TechCrunch

Luis Rubén Chávez, founder and CEO of Zenfi, says consumer finance in Mexico and across Latin America “is basically broken.” “Achieving basic financial health in Mexico for around 50 to 60 million people is really hard,” he told TechCrunch. “Two out of three Mexicans have a subprime credit score with basically no tools to improve.” … Read more

Eugene Y. Mar Contributor Share on Twitter Eugene Y. Mar is a partner with Farella Braun + Martel LLP in San Francisco, leading the firm’s Technology Industry Group. Thomas J. Pardini Contributor Thomas J. Pardini is a senior associate with Farella Braun + Martel LLP in San Francisco, representing clients in intellectual property litigation. Tech … Read more

Twitter’s crowd-sourced fact-checking program, Community Notes, is now open to contributors in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Twitter said over the weekend that it was expanding the contributor base by 10% per week by onboarding new individuals to the program. The social media company has also promised to include people from other countries. … Read more

Amazon has launched Amazon Air, its dedicated air cargo fleet, in India as the e-commerce giant bulks up its logistics infrastructure in the key overseas market where it has deployed over $6.5 billion. The retailer has partnered with the Bengaluru-based cargo airline Quikjet to launch its maiden air freight service in the country, which it … Read more

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. … Read more

Welcome back, climate tech readers! Like last week, we’ve got a full slate once more, from food waste to wastewater and more. Let’s dive in. Nest co-founder Matt Rogers’ new startup is trash Image Credits: Mill Industries After selling Nest to Google for $3.2 billion, Matt Rogers is no stranger to scaling fast. But unlike … Read more

AltspaceVR has had a few close calls over the years, but the company that built virtual social spaces well before “metaverse” was a household word is shuttering for good this time. After announcing that it would close up shop in 2017, Microsoft intervened and the company came under the tech giant’s wing. Now, Microsoft is … Read more

Detailed tactical plans for imminent police raids, confidential police reports with descriptions of alleged crimes and suspects, and a forensic extraction report detailing the contents of a suspect’s phone. These are some of the files in a huge cache of data taken from the internal servers of ODIN Intelligence, a tech company that provides apps … Read more

Howdy, folks! Happy Friday. While our fearless Week in Review leader Greg enjoys parental leave, I’m filling in, curating the latest on the tech news front. It was a roller coaster of a week once again as economic headwinds took a brutal, demoralizing toll, and as chaos reigned at Elon Musk’s Twitter. Somewhere in the … Read more

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. It kind of feels like tech forgot its umbrella. Like, it remembered to pack its water bottle, wear the right shoes and layer up, but … Read more

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 economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year dropped for the first time by 2% to $167 billion, according to the latest “State … Read more

Elon Musk continues to change things at a breakneck pace at Twitter, and on Saturday the still-CEO (I guess he hasn’t found anyone willing to take over yet?) seemed to address user complaints that ads are getting worse on the platform. Musk said that the social network would be “taking steps” to address what he … Read more

W elcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Buy now, pay later is an alluring option for consumers, perhaps even more so in a recession. But with rising debt and inflation, … Read more

TikTok goes a little overboard when it comes to categorizing every last aesthetic into its own microtrend. You notice it when Spotify Wrapped calls your music taste goblincore, or when you strangely end up at a charity gala in San Francisco and a tech exec asks you if he should be concerned that his teen … Read more

The Indian government has ordered YouTube and Twitter to take down videos and tweets about a BBC documentary that is critical of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued the directions “for blocking multiple YouTube videos” and “over 50 tweets” linked to the videos of the first episode of the … 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. Happy Friday! Join us in wishing Lorenzo a very warm welcome to the team! He’s joining our crack team of cybersecurity reporters, working alongside Zack and Carly. He just published his first … Read more

Welcome back to the TechCrunch Podcast. This week Amanda Silberling is here to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons creators are fighting to keep their livelihoods and Rebecca Bellan comes on to talk about how a tweet has gotten Elon Musk into legal trouble…again. And as always, we break down the biggest stories in tech. … Read more

People can never land on a word to explain what is happening to women and minorities within venture. Are such founders overlooked or undersought? Underestimated and underrepresented? Marginalized? Discriminated against? Or just ignored? The excuses used to justify these sobriquets are equally scattered. Women received just 1.9% of all venture capital funds last year because … Read more

Thoma Bravo, the private equity and growth capital firm, today announced that it would spend $1.8 billion CAD (~$1.34 billion) to acquire Magnet Forensics, a Waterloo-based company making software used by defense forces and businesses to investigate cybersecurity threats. Magnet Forensics will be purchased by a newly created corporation controlled by Thoma Bravo, Morpheus Purchaser … Read more

Many of us would feel better if we ate better. But for patients with chronic diseases, the issue is more pressing: Fixing their diet is often key to keeping their condition under control. According to the CDC, six in 10 adults in the U.S. have a chronic disease such as diabetes or heart conditions. Millions … Read more

In an industry obsessed with making everything huge (at least here in the U.S.), you may not’ve expected GM to show interest in an electric baby pickup, but here we are. GM is considering a pickup design that’s “smaller than the Ford Maverick and the Hyundai Santa Cruz,” with a “low roofline” and a 4 … Read more

On Wednesday, Microsoft announced it was laying off 10,000 people. Alphabet added to the misery with another 12,000 this morning. We’ve previously seen 18,000 job cuts at Amazon and another 11,000 at Meta. You could also throw in Salesforce, which slashed 7,000 jobs at the beginning of the month. You’ll notice one company is conspicuously … Read more

Though investment in food technology has slowed in line with the rest of the venture capital world, the industry recently achieved some milestones that suggest the sector and the government are moving into alignment. In fact, some investors feel that 2023 will be the year when alternative seafood companies and products make notable strides. More … Read more

You know what it’s like – you’ve been on vacation and you’ve taken twenty-eight million photos, and you just want to select the best 12 so you can make a calendar. Ain’t nobody got time for that – and that’s what GoodOnes is here to help you with. The app is in early access mode … Read more

When Microsoft announced this week that it was laying off 10,000 employees, it wasn’t exactly a shock. Other big companies, including Salesforce, Amazon and Meta, have already been down that road, and the news leaked far and wide before the official announcement on Wednesday. Alphabet joined in today, announcing another 12,000 job cuts. Like these other … Read more

Netflix reported its Q4 2022 financial results yesterday, topping 230 million global subscribers, up from 223.09 million, thanks to the addition of 7.7 million subs. During the earnings call, Netflix co-CEO Sarandos said the company is “keeping an eye” on a free ad-supported TV (FAST) option, a move that many media companies are considering as … Read more

Even as VC funding dries up across the world, development finance institutions (DFIs) from Europe are looking to African startups to deploy their dry powder. British International Investment (BII), a DFI from the UK, told TechCrunch recently that it will deploy $500 million into startups by the end of 2026, and half of that amount … Read more

Due to a phenomenon called semantic satiation, if you repeat a word or phrase too frequently, it can sometimes lose all meaning. That’s what happened to “unicorn:” We wore it out like a pair of sneakers that leak in the rain but are too comfortable to part with. In fact, most of the startups in … Read more

While the bulk of commercial space launch activity is happening just south of its border, Canada is tired of watching from the sidelines and wants in on the action: The country’s federal transport ministry announced that it intends to support commercial space launches in the near future. The plan is for Canada to hose commercial … Read more