Tech

Marqeta has agreed to acquire two-year-old fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223 million in cash, marking the first acquisition in the publicly-traded company’s 13-year history. About one-third of the purchase price is payable over a two-year period subject to certain undisclosed conditions. And, if one undisclosed milestone in particular is met within the next

Founded by two insurance industry veterans, Eazy Digital wants to give small insurance companies in Southeast Asia the same advantage as their larger competitors. Its SaaS platform lets insurers digitize many parts of their operations, enabling them to scale up more efficiently. The Bangkok-based startup announced today it has raised $850,000 in an oversubscribed seed

Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, surprised the automotive world this week by announcing he would resign his position and hand the reins over to Koji Sato, who currently helms the company’s Lexus and Gazoo Racing divisions. But Toyoda isn’t going far. The 66-year-old isn’t retiring outright, but instead retiring to the boardroom, where he’ll take over

Seen through the lens of His Royal Highness, Prince Constantijn Haje Jan Kamps 2 days I find something very intriguing about members of a royal family working to further the startup scene for a particular country. In a magnificently frank conversation, I spoke with HRH Prince Constantijn, fourth in line to the throne of the

Kano, the venture-backed U.K. startup known for its build-your-own computer kits and software for teaching coding and associated STEM skills, has accused Warner Bros. of copying one of its products and infringing on its intellectual property (IP). The product in question is the Harry Potter: Magic Caster Wand that Warner Bros. announced back in October, and which

HBO announced today that the hit series “The Last of Us” is getting a second season, likely satisfying more than 22 million domestic viewers that watched the Season 1 premiere episode so far. On the night of the premiere, it was viewed by 4.7 million Americans. The announcement comes less than a week after “The

Startups selling dev tools over the last few years have seen the pendulum swing. On one hand, developers rarely need anyone’s permission to start using their tools, which resulted in teams within the same organization using wildly different tech stacks. On the other, a growing number of companies are attempting to limit this chaos at

Katherine Kostereva Contributor Katherine Kostereva is CEO and managing partner of Creatio, which provides a low-code platform for automating workfolws and CRM. More posts by this contributor 3 steps to ease the transition to a no-code company The age-old adage of “doing more with less” is particularly critical advice for both startups and enterprises right

The folks behind Nebia — the techy shower-head startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and a host of other big names — have sold to Mark Cuban’s Brondell, which makes bidets, air purifiers and the like. The Nebia name and water-saving nozzles will live on following the deal, co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon

As much as 40% of all food produced each year goes nowhere near a human mouth, resulting in economic, environmental, and social costs of an estimated $2.6 trillion. While there are a multitude of social, cultural, and even technological reasons for these staggering statistics, we’ve seen a slew of startups emerge with propositions on how

Apple’s latest silicon innovations shine in the Mac Mini. The tiny desktop computer is the latest Apple computer fitted with the M2 chipset. For $599, buyers can opt for the M2, or they spend $1,299 for the impressive M2 Pro, which features unique benefits. For the last several days, my M1 Mac Mini sat on

Disney Advertising held its annual Tech and Data Showcase today, revealing plans to roll out some of Hulu’s ad targeting capabilities to Disney+. When Disney+ launched its ad-supported tier last month, advertisers couldn’t target ads to specific audiences. By giving Disney+ advertisers access to Hulu’s ad-targeting tools, they can learn a user’s age, gender, and

Does the average person want to shop for apparel in virtual reality (VR)? Speaking for myself, it sounds rather cumbersome — having to plop on a headset to browse for, say, trousers as opposed to click through a few galleries. But not everyone agrees — particularly those who hope to build a business out of

Terra Drone said today it has raised $14 million in Series C funding from Wa’ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Aramco, marking the VC firm’s first investment in Asia.  The Japan-headquartered company, which builds drone software, hardware and uncrewed aircraft traffic management software, said the new capital brings its total raised to $97

