economy
Kaszek Ventures raises $600 million in two funds as Latin America’s startup market booms
Kaszek Ventures, the investment firm that has been one of the primary architects of the recent boom in startup financing and growth in Latin America, has just raised $600 million…
The maker of internet-connected stationary bikes approaches $1 billion in annual revenue.
SAP & Pricefx cover hot topics at TechCrunch’s Sept. 5 Enterprise show in SF
You can’t talk enterprise software without talking SAP, one of the giants in a $500 billion industry. And not only will SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott share insights at TC Sessions:…
Trump adds tariffs to $550 billion of Chinese imports in trade war reprisal
President Trump announced Friday on Twitter that tariffs on Chinese imports will increase 5 percentage points in a tit-for-tat response to China’s own plans to place new duties on U.S.…
Tastemakers raises $1M to sell Africa experiences to the world
New York-based startup Tastemakers has raised a $1 million seed-round — led by Precursor Ventures — for its business that connects Africa adventures to global consumers. Tastemakers’ platform curates, prices…
African incubator MEST has a new MD and 11 fresh startup investments
Pan-African incubator MEST announced investments in 11 startups from its 2019 cohort that will each receive $100,000 in financing. The $1.1 million backing for a graduating class is the largest…
MoviePass exposed thousands of unencrypted customer card numbers
Movie ticket subscription service MoviePass has exposed tens of thousands of customer card numbers and personal credit cards because a critical server was not protected with a password. Mossab Hussein,…
Huron founder and CEO Matt Mullenax is hoping to build a big business around body wash. “For us, the broader mission is A+ personal care for guys everywhere — not…
An anonymous hentai porn site exposed over a million users’ emails
A popular hentai porn site that promises anonymity to its 1.1 million users left a user database exposed without a password, allowing anyone to identify users by their email addresses.…
SoftBank reportedly plans to lend employees as much as $20 billion to invest in its VC fund
SoftBank has a plan to loan up to $20 billion to its employees, including CEO Masayoshi Son, for the purposes of having that capital re-invested in SoftBank’s own Vision venture…
New $47M fund, Fil Rouge Capital, is ready to boost Croatia’s growing startup scene
Croatia has not exactly been known for a huge startup scene in the past, and probably the most famous tech company out of there in recent years has been Rimac…
Launching out of YC, Blair is aiming to reshape the financing of college tuition
It’s generally agreed that higher education in the United States has gradually become more and more unaffordable. Students are dependent on external financial resources for which many of them do…
Another day, another reversal in stock fortunes as recession fears grow
U.S. stock markets plummeted today as recession fears continue to grow. Yesterday’s good news about a reprieve on tariffs for U.S. consumer imports was undone by increasing concerns over economic…
Credit Karma glitch exposed users to other people’s accounts
Users of credit monitoring site Credit Karma have complained that they were served other people’s account information when they logged in. Many took to a Reddit thread and complained on…
Peer-to-peer boat rental marketplace Boatsetter raises $10M as it looks to grow globally
Obviously, not everyone owns a boat, and boat ownership is far more unique than car ownership — which makes it maybe an ideal category for peer-to-peer marketplace rentals. P2P boat…
WeWork is expected to go public as soon as next month.
Tech companies get a reprieve thanks to a reversal from the president on tariffs
President Donald Trump and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have issued technology companies some temporary tariff relief. Citing an unwillingness to hit consumers with higher prices on things…
Featured Article
How young VCs bootstrap new venture firms
We spend a lot of time talking about new funds, and new startup venture raises, but we spend little time talking about the cash flow challenges of running a venture fund. Let’s change that today. Starting a new venture fund is extremely challenging. In addition to just the monstrous task of fundraising — which can…
TechCrunch’s Enterprise event early-bird deadline extended: buy now & save $100
Even the most enterprising startup founders can suffer a bout of procrastination or last-minute decision making. We get it. That’s why we’re extending the early-bird deadline for TC Sessions: Enterprise…
Featured Article
Biotech researchers venture into the wild to start their own business
Much of Silicon Valley mythology is centered on the founder-as-hero narrative. But historically, scientific founders leading the charge for bio companies have been far less common.
Learn how enterprise startups win big deals at TechCrunch’s Enterprise show on Sept. 5
Big companies today may want to look and feel like startups, but when it comes to the way they approach buying new enterprise solutions, especially from new entrants, they still…
Klarna raises $460 million, looks to expand its payments presence in the US
Swedish payments provider Klarna has announced a new round of equity funding, adding $460 million at a post-money valuation of $5.5 billion, which makes it one of the most highly…
Snap looks to raise $1 billion in private debt offering
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, is looking to add some cash to its coffers via a new proposed private offering of $1 billion in convertible senior notes, with a…
Apple Card is getting its first group of public test users today. A limited amount of customers that signed up to be notified about the release of Apple Card are…
US Treasury just designated China as a currency manipulator, so expect more economic shocks
The U.S. Treasury has just taken the extraordinary step of designating China as a currency manipulator, something no administration has done since the days of Bill Clinton. With the action,…
Tech stocks walloped as China retaliates in the latest salvo of its trade war with the US
All U.S. stock markets were down severely today, and tech stocks were hit especially hard, as China retaliated to increasing U.S. tariffs by halting imports on U.S. agricultural goods and…
MaC Ventures, the brainchild of Adrian Fenty and Marlon Nichols, is quietly making its first investments
MaC Ventures, the new Los Angeles-based investment firm formed from the merger of Cross Culture Ventures and M Ventures, has quietly started deploying capital from its fund. One of the…
Africa Roundup: Canal+ acquires ROK, Flutterwave and Alipay partner, OPay raises $50M
In July, French television company Canal+ acquired the ROK film studio from VOD company IROKOtv. Canal+ would not disclose the acquisition price, but confirmed there was a cash component of the…
Holloway launches in-depth startup guides, aims to rewrite publishing with $4.6M from NYT, tech VCs
Founders need to get smart quickly about the many nuanced aspects of building a company, from understanding weird language in a big term sheet to hiring a key software developer.…
Save with group discounts and bring your team to TechCrunch’s first-ever Enterprise event Sept. 5 in SF
Get ready to dive into the fiercely competitive waters of enterprise software. Join more than 1,000 attendees for TC Sessions Enterprise 2019 on September 5 to navigate this rapidly evolving…
