Sono Motors, the company building an electric vehicle that’s partially powered by the sun, debuted its flagship Sion in New York City this week as part of a multi-city tour throughout the U.S. The company aims to launch the $25,000 five-seater hatchback in Europe first — production is expected to start in the second half … Read more
Christian Owens Contributor Share on Twitter Christian Owens is CEO and co-founder of Paddle, a payments infrastructure provider for SaaS businesses. Scaling a SaaS company is tougher today than in the past few years. Whatever stage your company is at, a near 70% drop in the value of public SaaS stocks, increasingly limited access to … Read more
The 3D printing world can print in concrete, plastic, metal and pretty much everything else that starts off gooey and turns solid after a while. That includes a bunch of different types of foods, as Sugar Lab demonstrates. The company was originally acquired by 3D Systems in 2013, but co-founders Kyle von Hasseln and Meagan … Read more
Twitter is developing a feature that has the potential to curb harassment and bullying on the social network. App engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered that the company is developing a way for users to control who can mention them on Twitter. According to a screenshot posted by Wong, the new controls would give users the … Read more
TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 kicks off in just four days, startup fans. We can’t wait to greet you. Here’s a handy how-to guide for everything you can expect at TechCrunch Disrupt presented by AT&T on October 18-20 in San Francisco at Moscone West (Oct. 21 online). All times listed here are Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). p.s. … Read more
Meta’s Connect conference held earlier this week had announcements ranging from the new $1,500 Quest Pro headset to the company’s partnership with Microsoft to bring productivity tools to VR. However, probably one of the most discussed updates was that Meta is finally bringing legs to its virtual avatars. Until now, Horizon Worlds users — which … Read more
Although real estate is the world’s biggest asset class, it is largely inaccessible to non-institutional investors. The large sums of capital often required for an individual to purchase property combined with the industry’s reliance on manual, antiquated processes pose substantial barriers to entry for individual investors looking to gain exposure to real estate. These challenges … Read more
Uganda’s controversial Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill 2022, which rights groups say will likely be used to silence dissenting voices online, has come into force after the country’s president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni signed it into law yesterday. The country’s legislators had passed amendments to the 2011 Computer Misuse Act early September limiting writing or sharing of … 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. Before we get into this week’s show notes, some programming items: First up, use code “EQUITY” for a special listener discount for Disrupt tickets. We’re mere days away, and you should come hang out … Read more
Ori Mor Contributor Share on Twitter Ori Mor is chief business officer and co-founder of Wi-Charge. Creating a disruptive hardware components startup can be quite exciting. Few things can compare to the joy of physically interacting with your creation as you design and build it from scratch. But hardware startups are challenging. Think of it … Read more
Armed with $6.3 million in new pre-seed capital, Synonym Biotechnologies has begun the development phase for its first productized bio-manufacturing facilities for non-pharmaceutical applications. Edward Shenderovich and Joshua Lachter started the company in January 2022 to develop, finance and build commercial-scale bio-manufacturing facilities to provide synthetic biology producers of all size with flexible production capacity … Read more
Over the years, Google has made it harder to separate ads from organic search results at a glance. In its current iteration, when users perform a search, the only distinction between the two is “Ad” written in bold — and it’s easy to miss. The search giant is making a small change to that today … Read more
Instagram, facing scrutiny from safety advocates, started testing a program in the U.S. earlier this year to verify users’ age claiming to be 18 or older. It uses techniques including authentication via running video selfies through an artificial intelligence system. The Meta-owned service is now ready to roll out this program to two key overseas … Read more
Even the largest landfills in Indonesia are at (or nearing) capacity, and the government has set an ambitious target of 30% waste reduction by 2025. Waste4Change is one of the companies that wants to help by increasing rates of recycling and enabling better waste management. The startup, which currently manages more than 8,000 tons of … Read more
There are big, overarching top-down trends, and there are little-bitty baby trends that have a way of growing into bigger ones. A big trend right now, for example, centers on certain firms that passed out enormous checks to startup founders in recent years and drove valuations sky high in the process. It turns out this … Read more
