and pre-trained AI models into production environments. NIM takes the…
Robotics
Nvidia enlists humanoid robotics’ biggest names for new AI platform, GR00T
3:00 pm PDT • March 18, 2024
It’s tough to argue with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang when he notes, “Building foundation models for general humanoid robots is one of the most exciting problems to solve in AI…
Welcome back to TechCrunch Space. This is an uncommonly SpaceX-heavy issue. Apologies (or you’re welcome).
Users of Elon Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) continue complaining the platform is engaging in shadowbanning — aka restricting the visibility of posts by applying a “temporary” label to accounts that…
AI
Why Elon Musk’s AI company ‘open-sourcing’ Grok matters — and why it doesn’t
12:00 pm PDT • March 18, 2024
Elon Musk’s xAI released its Grok large language model as “open source” over the weekend. The billionaire clearly hopes to set his company at odds with rival OpenAI, which, despite…
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov said on his channel today that the company secured $330 million in investment through bond sales last week. Durov said that the offering was…
