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: How … Read more
Waymo said it plans to launch a robotaxi service in Los Angeles, another sign that the Alphabet subsidiary is accelerating its commercial ramp up. Waymo has had a presence in Los Angeles since 2019, periodically coming in to map neighborhoods, including downtown, Miracle Mile, Koreatown, Santa Monica, Westwood and West Hollywood. The announcement Wednesday has … Read more
BMW plans to invest $1.7 billion to build at least six EV models in the U.S. by the end of the decade. The investment announced Wednesday includes $1 billion toward BMW’s factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina and $700 million to fund a new battery cell plant nearby. The factory, which builds BMW’s portfolio of X … Read more
Following the launch of Apple’s iOS 16 update, Google’s YouTube Music becomes the latest to introduce an iOS 16 Lock Screen widget. “Recently Played” can be added to a user’s lock screen to quickly access recently played songs, albums, playlists and videos. There is a 2×1 widget that features the name of the song, album, … Read more
Day one of TechCrunch Disrupt is in the rearview mirror, and what a great day it was! We hope you’re well rested and well fed, because day two — October 19 — comes fully loaded with action, connection and opportunity. Latecomers still welcome: Buy a pass right here. All righty, let’s take a quick look … Read more
Last May, the Nigerian presidency launched the Nigeria Startup Bill in collaboration with a group of Nigerian tech leaders and several government bodies to govern how startups and regulatory bodies operate and collaborate in the multi-billion-dollar tech ecosystem. Today, that bill has been signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari. This news was made known … Read more
Battery technology has made significant strides in recent years, but there’s one place they haven’t changed much — they’re still as stiff as a board. The era of inflexible portable power may be coming to an end, though, if Anthro Energy can bring its bendy batteries to market. It’s getting some help with that courtesy … Read more
Uber has officially launched its advertising division and unveiled its in-app ad experience, Journey Ads, in an attempt to drive more revenue. The company said Wednesday it will sell ad space inside its ride-hailing and Uber Eats apps, as well as in-vehicle digital ads, sponsored mails and storefront ads. Uber has historically tried to add … Read more
As consumers turn to content creators to influence their online shopping habits, Klarna, the buy now, pay later platform, today launched a new Klarna Creator app for retailers and influencers to collaborate on brand campaigns and to track earnings, performance and sales. Klarna’s creator platform allows over 50,000 vetted creators to have access to leading … 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. And for the first time in the history of the show, the TechCrunch pod that opened up Disrupt on the big stage. Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann got to be together to record … Read more
Amazon launched an insurance comparison site today in the UK to sell home insurance. The ecommerce giant has partnered with three launch providers — Ageas UK, Co-op, and LV + General Insurance — with more coming next year. The company said the store will be available to select customers starting today on the web and … Read more
Mullen Automotive said Wednesday it has acquired Electric Last Mile Solutions, paving the way for the California-based startup to manufacture its first electric vehicle. The $240 million cash purchase allows Mullen the capability to build up to 50,000 EVs annually, accelerating the launch of the Mullen FIVE and Bollinger B1 and B2 retail vehicles. The … Read more
Cross-border payments startup Thunes is partnering with Visa, in a move that will add more than 1.5 billion new endpoints to Visa Direct’s digital payments network. This enables many more consumers and small businesses to send funds to markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where digital wallets are often the default payment method. Based … Read more
Every year at Adobe Max, Adobe shows off what it calls “Sneaks,” R&D projects that might — or might not — find their way into commercial products someday. This year is no exception, and lucky for us, we were given a preview ahead of the conference proper. Project Clever Composites (as Adobe’s calling it) leverages … Read more
Andy Stinnes Contributor Share on Twitter Andy Stinnes, general partner at Cloud Apps Capital Partners, leads early-stage investments in cloud businesses and serves as active board member and adviser for portfolio companies. More posts by this contributor Raising the right amount of capital after a correction 3 factors to consider when building an early-stage cloud … Read more
Deliveroo has confirmed it’s exiting the Netherlands following an announcement this summer that it was consulting on pulling out of the market. In a statement today, the on-demand delivery app said its consultation had concluded that achieving and sustaining a top-tier market position in the market would require “a disproportionate level of investment with highly … Read more