Framework is at the vanguard of a growing movement to make electronics more repair-friendly. Some have done so by choice and others have been…nudged in that direction by looming right to repair legislation across the globe. Framework, like Fairphone, is making that a core principle of its technology, without sacrificing the final project (check Devin’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. We just keep getting more excited about Disrupt, but it turns out there’s other stuff going on in the world. A lot of other stuff, in fact; it’s one of those days … Read more
Meta submitted a request to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint about its acquisition of Within. The Los Angeles virtual reality firm makes Supernatural, a rhythm game-turned-workout app that, in our humble opinion, is a legitimately excellent use of VR. It makes sense why Meta wants to absorb the company, but the FTC has raised … Read more
Being in the business of convincing people that they deserve a vacation is hard. Being in the business of convincing people that they can co-own a vacation house and enjoy it at the same time can be deceptively harder. Getaway – different from another venture-backed Getaway, which sells escapes to tiny cabins in the middle … Read more
Venture debt was never meant to be used to bail a company out of financial trouble. And yet, when venture capitalists started to pull back from equity investing earlier this year because frothy market conditions made them realize that valuations were too high, it became a topic of discussion again. Across the industry, from founders … Read more
For over a year, Activision Blizzard employees have protested against the company’s poor handling of ongoing sexual harassment allegations. Now, an anonymous Jane Doe has filed yet another lawsuit against the gaming giant for sexual harassment, gender discrimination and sexual battery, among other complaints. “For years, Activision Blizzard’s open ‘frat boy’ environment fostered rampant sexism, … Read more
As third-quarter venture capital data rolls in, the TechCrunch crew is busy parsing the numbers. We’ve looked at fintech results, we’ve touched on the crypto market, and we have a climate startup venture analysis coming this weekend. We’ve also looked at the U.S. venture market and its global analog. The main gist is that while VC … Read more
Hey, party people! As if you won’t find plenty to keep you occupied at TechCrunch Disrupt — which kicks off in less than a week on October 18–20 — take a look at this list of receptions and happenings that complement and coincide with your Disrupt experience. Note that while some events are open to … Read more
Volkswagen is accelerating the pace to automate its electric vehicles for Chinese customers. CARIAD, a wholly-owned automotive software company of the German auto behemoth, intends to set up a joint venture with Horizon Robotics, one of China’s most serious auto chip developers, the company said on Thursday. The German automaker plans to deploy around €2.4 … Read more
I don’t love devoting the first several paragraphs of this newsletter to Amazon every week, but no one is making waves — both good and bad — in the robotics space quite like the little mom-and-pop bookseller from Seattle, Washington. This is one of the bad weeks. It’s a story about what happens when your … Read more
Motional, the Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture that aims to commercialize autonomous driving technology, announced last week its partnership with Uber to bring robotaxi services to North American cities over the next 10 years. The Uber deal comes off the back of similar partnerships with Via and Lyft to launch robotaxi services in Las Vegas. Sensing a … Read more
Sony and Honda have officially launched their joint mobility venture that aims to start delivering premium electric vehicles with automated driving capabilities in the United States in the spring of 2026, followed by Japan in the second half of 2026. The joint venture from hardware, software and entertainment conglomerate Sony and automaker Honda to produce … Read more
I don’t typically critique decks for fundraises we didn’t cover on TechCrunch, but for Supliful, I had to make an exception because it’s a company that solves a spectacularly interesting problem. Consumer packaged goods companies can churn out products all day long, but marketing is an expensive challenge. Creators produce content all day long but … Read more
The moment has finally come. Today, Netflix hosted a press call to reveal a preview of its new ad-supported tier, “Basic with Ads,” which will launch on November 3 in nine countries, including the U.S., and cost $6.99 per month, $13 less than Netflix’s Premium plan. This aligns with reports that the new plan would … Read more
Ongoing volatility in the crypto markets is leading to mismatched conversations between venture capitalists and founders — and entrepreneurs aren’t often finding themselves on the winning side. While some crypto-native and general funds are actively deploying capital into the digital asset world, others are taking a slower approach. Over the summer, some market participants anticipated … Read more