Tech

Sam Chaudhary takes his time. The founder of ClassDojo, an edtech consumer app that focuses on student classrooms, spent eight years building the company before introducing a formal revenue model. All while raising over tens of millions in venture capital from elite Silicon Valley investors and eyeing a big mission: become the brand families can

A slew of new funds indicate potential for dedicated pools for climate startups Annie Njanja 7 hours Venture capital activity around climate tech has been heating up in Africa despite the global VC funding cooldown. The continent’s climate tech startups secured over $860 million in equity funding, largely driven by clean energy technologies, representing 3.5x

A shiny new data transfers deal between the European Union and the United States aimed at fixing costly legal uncertainty over exports of personal data isn’t in place yet but the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee is predicting the incoming EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF) won’t survive a legal challenge — just as its two

India’s smartphone exports have more than doubled, reaching over $11 billion in the fiscal year that ended in March, according to trade data examined by the industry body India Cellular and Electronics Association and government officials, underscoring the South Asian market’s growing ambition to become a global hardware manufacturing hub. Smartphone exports of $11.2 billion

Spotify is closing down Heardle, the Wordle-inspired music guessing game it acquired last July for an undisclosed sum. Similar to Wordle, Heardle offers players six tries to guess a popular song — but instead of typing in different letters to form words, players listen to a song’s intro to guess the artist and title. At

European accelerators are going through an interesting time right now. For instance, TechStars Stockholm was all set to launch and then abruptly shut down. And I think it’s now commonly accepted that most accelerators outside of YCombinator can too be often ‘less than adequate’, to put it diplomatically. Perhaps an exception to this oft-repeated phrase,

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! If you’ve been to Disrupt before, you’ll remember we had a stage or two or three. This year, we’re going all out, with a bunch of tracks to tickle

Nonprofit Arts Help is launching a $6 million fund to build the world’s first digital climate library to provide public access to the archives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC, which was formed in 1992, has more than 1.7 million paper documents related to the treaty, many of which

As Gen Z turns into their early-to-mid 20s, a new generation of business owners is coming online. Many of these new entrepreneurs do the vast majority of work on their phones. This is especially true in emerging markets like Latin America, where SMEs comprise 99.5% of firms in the region. In Mexico, for instance, 97.4%

Nearly two decades after Apple entered India, the iPhone-maker is ready to open its first set of retail stores in the South Asian market. Apple will open Apple BKC, its Mumbai store, on April 18, and its Delhi outlet Apple Saket on April 20, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Apple has long explored

Marvel Studios released a teaser trailer today for “The Marvels,” featuring three badass female superheroes—Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel and Captain Rambeau. The movie is set to hit theaters on November 10 and sees Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Teyonah Parris reprise their roles. “The Marvels” is the third movie of the MCU’s Phase Five and

About 10% of startups will fail in their first year. Between years two through five, approximately 70% of companies will go under. But those figures don’t matter when you’re pitching: Investors expect to see a business plan that describes how you plan to reach profitability within 3-5 years. “While it may feel unfamiliar, as a

French startup Graneet is building an all-in-one software-as-a-service product focused on small construction companies. And it has grown quite a lot since I first covered the company as the company has tripled its revenue over the past six months. That’s why the startup raised a €8 million Series A round ($8.7 million at today’s exchange

A new state bill might move the needle for V2G charging Haje Jan Kamps 12 hours If you have solar panels on your roof, it makes sense to add batteries, too, so you have some degree of self-sufficiency should you lose power. In fact, it might be a good idea to have such a storage

When The Exchange wrote about Sweden’s startup scene at the end of last month, we said we’d revisit the Nordics this week. Well, a promise is a promise. But after spending hours watching YC’s Winter 2023 Demo Day pitches this week, we also couldn’t help but try to connect the dots: Are Scandinavian startups making

Apple is gearing up to open its first retail store in India to the public later this month, roughly two decades after the company began selling products and services in the South Asian nation that has grown to become the second largest internet market. The iPhone-maker on Wednesday shared the barricade of its first retail

At the Star Wars Celebration in London, Lucasfilm announced that Star Wars spinoff “The Acolyte” will premiere on Disney Plus in 2024. The series is set at the end of the High Republic era before the events of the main Star Wars films. Amandla Stenberg and Lee Jung-jae will be staring in the leading roles.

It’s that time of the week, folks: Week in Review (WiR) time. If you’re new to WiR, it’s the newsletter where TechCrunch recaps the week in tech that was. We get it — you’re a busy person. We all are. So what better way to catch up on what’s happened than in a summarized, bullet-point

Welcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. I spent quite a bit of time lately looking at the latest in insurtech. What’s great about zooming in on a sector is that

Cows are a significant source of methane emissions, primarily due to their unique digestive system. Milk and beef cows are ruminants, which means they have a specialized stomach chamber (called the rumen), which houses billions of microbes that facilitate the breakdown of fibrous plant material. The process is called “enteric fermentation,” and as these microbes

In the Netherlands, central heating boilers will be banned by 2026 and its government has incentivized the installation of heat pumps. Meanwhile, the U.K. government estimates that heating buildings accounts for 25% of the U.K.’s greenhouse gas emissions. It passed the Energy Security Bill, and is aiming to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by

Apple has devised a pocket-sized companion that (hypothetically) does it all: music, videos AND books, sans the nagging smartphone or clumsy smartwatch. Cupertino, you’re so close. In a patent application published recently by the U.S. Patent Office, Apple sketched out such a device, a headphone-case-meets-pocket-computer with a touchscreen display and the prerequisite guts for flicking

Roku has announced that the ad-supported Disney+ tier, Disney+ Basic, is now available to its users. When the ad-supported plan launched four months, many users were surprised to find that it wasn’t accessible on Roku. At the time, Disney told TechCrunch that was still in talks with Roku about reaching an agreement that suits both

As generative AI proliferates, it’s beginning to reach the ads we hear on podcasts and the radio. Startup Adthos this week launched a platform that uses AI to generate scripts for audio ads — and even add voiceovers, sound effects and music. Customers can optionally go in and edit the ads using a browser-based, multi-track

Lux Capital, known for investing in life science and frontier tech startups, is back in the market to fundraise for its latest vehicle — but this time without a dedicated late-stage entity. The firm is targeting over $1 billion for Lux Ventures VIII, according to meeting materials from the New Mexico State Investment Council (NM

The materials developer formerly known as ELeather has a new name and $18 million in fresh growth funding from some of the world’s fanciest brands. Now going by Generation Phoenix, the upcycler says its new investors include Coach parent Tapestry, Jaguar Land Rover and Dr. Martens, plus lead investor Material Impact and prior investor Hermès.

In an early FAFO test for Elon Musk, Germany could be set to fine Twitter for repeatedly failing to comply with a social media hate speech takedowns law, aka the NetzDG, which requires swift removal of illegal content like hate speech. The Federal Justice Office (BfJ) announced the move in a press release today —

TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 will have a whole new look this fall with one aim in mind: bring together investors, founders and technologists who have specific industry interests — all under one roof at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Disrupt has always been big. But this year we’re folding TC Sessions, the standalone industry events

U.S.-based savings and investing startup Acorns has acquired London-based GoHenry, a startup focused on providing money management and financial education services to 6-18 year-olds in an all-equity deal, the two companies announced today. The combined valuation of the company, as well as further financial terms, were not disclosed. When Acorns last raised funding, $300 million