An antitrust win for Amazon and Apple in Italy where an appeals court has cancelled a multimillion dollar penalty the pair were hit with last year for alleged collusion following an investigation into the reselling of Apple and (Apple-owned) Beats kit on Amazon’s Italian e-commerce marketplace. The original €203M (total) penalty had already been reduced … Read more
Jesse Pujji believes the future of mobile e-commerce will look more like TikTok, Instagram and Snap, and started Kahani, a SaaS company for merchants, to lead the charge. Prior to Kahani, the serial entrepreneur was a founder in several companies, including Gateway X, Ampush and GrowthAssistant. After moving into the executive chairman role at Ampush … Read more
We’re just a few short weeks away from the first in-person TechCrunch Disrupt in three years. The agenda is absolutely bursting with expert insight and information from the leading voices in the early-stage startup universe. We want to take a moment to highlight a session led by our title sponsor, AT&T, who helps more than … Read more
Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle company Wisk Aero has unveiled its go-to-market aircraft: a four-passenger autonomous air taxi that the startup will put forward for U.S. Federal Aviation Administration type certification. Type certification, one of the three certifications an aviation company needs to secure before launching a commercial service, means the aircraft has … Read more
Entertainment platform Fandom announced today its acquisition of seven entertainment and gaming brands from media company Red Ventures, including online publications Comic Vine, Cord Cutters News, GameFAQs, GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic, and TV Guide. While the financials of the deal were not disclosed in the official announcement, Fandom told TechCrunch that the deal cost somewhere … Read more
If crypto is going to reach “mass adoption,” the industry still has a lot of people it needs to bring on board. Approximately 83% of U.S. adults haven’t ever invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted this summer. While many builders and investors agree that it’s still relatively … Read more
At this point in the BeReal hype cycle, you might’ve seen some wild things in your friends’ once-per-day snaps (personally, I’ve seen a couple of “sitting on the toilet” posts, and I am grateful it hasn’t been worse). In the “Saturday Night Live” season premiere, the sketch comedy writers ask: what if the BeReal goes … Read more
Venmo is launching a new feature called “Charity Profiles” that will allow charities to raise funds and receive donations directly within its app, the Pay-Pal-owned company announced on Monday. The new profiles will be available to charities that have received confirmed charity status from PayPal. The new profile option will allow charities to reach more … Read more
Welcome to Q4, friends. If you were hoping to begin the final chunk of 2022 with good news, tough. We’re starting the quarter off with rough data instead. Sure, we’re waiting on data dumps from CB Insights, PitchBook, and Crunchbase about Q3 venture capital aggregates, but one particular bellwether indicator that we track here at … Read more
Another major piece of mobile M&A appears to be in the works in the UK. Today, Vodafone confirmed that it was in merger discussions with Three UK, a carrier owned by CK Hutchison, to accelerate their 5G rollout. A deal would not involve any cash consideration, Vodafone said: “The envisaged transaction would involve both companies … 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. Don’t forget that the code “EQUITY” can save you money on Disrupt tickets and TechCrunch+ access. And it makes us here on the show look good! Markets: Stocks are largely down around the world, yet set to … Read more
Amazon is launching Amazon Access, a new hub for customers to explore the programs, discounts and features that the online retailer offers for affordable shopping, the company announced on Monday. Amazon also announced that its discounted Prime membership, which launched in 2017, will now be called Prime Access. The new Amazon Access hub gives customers … Read more
Rivian has hired Diane Lye as its first chief information officer, a position that the EV maker says is necessary to expand globally. Lye’s hiring comes as Rivian consolidates its internal and external technology teams across its numerous departments, including manufacturing IT and customer-facing digital products. It is also ahead of Rivian’s planned expansion into … Read more
Hackers have released a cache of data stolen during a cyberattack against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in what appears to be the biggest education breach in recent years. Vice Society, a Russian-speaking group that last month claimed responsibility for the ransomware attack that disrupted the LAUSD’s access to email, computer systems and … Read more
