A Kenya-based venture studio with a focus on tourism, Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV), has raised $1 million pre-seed funding to build the next generation of startups that use technology to modernize the tourism sector. Investors participating in this round include Klister Credit Corp., a Canadian investment firm, The Untours Foundation, and a number of angel … Read more
The proliferation of delivery services give customers many options, but means chaos for busy restaurants that need to manage orders across multiple apps and channels. Many kitchens handle this by juggling several devices at a time, one for each app. Klikit wants to save Southeast Asian food businesses from “tablet hell” by aggregating order information … Read more
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that production on its long-delayed all-electric semi truck has started with the first deliveries beginning in December. The automaker introduced an all-electric Class 8 truck prototype, dubbed Tesla Semi, during a splashy November 2017 event held in Hawthorne, California, on the grounds of the company’s design studio and Musk’s … Read more
In recent years, assets under management at the investment firm Tiger Global have exploded. Now the firm is taking stock and winnowing down its operations, per a new investor letter first seen by Axios and obtained subsequently by TechCrunch. Most significantly, whether for lack of other options or — just as likely — in reaction … Read more
Image Credits: TechCrunch This week was a weird one for crypto, as reality TV superstar Kim Kardashian was one of the first celebrities to get an SEC fine for promoting a cryptocurrency in a social media #ad; we also had to about Dogecoin rallying on Elon’s recommitment to the Twitter deal. Listen to the fill … Read more
Amazon announced yesterday the launch of Amazon Catalytic Capital, a $150 million commitment focused on investing in underrepresented builders in tech. The initiative, according to a release, will invest in funds that back pre-seed and seed-stage startups built by Black, Latino, Indigenous, women, and LGBTQIA+ founders. The goal is that the money will support more … Read more
Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled that the Elon Musk vs. Twitter trial will be put on hold so that the two parties can work out a deal. Earlier this week, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO finally agreed to pay $54.20 per share for Twitter, the same $44 billion deal he proposed in April. This afternoon, Musk’s … Read more
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hi again! Wondering if you have a preference between “Friday Eve,” “Pre-Friday” or just stick to Thursday? We are very gently leaning toward Little Friday, but tweet us your favorite post–hump day … Read more
Basketball isn’t the only heat you’ll find in Miami, a city rapidly becoming known for its emerging tech development and investment in the hot crypto sector. It’s why we chose it as the destination for our first TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17. We have an outstanding agenda lined up with leading movers and shakers … Read more
Nintendo shared the first trailer for the anticipated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” an animated adventure featuring some deeply meme-worthy casting. With Chris Pratt as Mario and Jack Black as Bowser, fans were excited to see just how unhinged this film would be. More than 600,000 viewers tuned into the premiere on Nintendo of America’s … Read more
Spotify is pulling 11 original podcasts from the platform, which will impact studios Parcast and Gimlet and involve less than 5% layoffs, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to TechCrunch. Spotify will also reassign some staff to other podcasts, we understand. Reached for comment, Spotify said it does not comment publicly on staffing changes. … Read more
After Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter after all, his legal team is now motioning for the court to cancel the upcoming trial with Twitter, slated to begin on October 17. But, as Judge Kathaleen McCormick pointed out yesterday, the trial cannot be called off until both parties agree. So, the trial is still technically … Read more
I sat out Friday’s big Tesla AI event. I was actually looking forward to seeing what the company had cooked up after months of teasing, but a combination of rogue stomach virus and the most inconvenient event timing (Friday at 9:15 PM EDT) outside of something held on the other side of the world meant … Read more
Healthcare unicorn Ro is notifying employees of a data exposure involving their personal information after a security contractor “inadvertently” uploaded a spreadsheet of employee data to the internet. In a data breach notice obtained by TechCrunch from an affected employee who received the notice this week, Ro said it discovered that the contractor uploaded the … Read more
Less than two months before Hurricane Ian swept across Florida, its governor, Ron DeSantis, referred to ESG investing as a danger to economic freedom. His office even released a statement saying the practice sought to “advance a woke ideological agenda,” and that investors taking into account environmental, social and governance-related matters into their decisions were … Read more
