Amazon is deepening its ties to hit Dungeons & Dragons actual play series Critical Role, entering a multiyear deal with the growing role-playing content empire that will see any new adaptations spring up under the Amazon Studios umbrella. The company will also bring Critical Role’s second campaign to life, showcasing the ragtag fantasy group of … Read more
Building and owning a home has been part of human life for as long as civilization itself. But in the past few decades, the lens through which we view real estate and property development has slowly blurred. It’s not a huge stretch to say that today, as tech increasingly permeates property development and housing, few … Read more
The last year was a roller coaster ride in the AI world, and no doubt many people are dizzied by the number of advances and reversals, the constant hype and equally constant fearmongering. But let’s take a step back: AI is a powerful and promising new technology, but the conversation isn’t always genuine, and it’s … Read more
Disney Advertising held its annual Tech and Data Showcase today, revealing plans to roll out some of Hulu’s ad targeting capabilities to Disney+. When Disney+ launched its ad-supported tier last month, advertisers couldn’t target ads to specific audiences. By giving Disney+ advertisers access to Hulu’s ad-targeting tools, they can learn a user’s age, gender, and … Read more
Startups went on a hiring spree in 2021 as VC cash flowed and the job market was hot. But many overindulged in the talent pool and then had to make large cuts and layoffs in 2022. The worst for startups is likely still to come. This isn’t a pattern that companies are going to want … Read more
Amid declining ad revenue and advertiser exits, Twitter announced today that it has teamed up with ad-tech companies DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) to tell advertisers if their ad is placed around inappropriate content. The program, available first for U.S.-based advertising campaigns, allows brands to analyze the content adjacent to— primarily tweets above and … Read more
B2B is looking a lot more than B2C these days: From Figma to Slack, individuals and teams can sign up for tools that their entire organization will end up adopting. This concept is also known as product-led growth. The definition of product-led growth is almost tautological: As a vendor, it basically means that you’re using … Read more
The mobile game Valiant Hearts: Coming Home by Ubisoft will launch exclusively on Netflix Games on January 31. Previously announced in September 2022, Netflix and Ubisoft announced the official release date of Valiant Hearts: Coming Home yesterday. As part of a recent partnership, this is the first of three mobile games from Netflix and Ubisoft. … Read more
Twitter owner and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist“, Elon Musk, is facing a legal challenge in Germany over how the platform handles antisemitic hate speech. The lawsuit, which was filed yesterday in the Berlin regional court by HateAid, a group that campaigns against hate speech, and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS), argues that Musk-owned … Read more
Crowdbotics, a software development platform with a library of prebuilt app architectures, today announced that it raised $40 million in a Series B round led by NEA with participation from Homebrew, JSV, Harrison Metal and Cooley. The new cash will be put toward expanding Crowdbotics’ enterprise presence, CEO Anand Kulkarni told TechCrunch in an email … Read more
The global app economy slowed for the first time last year, as consumer spending on apps dropped 2% to $167 billion, according to a recent annual report put out by data.ai. At the same time, downloads were up 11% year-over-year — a seemingly positive indication that app adoption was still taking place, driven in particular … Read more
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Share on Twitter Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: What … Read more
Starting January 30, v13.40 of Fortnite on iOS and Google Play will become unavailable to players under 18, Epic Games has announced. Although Fortnite was removed from the iOS, macOS and Google Play stores in August 2020, the game is still playable by users who already had it installed, but it’s been stuck on the … Read more
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter … Read more
Flutter, Google’s open-source framework for building multi-platform apps for mobile, web and desktop, is hosting its Flutter Forward event in Nairobi, Kenya today. As the name implies, the team is using the event to showcase up-and-coming features of the framework — most of which are still very early in their development cycle. The main highlights … Read more
Many believe the key to keeping networks and data secure lies in watertight identity and log-in management, but what happens when you are using a variety of apps, platforms, and a hybrid of cloud and other servers and networks that cannot be used with the same ID management tool? A startup called Strata Identity working … Read more
