New Enterprise Associates, known by the acronym NEA, has closed a new pair of early-stage and growth-stage funds, both hovering a little over $3 billion to a total of $6.2 billion. The two-fund structure is a first that begets another first for the 45-year old firm: TechCrunch has learned that NEA has filed to be … Read more
The infrastructure behind Hive, one of the most prolific ransomware operations, has been seized by law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe. Hive saw its dark web portal seized as part of a coordinated law enforcement action carried out by the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, Secret Service and several European government … Read more
TikTok has quietly expanded its direct messaging settings to give users a choice of who they want to receive messages from. The options are now: everyone, suggested friends, mutual followers, people you’ve sent messages to, or no one. Prior to this change, only people users had identified as friends or were recommended could send a … Read more
Comcast-owned streaming service Peacock had its best quarterly result since its 2020 launch, adding five million paying subscribers in its fourth quarter of 2022 to bring the total to 20 million, up from the over 15 million subs in the previous quarter. In Q1 2021, Peacock had 9 million paid users. Peacock gets much of … Read more
Method, a startup that aims to make it easier for fintech developers to embed repayment, balance transfers and bill pay automation into their apps, today announced that it closed a $16 million Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Y Combinator (Method’s a Y Combinator graduate), Abstract Ventures, SV Angel and … Read more
Finn, the Munich-based car subscription startup, is expanding beyond individual consumer rentals in the U.S. and into long-term business rentals. Car subscriptions offer flexibility, maintenance, roadside assistance and in many cases delivery of the vehicle directly to your door, and all for around the same price of a lease. For the consumer, that sounds great. … Read more
There’s no doubt that no-code tools are transforming the way apps are made — particularly in the corporate world, where there’s often a premium placed on tech that can cut costs. According to recent Gartner surveys, 70% of new business apps will use low-code/no-code technologies by 2025, and by 2024, 80% of non-IT professionals will develop … Read more
Layoffs continue to spread across the crypto job market amid macroeconomic volatility and bearish market sentiments, but there are still plenty of startups looking to hire fresh talent. Crypto firms like Coinbase and Crypto.com have cut employees in recent weeks, which has increased the talent pool and been “instrumental” for startups looking to build talent … Read more
In the wake of a seminal wave of new artificial intelligence startups such as OpenAI, a new UK company claims it can track and rank banks on their ability to develop and deploy AI platforms. Evident, a benchmarking and intelligence company, say its inaugural Index can rank the 23 largest banks in North America and … Read more
The U.S. government’s cybersecurity agency has warned that criminal financially motivated hackers compromised federal agencies using legitimate remote desktop software. CISA said in a joint advisory with the National Security Agency on Wednesday that it had identified a “widespread cyber campaign involving the malicious use of legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) software” that had … Read more
Much of the online grocery delivery frenzy from the past three years has mainly catered to urbanites who need a few items delivered in 20 minutes. But what if you are a suburban mom trying to fit a week’s worth of grocery shopping in between shuttling children to various activities? Enter Addie’s, a drive-up grocery … Read more
What is automation good for? Harvesting more broccoli than human laborers can, according to Upp, a Shropshire-UK based agTech startup that’s using computer vision AI plus farm-sized proprietary machinery to expand crop yields. Its pitch is not only that its specialist, AI-driven harvester will make it more efficient to pick a familiar crop but also … Read more
As VC activity slowed down globally last year, Kenya defied odds to record the strongest growth in funding raised in Africa. Reports show that the deal count and value to the country surpassed 2021 figures owing to increased investor interest. Data from market intelligence firm Briter Bridges, and The Big Deal shows Kenya raised $1.1 … 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 launch a paid acquisition channel Teach yourself growth marketing: How to set up a landing page … Read more
Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, announced today the closing of a $10 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Marcy Venture Partners, the firm co-founded by Jay-Z. Iddris Sandu founded Spatial Labs in 2021, seeking to create products and shopping experiences using augmented reality. “The metaverse to us is … Read more