Liran Grinberg Contributor Share on Twitter Liran Grinberg is the co-founder of Team8 and the managing partner of its investment fund, Team8 Capital, focused on investing in enterprise technology, cybersecurity, data and AI companies. Has the price tag for innovation become untenable? When venture-backed companies were chasing growth metrics, higher cloud bills were shrugged off … Read more
Electric cars are great and all, but internal combustion engines (ICE) have one thing going for them: comprehensive, well-oiled infrastructure that means you can add 300 miles of range to your car, in 5 minutes, at any of 65,000 or so gas stations. Compare that with the one-hour stop at only about 6,000 high-speed charging … Read more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is charging Kim Kardashian for “unlawfully touting” a “crypto security,” the agency announced on Monday morning. The SEC says that Kardashian was in violation of its rules when she promoted a “crypto asset security offered and sold by EthereumMax” without the necessary disclosure that she was paid to … Read more
In the latest quick commerce headspinner, Deliveroo is experimenting with expanding its rapid grocery business by opening a new type of ‘dark store’ in Central London. As well as functioning as a mini warehouse where Deliveroo staff pick orders for couriers operating on its platform to collect and deliver locally to app users, the new … Read more
In 2011, the Apache Software Foundation released Flink, a high-throughput, low-latency engine for streaming various data types. A decade later, a startup called Immerok — founded by David Moravek, Holger Temme, Johannes Moser, Konstantin Knauf, Piotr Nowojski and Timo Walther — has developed an Apache Flink cloud service called Immerok Cloud, which is serverless — … Read more
The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the full edition of the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. This is a shorter version of The Station newsletter that is emailed to subscribers. Want all the deals, news roundups and commentary? Subscribe … Read more
Months after the initial close of its seed round, Talk360, a South African Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) startup, has raised an additional $3 million, bringing the total investment raised in the round to $7 million. Talk360’s latest investors include Allan Gray E2 Ventures (AGEV), Kalon Venture Partners, E4E Africa, Endeavor, existing lead investor HAVAÍC, … Read more
TikTok is hunting for partners to launch its live shopping offering in the US as it is looking to outsource operations for these features. According to a report from Financial Times, the short video app has been talking with California-based TalkShopLive to provide infrastructure for live shopping features on TikTok. This tech will allow creators … Read more
Prosus Ventures and its subsidiary payments giant PayU have called off the $4.7 billion merger of BillDesk they announced last year, saying “certain conditions precedent” were not fulfilled by the deadline in a surprising development a month after the proposed acquisition received approval from the local antitrust watchdog. “Certain conditions precedent were not fulfilled by … Read more
New York-based insurance giant Lemonade is officially launching in the U.K., its fourth market in Europe and fifth overall, with a little help from one of the oldest and largest insurance providers in the U.K. Lemonade, for the uninitiated, emerged into the trillion-dollar insurance space back in 2015, with a new take on how consumers … Read more
Tesla reported Sunday it delivered 343,830 vehicles in the third quarter, a new record and a turnaround from earlier this year when a shutdown at its China factory and challenges around opening factories in Berlin and Austin affected how many vehicles it was able to get into customers’ driveways. Despite the rebound and record number, … Read more
It takes a veritable army to make TechCrunch Disrupt — which takes place October 18–20 in San Francisco — the well-oiled experience that savvy startuppers have come to know and love. And we couldn’t do it nearly as well without our incredible volunteers. If you’re looking for a no-budget way to experience Disrupt up close … 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 … Read more
For decades, the answer to when fusion power would arrive was like the punchline to an oft-repeated joke — it was always 10 or 20 years away. Now, it might actually be on the cusp of commercialization. No, really. If that refrain sounds all too familiar, it’s because, well, something like that was written 10 … Read more
As companies aim to cut costs and reel in spending amid uncertain macroeconomic conditions, Form Bio thinks it is actually the perfect time to launch its platform. The software company was developed at Colossal Biosciences — known for its goal to bring extinct critters like the wooly mammoth back to life — and is now … Read more
Telegram has cut the monthly subscription fee for its premium tier by more than half in India, just months after introducing the offering as it attempts to aggressively cash in on a large user base in one of its biggest markets. In a message to users in India on Saturday, Telegram said it was making … Read more