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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. Click here if you want it in your inbox every Saturday morning. Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. It was yet another week of startups […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 9:00 pm
This week kicked off with a report of a GitHub worker who was fired after cautioning his coworkers in the DC area to stay safe from Nazis during the assault on the U.S. Capitol. Meanwhile, Facebook created a new executive role pertaining to civil rights and California’s Proposition 22 faced its first legal challenge this […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 9:00 pm
A failed acquisition usually triggers the same series of questions: What does this mean for early-stage startups in the sector? Will a chilling effect occur and hurt valuations? Will VCs stop funding this category? How will the exit environment look going forward? This week gave that narrative a bullish twist. Visa and Plaid announced that […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 7:00 pm
Last CES was a time of reckoning for lidar companies, many of which were cratering due to a lack of demand from a (still) non-existent autonomous vehicle industry. The few that excelled did so by specializing, and this year the trend has pushed beyond lidar, with new sensing and imaging methods pushing to both compete […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 5:15 pm
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 4:00 pm
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back on this lovely Saturday with a bonus episode! Again! There is enough going on that to avoid failing to bring you stuff that we think matters, we are back yet again for more. This time around we […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 12:00 pm
Some time ago, I gave up on the idea of identifying a thread that could connect each story in this weekly roundup. There are no unified theories for technology news.
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 1:09 am
As a precaution against coordinated violence as the U.S. approaches President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, Facebook announced a few new measures it’s putting in place. In a blog post and tweets from Facebook Policy Communications Director Andy Stone, the company explained that it would block any events slated to happen near the White House, the U.S. […]
Posted on 16 January 2021 | 12:28 am
GitLab has confirmed with TechCrunch that it oversaw a $195 million secondary sale that values the company at $6 billion. CNBC broke the story earlier today. The company’s impressive valuation comes after its most recent 2019 Series E in which it raised $268 million on a 2.75 billion valuation, an increase of $3.25 billion in […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 11:40 pm
Of course COVID-19 was bound to be an unavoidable topic during the first-ever all-virtual CES. After all, the topic is at front of mind regardless of the topic these days. Close to a year into the pandemic, presenters still understandably feel obligated to address the always-present elephant in the room. Sometimes it was as simple […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 11:23 pm
WhatsApp delays enforcement of a controversial privacy change, Apple may get rid of the Touch Bar in future MacBooks and Bumble files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for January 15, 2021. The big story: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash Earlier this month, WhatsApp sent users a notification asking them to consent to […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 11:07 pm
This week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey finally responded publicly to the company’s decision to ban President Trump from its platform, writing that Twitter had “faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance” and that he did not “feel pride” about the decision. In the same thread, he took time to call out a nascent Twitter-sponsored initiative called […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 10:52 pm
Marc Lore, the executive vice president, president and CEO of U.S. e-commerce for Walmart, is stepping down a little over four years after selling his e-commerce company Jet.com to the country’s largest retailer for $3 billion. Lore’s tenure at the company was a mixed bag. Walmart instituted several new technology initiatives under Lore’s tenure, but […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 9:44 pm
Coinbase has a problem. As interest in Bitcoin has soared along with its price, the popular cryptocurrency exchange has found itself the target of a growing spate of angry customers who haven’t been able to access customer service. A quick look at Twitter tells the story. As one upset user of the service ranted earlier […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 9:06 pm
Based on my experience, taking the 15 steps below will help build the core of a high-performing fundraising and investor relations function.
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 8:37 pm
Top Hat, a startup that digitizes textbooks and turns them into an interactive experience for college students, announced on Wednesday that it has acquired yet another business: Fountainhead Press. The acquisition marks Top Hat’s third scoop of a publishing company in the past 12 months. Top Hat’s whole business proposition is a subtweet to Zoom […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 8:36 pm
Group Nine Media revealed last month that it was forming a SPAC (short for special purpose acquisition corporation) in order to raise money for acquisitions. The company has now moved forward with those plans, announcing last night that it had priced the SPAC’s IPO at $10 per unit, to raise a total of $200 million. […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 8:00 pm
If you’ve got an Apple TV+ trial that’s set to expire sometime between now and June, good news: you’re getting some free bonus time. Apple TV+ first launched in November of 2019, alongside a one-year free trial for anyone buying a new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac. As those initial trials approached […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 7:53 pm
Desktop Metal this morning announced its intention to purchase fellow 3D printing company EnvisionTEC. Founded in Germany in 2002, EnvisionTEC specializes in photopolymer additive manufacturing, putting its technology in more direct competition with the likes of 3D printing darling Carbon than Desktop Metal’s own existing portfolio. The deal follows Desktop Metal’s push to go public […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 7:49 pm
WhatsApp said on Friday that it won’t enforce the planned update to its data-sharing policy until May 15, weeks after news about the new terms created confusion among its users, exposed the Facebook app to a potential lawsuit, triggered a nationwide investigation and drove tens of millions of its loyal fans to explore alternative messaging […]
Posted on 15 January 2021 | 7:30 pm