Atman Capital, a year-old early-stage venture firm partially backed by about 20 founders, is sweetening the deal for these individual limited partners. It promises to give credit to any one of them who refers a successful deal to the venture firm in the form of some carried interest in the firm’s own profits. It’s an … Read more
We think you’ll be as amazed as we are by the collective creativity, ingenuity and technical prowess of the Startup Battlefield 200. Out of thousands of applications, only 200 early-stage startups made the final cut, and you’ll find all of them — and only them — exhibiting on the TechCrunch Disrupt show floor on October … Read more
As with the Pixel Watch, we’ll be bringing more in-depth thoughts with a full review in the near future. Now, however, seems like as good a time as any to offer up some initial thoughts (and pictures) of the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. First is the price. I suspect it’s not the first … Read more
Just a few days after Twitter said its new “Edit” button would launch to its paying subscribers in select markets, the company today announced the feature would begin to roll out to its U.S. audience through its Twitter Blue subscription. Previously, the edit button was being made available to Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia and … Read more
Michigan, long the automotive manufacturing capital of the United States, is now getting pumped with investment both publicly and privately to build out a series of battery manufacturing plants that will power the wave of electric vehicles coming to market. The demand for domestically produced batteries has reached new peaks after the passage of the … Read more
Bradley Tusk Contributor Share on Twitter Bradley Tusk is the founder and CEO of Tusk Ventures. More posts by this contributor Where does Facebook go from here? A California judge just struck down Prop 22: Now what? When we’re looking at different startups, we constantly ask ourselves the same question I imagine every venture fund … Read more
TikTok is introducing new editing tools to give users more creative freedom with their content, the company announced on Thursday. The new tools allow users to easily adjust clips, sounds, images and text. The changes announced today are now available to users in the U.S. and most regions globally, TikTok says. With the new tools, … Read more
So-called ‘personalized medicine’ is all the rage these days. Healthcare is being gradually affected by data-driven insights gleaned through what the healthcare sector calls ‘precision medicine’. The COVID-19 pandemic has added urgency to this sector. The 15-minute appointment that ends in prescription medicine is also being affected by the advance of remote telemedicine, and this … Read more
Google went all out today with a wall of launches of new hardware and tech. Here’s a collection of all the cool stuff Google launched, and you can watch the full event yourself if you have 90 minutes and a particularly deep curiosity streak for all things Google. Here is everything announced at the Made by … Read more
A notable changing of the guard is afoot at Intercom, the unicorn SaaS startup that powers the ubiquitous smiley customer service bots that sit on tens of thousands of company homepages: the company has reappointed co-founder, and current chairman, Eoghan McCabe as CEO. He’s replacing Karen Peacock, who is taking an advisory role for the … Read more
The standard disclaimer here: look for a full review in the not-too-distant future. But now, let’s get a better look at the Pixel Watch in real life, through some quick photos and a hands-on squeezed in the press scrum at the Williamsburg Google Store, following today’s event. Image Credits: Brian Heater I had a few … Read more
Love ’em or hate ’em, selfies are an important aspect of photography; they help us connect with loved ones, and people spend an extraordinary amount of time thinking about how to look good in photos taken of yourself. (I should know; I wrote a whole damn book about ’em in a past life). People who … Read more
The publishing industry is in a weird spot. On one hand, you see Stephen King testifying against the controversial merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, declaring that the looming deal would turn the publishing industry into an impenetrable monolith. On the other hand, TikTok’s community of book lovers — known as “BookTok” … Read more
This year is supposed to be a venture-capital wasteland, especially when compared to 2021’s cycle-topping excess. And yet. New data from PitchBook providing a first look at Q3 2022 venture capital aggregates in the United States make it a bit hard to square reality with the leading narrative. Data indicate that U.S. venture capital was … Read more
Pixel devices are adored for their punchy images and AI-powered photo features, and today, we get treated to a pair of new phones: The Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro. Both phones have a 50-megapixel main sensor and a 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor. The Pixel 7 Pro has an additional 48-megapixel telephoto lens. With these new … Read more