Startups
How investors are valuing the pandemic
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. W
How capital-as-a-service can help you get your first check in 2021
“A lot of founders mix up raising money with making money.” This quote, which Career Karma founder Ruben Harris mentioned off-hand on a phone call with me, has been on my mind for months. In f
What the NFT? VC David Pakman dumbs down the intensifying digital collectibles frenzy
Non-fungible tokens have been around for two years, but these NFTs, one-of-one digital items on the Ethereum and other blockchains, are suddenly becoming a more popular way to collect visual art prima
EC roundup: BNPL startups, growth marketing tips, solid state battery market map, more
When I needed a new sofa several months ago, I was pleased to find a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option during the checkout process. I had prepared myself to make a major financial outlay, but the servi
With $62.5M in debt financing, Road Runner Media puts digital ads behind commercial vehicles
If Southern California-based Road Runner Media succeeds, you’ll start seeing a lot more ads while you’re driving. That’s because the startup is placing digital screens on the back of
Broaden your view of ‘best’ to make smarter, more inclusive investments
Research shows that diverse teams, companies and founders pay, so why are all of the VC home runs from white men, or Asian men in Asia, plus a few Asian men in the U.S.?
In freemium marketing, product analytics are the difference between conversion and confusion
Considering that fewer than 5% of free users move to paid plans, even a slight improvement in conversion can translate to significant revenue gains.
How to ace the 1-hour, and ever-elusive, pitch presentation at TC Early Stage
Lisa Wu, a partner at Norwest with investments like Calm, Plaid, Opendoor and Grove Collaborative, has a message for founders: Think like a VC during your pitch presentation. After all, accepting capi
Hear from Black Female Founders, Latinx founders, StartOut and Socos Labs next week at TC Sessions: Justice 2021
We’re less than a week away from TC Sessions: Justice 2021, a deep, day-long exploration of diversity, inclusion and equity in tech. On Wednesday, March 3, leading experts, founders and social justi
Only a few hours left to buy early-bird passes to TC Early Stage 2021
By now you probably know that we’re hosting two TC Early Stage events this year — one on April 1-2 and another on July 8-9 — each with its own set of topics, speakers and content — both design
Atlassian is acquiring Chartio to bring data visualization to the platform
The Atlassian platform is chock full of data about how a company operates and communicates. Atlassian launched a machine learning layer, which relies on data on the platform with the addition of Atlas
As BNPL startups raise, a look at Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay earnings
To better understand what's going on with the companies hoping to help you finance your next mistaken purchase, let's check out earnings results from Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm.
Newness raises $3.5 million for its ‘Twitch for beauty streamers’
Newness, a startup co-founded by former Twitch employees, has raised $3.5 million in a Sequoia-led seed round for its live-streaming platform aimed at beauty creators and their fan communities. Though
First Boulevard raises $5M for its digital bank aimed at Black America
The murder of George Floyd last May ignited many things in the United States last year — one of which that was perhaps unexpected: a rise in the number of digital banks targeting the Black commu
Why are we still dating LinkedIn in 2021?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat th
Has a startup finally found one of food science’s holy grails with its healthy sugar substitute?
A little less than three years ago at the Computer Science Museum in Mountain View, California, the founders of a young company hailing from Cambridge, England addressed a crowd of celebrities, invest
Singapore-based Raena gets $9M Series A for its pivot to skincare and beauty-focused social commerce
Raena was founded in 2019 to create personal care brands with top social media influencers. After several launches, however, the Singapore-based startup noticed an interesting trend: customers were or
Newsela, the replacement for textbooks, raises $100M and becomes a unicorn
Newsela, a SaaS platform for K-12 instructional material backed by the likes of TCV, Kleiner Perkins, Reach Capital and Owl Ventures, announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series D roun
DigitalOcean’s IPO filing shows a two-class cloud market
This morning DigitalOcean, a provider of cloud computing services to SMBs, filed to go public. The company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “DOCN.
Crypto company Anchorage raises $80 million after getting federal banking charter
Anchorage has raised an $80 million Series C funding round led by GIC, also known as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. Andreessen Horowitz, Blockchain Capital, Lux and Indico are also participating