Tech

Budget-minded entrepreneurs and early-stage startup founders take heed — this is no time to procrastinate. We have only 7 days left of early-bird pricing to TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 in Boston on April 20. Don’t wait…the early bird gets the…SAVINGS: Buy a $249 founder pass and save $200 before prices increase on April 1 —

A brown macroalgae native to the Atlantic’s Sargasso Sea is increasingly a menace to coastal ecosystems and communities across the Gulf of Mexico, ever since mats of the normally beneficial seaweed (known as sargassum) exploded in numbers in 2011. This is the backdrop for Carbonwave, which recently raised $5 million to put the hulking algae

Some say the European tech startup ecosystem lacks investors who have been “operators,” as in former entrepreneurs. And indeed, that has been the case for many years. However, it’s good to see that this has been changing, even if the pace has been slow. One of the newest VC funds to wear it’s “former operators”

The European Commission has laid out another piece of its Circular Economy Action Plan today — adopting a proposal to set common EU rules which are intended to make it easier for consumers to get faulty products repaired. The “right to repair” measures are aimed at reducing e-waste by preventing repairable products from being prematurely

As competition among smart TV makers heats up, Amazon today is introducing an expanded Fire TV lineup which now includes more sizes for its top-of-the-line Omni QLED series as well as a new, lower-cost Fire TV 2-Series that will start at $199.99. The company is also bringing its TVs to new markets globally, updating some

Over his two decades of experience in the tech industry, CodiumAI co-founder and CEO Itmar Friedman has personally experienced the pain of building test suites to check his code logic. He found that while there are tools to check for code security and performance, there has been a dearth of code logic checkers. He launched

Kakao Mobility, the ride-hailing subsidiary of South Korean messaging and internet giant Kakao, has made its first acquisition as it looks to raise its international profile. It has acquired Splyt, a startup out of London that works with apps in areas like travel, ride-hailing and finance to help them build out “super app” strategies by

Swedish company Candela will launch its 30-passenger commercial hydrofoil shuttle, the P-12, this summer — the vessel it believes will change the course of motorized water transport. Following on from its C-7 and C-8 leisure cruisers, Candela has already been making waves with its drive to transition to fossil-free waterways. “We are now heavy into

With turbulent economies, companies are looking for more revenue streams to survive, and one obvious way to increase revenues is to streamline costs. Given companies can often use both manual processing and sometimes even more than one external tool to manage B2B payments, this is an obvious area in which to improve efficiency. A good

For many people around the world, braille is their primary language for reading books and articles, and digital braille readers are an important part of that. The newest and fanciest yet is the Monarch, a multipurpose device that uses the startup Dot’s tactile display technology. The Monarch is a collaboration between HumanWare and the American

“Nobody does creature work the way Wētā does,” Craig Mazin, co-creator of HBO’s “The Last of Us,” said in the official podcast for the video game adaptation series. If you’d had a chance to watch the bloater scene from episode five, then you most likely agree with him. It makes sense that HBO approached Wētā

Before it crashed, Silicon Valley Bank was known to many startups and venture firms as the place to park their money or take out a capital line. But for emerging managers, it was a lot more than just a financial institution. Multiple emerging managers told TechCrunch+ that SVB was instrumental in helping them build their

Welcome to Week in Review, folks, TechCrunch’s regular recap of the week in tech. GPT-4, OpenAI’s text- and image-understanding AI, might’ve dominated the headlines over the past few days. But fresh drama around Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse emerged as well. We cover all that and more in this edition, so grab a coffee and settle

Green Li-ion says its battery recycling machines are the “size of a small house,” so it’s no wonder the Singapore-based startup needed to top up on funds. It’d only raised about $15 million ahead of its latest cash infusion. This week, Green Li-ion announced a $20.5 million “pre-Series B” round led by climate-tech investor TRIREC.

