Tim Flannery, Alex Laplante and Ben Doran were working together at Carta’s investor services team when they realized that onboarding funds to invest in startups was a taxing (no pun intended) process. It required manually creating subscription agreements — agreements that investors fill out to invest in a fund — by piecing together unstructured data … Read more
While crypto markets remain volatile, enterprise blockchain adoption is continuing to grow as businesses find new use cases for the technology, according to Daniela Barbosa, general manager of blockchain and identity and Hyperledger executive director at The Linux Foundation. One of the biggest demands over the past two years has been “hybrid use cases,” Barbosa … Read more
Treasury Prime co-founder and CEO Chris Dean believes that the best outcomes for consumers will result from traditional banks and fintechs working together. The banking-as-a-service startup has worked to build relationships with both banks and fintechs. And Dean believes Treasury Prime’s ability “to keep both sides happy” has contributed to its ability to grow its … Read more
Today, Netflix announced that Premium members can now download content on more devices and use spatial audio for over 700 titles. Both upgraded features are available at no extra cost. Premium subscribers are able to download Netflix titles to watch offline on six devices at a time. Previously, the plan would only allow downloads on … Read more
Risilience, a SaaS-based analytics platform that helps companies assess their climate risk and plan their transition toward net-zero carbon emissions, has raised $26 million in a Series B round of funding. The raise comes as ESG (environmental, social, and [corporate] governance) startups across the spectrum have continued to raise cash throughout the downturn, with climate-focused companies … Read more
Food colorings, like Red 40 and Yellow 5, often include synthetic, petroleum or animal-derived products, but in recent years, the $2.6 billion food colors market has trended toward using natural ingredients as more consumers want more clean labels for the foods they eat. Startups have come in with their approaches to healthier food colors, ingredients … Read more
Jonathan Martinez Contributor Share on Twitter Jonathan Martinez is a former YouTuber, UC Berkeley alum and growth marketing nerd who’s helped scale Uber, Postmates, Chime and various startups. More posts by this contributor Teach yourself growth marketing: How to perform growth experimentation through A/B testing Teach yourself growth marketing: How to boot up an email … Read more
Business aviation operators are often challenged with crew and aircraft shortages as they look to scale and meet the growing post-pandemic demand for air travel. With industry-wide staffing shortages, operators need to figure out how to attract pilots and other crew members — whether it be to fill full-time vacancies or add temp positions to … Read more
Netflix is now detailing how it aims to maintain password sharing within a household while cracking down on outside usage. The company aims to curtail account sharing this year by asking people to pay extra money to use the streaming service outside the household for extended periods of time. The streaming giant has shared terms … Read more
Today, Apple launched MLS Season Pass in over 100 territories, giving soccer fans access to all MLS matches, Audi 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs, and Leagues Cup, as well as original programming. Notably, there are no blackouts, so subscribers get to watch matches in or out of market. The 2023 MLS season begins on February 25. … Read more
A new report shines a light on the world of commercial open source software (COSS) startups, including which ones are growing fastest, which are raising cash and even which universities are most popular among COSS founders. The report emanates from Runa Capital, a formerly Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that recently moved its HQ to … Read more
Battery startup Our Next Energy announced this morning that it closed a massive $300 million Series B in an effort to get its $1.6 billion gigafactory up and running. The new round values the company at $1.2 billion post-money, marking a stunning rise for the two-and-a-half-year-old company, which closed a $25 million Series A in … Read more
Twitter announced Tuesday that it is discontinuing CoTweeting, a feature that let two users co-author a tweet. The company said that the feature will immediately cease to exist. Users will be able to view the set of co-tweets for a month. After that, they will be automatically converted to retweets on the co-author’s profile. “For … Read more
If you’ve ever made an Amazon order with a particular seller because the estimated delivery for the item appears to match when you need it, only to be frustrated when a different (later) delivery estimate appears after you’ve completed the payment process, this action by Poland’s competition and consumer watchdog may be of interest: It’s … Read more
In most African countries, access to credit remains limited for many small businesses, with the reasons ranging from the inability to pay collateral and lack of credit history to unfavorable lending criteria and high-interest rates. Banks and governments have tried to address this gap across different African markets by implementing several loan initiatives, but there’s … Read more