Nourish Ingredients, a food tech company that creates animal-free fats using synthetic biology, secured $28.6 million in Series A funding, led by Horizons Ventures and supported by Main Sequence Ventures and Hostplus. We previously profiled the Australian company in 2021 when it raised $11 million. It is one of the few companies in the food … Read more
Millions of small and medium businesses still operate inefficiently due to dependency on manual processes, which limits their capacity to grow and scale; this is despite contributing to about 48% of Nigeria’s GDP in the last five years, But the tide is turning. Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen a wave of upstarts … Read more
Pinterest’s TikTok competitor is gaining new music. The company announced today its video-focused “Idea Pins” feature will now include the ability to add popular tracks from top artists, thanks to new licensing deals with Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Merlin and BMG. This will expand upon the music already provided through Pinterest’s royalty-free music … Read more
Last year, MaxAB, the food and grocery B2B e-commerce and distribution platform serving a network of traditional retailers across Egypt and Morocco, raised its $55 million Series A in two tranches; the latter accompanied its acquisition of the Morocco-based and YC-backed WaysToCap. The moves signaled MaxAB’s ambition to dominate Egypt’s and North Africa’s B2B retail … Read more
Munich-based software and services vacation rental startup, Holidu, has topped up its coffers with an oversubscribed €104 million (~$102M) Series E funding round of equity and debt, led by existing investor 83North, after seeing its year-over-year revenue grew 100% in 2021. The round saw a mix of other existing and new investors chipping in, including … Read more
The kingdom of Eswatini is considering the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), joining the growing list of African countries exploring the viability of an e-currency. The Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE) said it has appointed German technology group Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) to research and explore the possibilities of a digital Lilangeni (the country’s … Read more
In 2018, Neil D’Souza, a software engineer by trade and previously the VP of product development at Thinkstep, came to the realization that his ten-plus-year effort to solve enterprise product challenges in the areas of sustainability, compliance and risk were having little impact. The way he saw it, they took too long, which minimized their … Read more
After ignoring the app experience on Android tablets for years, Google appears increasingly focused on turning things around. Earlier this year, the search giant introduced Android 12L, which brought an improved interface and multitasking experience to tablets and foldable. At the developer conference Google IO in May, it promised to finetune over 20 of its … Read more
Nexta, an Egyptian startup that plans to launch its banking app in the coming months, has secured a $5 million investment from eFinance Group, a state-owned provider of digital payments solutions. This news follows the $2 million pre-seed round Nexta announced this March, which Egyptian early-stage VC Disruptech led. Last year, Nexta obtained a provisional … Read more
Whon Namkoong, the co-chief executive of Kakao, has resigned after a fire incident at an SK C&C data center in the south of Seoul caused a mass outage over the weekend and disrupted Kakao’s several services, including messenger, ride-hailing, payment, banking and gaming. Namkoong, who joined Kakao in 2015, was elevated to the co-CEO role … Read more
At TechCrunch Disrupt today, Activision Blizzard General Manager Johanna Faries elaborated on the company’s plans to clean up some of the worst behavior in the franchise’s community, even as new lawsuits and allegations about its own culture continue to emerge. Last month, Activision Blizzard released a formal code of conduct for the Call of Duty … 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. The newsletter is a little later than usual today and for the next three days. Don’t worry, it’s for fun reasons: We want to be the first to tell you about the … Read more
Chief co-founders Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan started the company because they had experienced first-hand being women executives without a ton of support. They created a community of female leaders that is now 20,000 strong, with 60,000 sitting on waitlists, but just don’t call these women ‘girl bosses.’ The two women appeared at TechCrunch Disrupt … Read more
As if it weren’t enough to have AI tanning humanity’s hide (figuratively for now) at every board game in existence, Google AI has got one working to destroy us all at ping pong as well. For now they emphasize it’s “cooperative” but at the rate these things improve, it will be taking on pros in … Read more