Welcome back, climate tech readers! Like last week, we’ve got a full slate once more, from food waste to wastewater and more. Let’s dive in. Image Credits: Mill Industries After selling Nest to Google for $3.2 billion, Matt Rogers is no stranger to scaling fast. But unlike last time, Rogers isn’t interested in selling so

Veteran tech giant PayPal is facing an antitrust investigation in Germany — where the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has announced it’s looking into its rules on surcharges. The regulator is concerned that restrictions PayPal imposes on merchants could be harming competitors and inflating costs for consumers by restricting price competition. Clauses in PayPal’s terms the

Apple has resurrected the larger HomePod with a second-generation version that includes better sound, as well as better intelligence and computing smarts. The new HomePod retails for $299 and preorders kick off today, with in-store availability and shipping beginning in the U.S. and other select markets on Friday, February 3. Apple’s new HomePod includes two

Netflix reported its Q4 2022 financial results yesterday, topping 230 million global subscribers, up from 223.09 million, thanks to the addition of 7.7 million subs. During the earnings call, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the company is “keeping an eye” on a free ad-supported TV (FAST) option, a move that many media companies are considering

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week.

Howdy, folks! Happy Friday. While our fearless Week in Review leader Greg enjoys parental leave, I’m filling in, curating the latest on the tech news front. It was a roller coaster of a week once again as economic headwinds took a brutal, demoralizing toll, and as chaos reigned at Elon Musk’s Twitter. Somewhere in the

In an industry obsessed with making everything huge (at least here in the U.S.), you may not’ve expected GM to show interest in an electric baby pickup, but here we are. GM is considering a pickup design that’s “smaller than the Ford Maverick and the Hyundai Santa Cruz,” with a “low roofline” and a 4

European startups have always suffered from the perennial startup problem: how to exit? However, in Europe the problem has always been particularly acute. How many large European industrial or corporate giants acquire or acqu-hire? Not that many, and not nearly enough. It’s part of the reason so many European startups end up heading to the

Ditching HomePod was a strange choice. At the time, Apple told us, “HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini.” While the smart home hasn’t panned out precisely the

Entertainment company Fandom has laid off an unspecified number of employees across multiple properties including Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic. These properties are mainly focused on publishing content around gaming and TV shows. According to a report by Variety, the company employs around 500 people, and the layoffs have affected roughly 10% of its staff

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Thursday! This week has just flown by, and we’re still reeling from the excitement that a company is leaning into compliments. Compliments? In this day and age? Is there actually hope for

Successful startup founders do not spring fully formed from the head of whatever god or goddess keeps tabs on entrepreneurs. It takes time to educate yourself, learn essential skills and acquire a smart, connected network. Here’s the great news — TechCrunch Early Stage, taking place April 20 in Boston, Massachusetts, is designed to help both

PureTerra, a venture firm that aims to fund “disruptive water technologies,” is pumping millions into Membrion so the Seattle startup can mass-produce its wastewater treatment tech. Membrion claims its ceramic membranes can filter out problematic heavy metals (not the genre, but toxic stuff like lead, arsenic and lithium) for around a twelfth of the cost of

Meet Kate, a French company that wants to create a tiny car that you can use for your daily commute and various errands. In addition to CEO Matthias Goldenberg and CTO Pierre Escrieut, Kate is also co-founded by Thibaud Elzière, the serial entrepreneur behind Hexa, the startup studio formerly known as eFounders. While Kate is

Back in 2017, Wyze made a name for itself with the launch of its original $20 security camera. Over the years, it released its fair share of iterations of the Wyze Cam, with version 3 launching in 2020. Today, it’s launching both a new iteration of the original Wyze Cam, dubbed the Wyze Cam OG,

The Indian government has proposed making the Press Bureau of India and its other agencies the arbiter of truth on what information is misleading for social media firms and other internet companies as they oversee their users’ data in the South Asian market. The proposal by the Ministry of Electronics and IT came as part