Madrid has renewed the operating licenses for scooter-sharing services in the city. The city council has chosen three operators for the next three years — Dott, Lime and Tier. This trio of companies will sound familiar as these companies also won tender processes in several European cities in recent years. Madrid even says that it … Read more
Working with, microservices-based development environments presents a unique set of testing challenges. Richard North developed an open source solution called Testcontainers in 2015 to help ease this problem for developers. Today, the open source project is used by companies like Uber, Netflix, Spotify and Capital One. North and co-founder Sergei Egorov (who was a co-maintainer … Read more
Injective, a layer-1 blockchain focused on building financial applications, has launched a $150 million fund ecosystem initiative, the platform’s CEO and co-founder, Eric Chen, told TechCrunch. “We’ve seen a lot of ecosystem funds in the past do various things, but there isn’t really an established ecosystem fund for Injective and Cosmos as a whole,” Chen … Read more
Chances are you used a toilet at some point today, and you didn’t think much of it. But if you used a port-a-potty, you probably did think about it. Maybe a lot. And it probably wasn’t pleasant. “No one likes the port-a-potty,” said Brophy Tyree, co-founder and CEO of Wasted. “It’s embedded into a really … Read more
Google is revising its business agreements with phonemakers in India and making a series of other changes in the South Asian market to comply with local antitrust watchdog’s directions. The company, which was slapped with a $161 million fine by the Competition Commission of India and was ordered to make a series of changes in … Read more
The biotech industry is experiencing a rush of AI-powered tools for many aspects of the complex drug discovery process. But one that has flown under the radar, increasingly thought to be key to certain diseases but woefully understudied, is RNA. With $35 million in new funding, Atomic AI aims to do for RNA what AlphaFold … Read more
Sequoia Capital and Bain Ventures are among the high-profile investors that have backed the venture firm Kearny Jackson’s second fund, the early-stage focused firm said Wednesday as it gears up to invest in more startups. Kearny Jackson, founded by former Spotify executive Sriram Krishnan, said it has closed $14 million second fund. It has also … Read more
Tanmay Chopra Contributor Share on Twitter Tanmay Chopra works in machine learning at AI search startup Neeva, where he wrangles language models large and small. Previously, he oversaw the development of ML systems globally to counter violence and extremism on TikTok. Last summer could only be described as an “AI summer,” especially with large language … Read more
When Shutterstock and OpenAI announced a partnership to help develop OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 artificial intelligence image-generating platform with Shutterstock libraries to train and feed the algorithm, the stock photo and media giant also hinted that it would soon be bringing its own generative AI tools to users. Today the company took the wraps off that … Read more
Suneeta Kohli, a female Uber driver in New Delhi, had her account suddenly disabled one evening while she was en route to pick up a rider in a southern part of the capital city. “I was reaching the destination, but it took some time due to heavy traffic. The ride eventually got canceled. But after … Read more
Electric vehicle charging management systems are usually end-to-end solutions for managing EV charging operations, billing, energy, drivers, and even fleets. This means EV charging service providers can optimize the monetization of their operations. A number of players have proliferated over the last few years. Driivz from Israel has raised $23.1M in VC funding to date … Read more
Gemba, an enterprise-focused virtual reality (VR) training startup used by some of the world’s biggest companies, has raised $18 million in a Series A round of funding. Gemba designs and delivers so-called virtual “masterclasses” spanning subject matters such as supply chain management and lean manufacturing, working in conjunction with experts from the respective fields to deliver … Read more
Scores of Microsoft services including Teams, Xbox Live, Outlook and Microsoft 365 suite are inaccessible to thousands of users around the globe. Microsoft has acknowledged the outage, and said it’s working on a fix. According to DownDetector, a popular tool that tracks service reliability, users began reporting accessibility issues with multiple services including Microsoft 365, … Read more
Does the average person want to shop for apparel in virtual reality (VR)? Speaking for myself, it sounds rather cumbersome — having to plop on a headset to browse for, say, trousers as opposed to click through a few galleries. But not everyone agrees — particularly those who hope to build a business out of … Read more