Tiger Global believes India is likely to produce the highest equity returns globally in the future, its partner Scott Shleifer said on an investor call Tuesday, even as he admitted the investor giant has made way more money in China and the U.S. “We think it will be the best place to invest,” said Shleifer … Read more
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes AI can help usher in “unbelievable abundance,” but he says he wants to ensure that such abundance is shared. Toward that end, Altman has embraced a theory of 19th century political economist Henry George, who in his own lifetime worried about wealth amassing in the hands of the few following … Read more
MUFG, Japan’s largest bank by market cap, announced today the launch of a $100 million fund focused on Indonesian startups. The fund, a collaboration between MUFG subsidiaries MUFG Innovation Partners, MUFG Bank and Indonesian commercial bank Danamon, is called MUFG Innovation Partners Garuda No. 1 Limited Investment Partnership. The fund, which is the third one … Read more
Snapchat has more than 2 million paid subscribers on its Snapchat+ program, the company said during its latest earnings report. Snap noted that the paid plan, which costs $3.99 a month, is a part of “diversifying” its revenue pipelines. The social network first launched Snapchat+ in June 2022 in countries like the US, Canada, the … Read more
Egyptian fintech and e-commerce ecosystem MNT-Halan has raised up to $400 million in equity and debt financing from local and global investors as it continues to serve underbanked and unbanked customers in the North African country. The round includes $260 million in equity financing and $140 million through two securitized bond issuances secured within the … Read more
Superstrata’s e-bike is a strange specimen — there’s no two ways about it. In some ways that makes sense; the bike’s concept, borne out in seamless 3D-printed carbon fiber, springs from an equally strange premise. We’ll get into that. Talking to Sonny Vu, founder of Superstrata’s parent company Arevo, the bikes were crafted not out … Read more
Tesla recorded a $204 million impairment loss in 2022 on its bitcoin holdings, according to regulatory filings. The loss was offset by $64 million in profits from bitcoin trading, leaving the automaker with a net loss of $140 million. Tesla had invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin during the first quarter of 2021, stating that it … Read more
Countries worldwide have pledged to reduce their energy usage and reach net-zero energy targets by 2050. To get there, they will need to find clever ways to decarbonize especially dirty businesses, including the buildings sector. The push to clean up the built environment has spawned a lot policy, as well as overlapping acronyms, including net-zero … Read more
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. As January is coming to a close, the TechCrunch team is firing on all cylinders (do we still say that, in a time of electric cars? What is a better expression these … Read more
After telegraphing the move in media appearances, OpenAI has launched a tool that attempts to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated text — like the text produced by the company’s own ChatGPT and GPT-3 models. The classifier isn’t particularly accurate — its success rate is around 26%, OpenAI notes — but OpenAI argues that it, when … Read more
The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Tesla for documents related to its branded Full Self-Driving and Autopilot advanced driver assistance systems, the automaker disclosed in a securities filing. Tesla said in the filing it “has received requests from the DOJ for documents related to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features.” “To our knowledge no government agency … Read more
Peacock is no longer offering its free tier to new customers, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday. The company says it’s shifting its focus to its Premium offering, and that doing so will allow the streaming service to remain competitive in the marketplace. The change was first reported by The Streamable. The … Read more
Spotify’s success with its year-end review known as Wrapped, designed for social sharing, may be pushing the company toward building more social experiences directly into its mobile app. The company for many months has been testing different iterations of a “friends activity” tab on its mobile app, and investors have now taken notice. During the … Read more
Meta is starting to test closed spaces called “members-only worlds” in Horizon Worlds, its social VR experience. The company has begun a limited alpha test to give creators the ability to grow and moderate their own communities. Meta has selected a small group of creators to build and obtain feedback about members-only worlds. In a … Read more
General Motors said Tuesday it will invest $650 million into Lithium Americas as part of an agreement to develop a mine in Nevada, the latest effort by the automaker to lock down a supply chain of key components needed to produce millions of EVs. The investment in raw materials for batteries is the biggest to … Read more