The U.K. has become the latest jurisdiction to ban social video app TikTok from government devices, confirming reports that surfaced earlier this week. The ban follows a security review ordered by U.K. ministers looking to establish whether government data could be compromised from social networks installed on work devices. Indeed, the review did include other

Update: Google tells TechCrunch that it remains committed to augmented reality, stating, “For years, we’ve been building AR into many Google products and we’ll continue to look at ways to bring new, innovative AR experiences across our product portfolio.” I know at least one TC staffer who is gutted by the inevitable second death of

MindGeek — owner of several adult entertainment sites, including Pornhub, Brazzers and Redtube — was acquired by a Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP). ECP, which was formed last year, did not disclose the terms of the deal. “In MindGeek, we have identified a dynamic tech brand that is built upon a foundation

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. Happy Thursday, Crunchers! An agreement among a group of the nation’s largest banks to deposit some $30 billion with First Republic Bank could save its bacon, Christine reports, and over on TC+,

Sidechat, the anonymous posting platform that began blowing up last year on college campuses, appears to have acquired a rival anonymous social platform, Yik Yak. While you may recall Yik Yak’s troubles from earlier years, where bullying and harassment ultimately led to an ignominious exit in the form of an acquihire by Square, the gossip

Tesla is opening up Powerwall home battery sales, nearly two years after limiting them because its supply was “too low.” Tesla announced its backup battery tech long ago, in 2015, explicitly intending for the product to work in tandem with solar panels. Yet up until 2021, the automaker also allowed folks to buy the big

Medwing, a European startup building a recruitment marketplace for healthcare workers, has raised €44 million ($47 million) in a Series C round of funding. Founded out of Berlin in 2017, Medwing targets the healthcare industry in Germany and the U.K. with a platform designed to match hospitals and clinics with nurses and elderly caregivers, though

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Apple is building a mixed reality headset that’s set to ship this year. The company’s MR (AR+VR) hardware ranks among its longest-lasting rumor cycles. Some (Apple Watch) have borne fruit. Others (that pesky Apple TV set) not so much. The category doesn’t feel like a foregone conclusion

YouTube TV is today announcing a new feature that may help the live TV service attract more subscribers — and particularly those who like to watch live sports. The company says it’s launching early access to “multiview,” an option that allows viewers to watch up to four different preselected streams at the same time. Initially,

Ross Haleliuk Contributor More posts by this contributor 4 ways cybersecurity startups can boost adoption and shorten time to value To bring PLG to cybersecurity, let’s change our hiring habits Trust is fundamentally about a sense of safety, familiarity and assurance that “everything will be fine.” Faith is built as we address our doubts and

The Indonesian used car market is on a course for growth fueled by a number of trends: the increasing digitization in used car sales; a larger variety of finance options; and the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed the idea of private car ownership.  Broom, an Indonesia-based auto-financing startup that wants to help used car dealers work more

Like all of its peers in the tech industry, Microsoft has a carbon pollution problem. The software giant’s emissions are on the rise, in spite of a pledge from the company to be carbon negative by 2030. This ticking clock explains Microsoft’s latest deal to address its environmental toll: It’s turning to Running Tide to

As of late Thursday night and Friday morning, the fallout from the shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank in the US had reached the shores of the UK and Europe. Yesterday afternoon, the Bank of England sought a court order to place Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited — the UK arm of the US institution —

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple could be working on a new HomePod device that would feature a built-in display for 2024. The rumor seems to be based on third-party supply chain companies, such as Tianma, a Chinese display manufacturer. This new product in the HomePod lineup would look completely different from existing HomePods as

The fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is impacting a range of startups and larger firms including, as we know now from SEC filings, publicly traded companies like Roku, Roblox, Quotient, and others. Roku said in a filing that it had around $487 million held at SVB, representing around 26% of its cash

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. Writer’s note: We’re breaking from our usual formatting this week because there was a once-in-a-generation collapse of one of the biggest banks in the country.