Meati Foods is closer to full-scale production of its whole-food protein made from the structural fibers of mushrooms, known as mycelium. The company announced Thursday the opening of its production facility, dubbed “Mega Ranch,” in Colorado. The 100,000-square-foot facility was financed in part by a $150 million Series C round of capital raised last year … Read more
Code-hosting platform GitHub has announced that 100 million developers are now using the platform. The figure represents a substantial hike on the 3 million users GitHub counted exactly 10 years ago, the 28 million it claimed when Microsoft acquired it for $7.5 billion five years ago, and the 90 million-plus it revealed just three months … Read more
Hawk AI, a German company developing anti-money laundering (AML) and tangential fraud prevention smarts for financial institutions, has raised $17 million in a Series B round of funding. Prior to now, Hawk AI had raised $10 million, and with a fresh $17 million in the bank, the company said that it plans to bolster its … Read more
Smart home energy startup Tado has raised €43 million ($46.9 million) in a round of funding led by Trill Impact Ventures, as the company pursues plans to become profitable in 2023. The raise comes a year after the German company announced plans to go public (“deSPAC”) via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), plans that … Read more
As much as 40% of all food produced each year goes nowhere near a human mouth, resulting in economic, environmental, and social costs of an estimated $2.6 trillion. While there are a multitude of social, cultural, and even technological reasons for these staggering statistics, we’ve seen a slew of startups emerge with propositions on how … Read more
Despite Canva being worth in the region of $26 billion, it appears startups feel there is still plenty to be mined from this ;easy-to-use design platform’ arena. Admittedly, Professional Adobe tools remain fiddly for most people. Perhaps that’s why Berlin-based startup Kittl has now raised an €10.8 million ($11.6 million) Series A for its design … Read more
Nobody is going to accuse Angry Miao of making boring keyboards (or earbuds). The company’s previous releases, The Cyberboard, Am Hatsu and Am AFA, are as overengineered as they are unique. When the company first started teasing its new 60% board, it almost looked too conventional to be an Angry Miao product, but keeping with … Read more
Walmart is preparing to spend over $2.5 billion in India as the retailer doubles down on the opportunities it sees in India’s e-commerce and payments markets even as the firm contends with rising costs amid the market downturns. Walmart spent about $780 million earlier this month to the Indian tax authorities after PhonePe, in which … Read more
If you live in France and you want to add a security system to your home, you don’t have a ton of options. You can contact a home security company like Verisure and Homiris. But you’ll end up paying expensive subscription fees with long-term contracts. You can also buy your own security camera and connected … Read more
Fabrice Grinda says he never intended to run a venture firm. He just really (really) enjoyed angel investing. In fact, by late 2013, when he was on the verge of selling the global classifieds marketplace OLX — his third business — he says he had already written checks to more than 150 startups with his … Read more
German insurtech startup Getsafe is adding a fourth market with today’s product launch. In addition to Germany, Austria and the U.K., Getsafe is now going to offer insurance products in France. The company will first offer a home insurance product. Getsafe is trying to disrupt the insurance market with a focus on digital-first insurance products. … Read more
Generative AI is the tech industry’s buzzword of the moment. It’s no wonder — the VC firm Sequoia not long ago predicted that generative AI, which comprises AI that can generate text, art and more from prompts, could yield trillions of dollars in economic value over the long run. Is that simply the optimistic musing … Read more
French startup Welcome to the Jungle has raised a new $54 million (€50 million) Series C round. The startup helps other companies recruit new employees more easily by creating sophisticated profiles packed with a ton of information. In particular, Welcome to the Jungle sends a photo and video crew to your office so that they … Read more
There was a brief, beautiful moment for a few months in 2021 when it felt like robotic investments might be immune from broader market forces. We all fundamentally and implicitly understood this to not be the case, but it was a nice moment nevertheless. Truth is, there was a bit of insulation in there. There … 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. Hello, Crunchers! We’re pretty excited about Matt’s TechCrunch Live, where he talks to Cambly about how the company found profits after failing to raise a Series A. Mark your calendar for February … Read more