Tech

After sparking California’s second-largest wildfire ever, and dozens more in recent years, it’s no secret that Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) — one of the nation’s largest utilities — is interested in alternatives to aboveground transmission lines. One option touted by PG&E  is to bury thousands of miles of power lines in “high fire-threat areas.”

Startups are raising less, and less often, right now, and some portfolios are buckling under the weight of write-downs from lower valuations and startups closing for business. But the venture industry continues to swim, and a number of firms are setting up to invest more, even as we swing through the downcycle. In the latest

This morning, OnePlus made a pair of big announcements: the OnePlus 11 smartphone and the Buds Pro 2. All in all, a good morning for the Oppo-owned phone maker after months of teasing the products. But as the company is looking to reassert itself under new ownership and is deep in the throes of a

For another year in a row, TikTok has found itself as the social app kids and teens are spending the most time using throughout the day, even outpacing YouTube. According to an ongoing annual review of kids’ and teens’ app usage and behavior globally, the younger demographic — minors ranging in ages from 4 through

SoftBank Group’s investment vehicles posted a loss of nearly $6 billion in the quarter that ended in December as the Japanese tech investor continues to bleed through the market downturn and significantly pares back new backings. This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which SoftBank Group has lost money, prompting many to challenge the fundamental

TL;DR: Weave sustainability into the product design as early as you can Haje Jan Kamps 1 day Nobody starts a hardware company with the express goal of destroying as much of the planet as they possibly can. Walking around the startup hall at CES, however, I noticed that — with a few notable exceptions —

The U.K. government is seemingly backtracking on plans that would have allowed text and data mining “for any purpose,” plans designed to position the U.K. as a “global AI superpower.” The news emerges following months of blowback from creative industries concerned about what impact the rules might have on protected works. Background Text and data

Nature is healing, the tech show is returning to in-person events. I’m not sure I’m entirely over CES less than a month after returning from Vegas, but we’re already in full planning mode for TechCrunch’s return to Barcelona. We’ll be sending an extremely scaled-down team to this year’s event, but while we’re in Catalonia, we’d

Happy weekend, folks, and welcome back to the TechCrunch Week in Review. Henry here, standing in for a vacationing Kyle Wiggers, who is standing in for a parental-leaving Greg Kumparak. Listen, we’ve got a deep bench, and both blokes will be back very soon. Until then, check out just a few of the top stories

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. Toward the end of 2022, a number of entrepreneurs, some citing Elon Musk, told me that they’re bringing back an in-person work culture in the

Toward the end of 2022, a number of entrepreneurs — some citing Elon Musk — told me they planned to bring back in-person work culture in the following year to help promote productivity and, in some cases, loyalty. One founder even told me over drinks that they weren’t worried about losing talent — claiming that

Rebellyous, a startup that’s striving to build “a better chicken,” has raised at least $20 million in fresh funding, TechCrunch has learned. Based in Seattle, the venture-backed company calls its production tech the “most advanced plant-based meat manufacturing system on the planet.” Rebellyous aims to raise as much as $30.7 million in total, according to

Europe has moved a step closer to having dedicated rules on online political ad targeting and transparency after the European Parliament fixed its negotiating position — paving the way for talks to start between MEPs and member states to agree to a final compromise text that can be passed into pan-EU law. MEPs said they

Maybe nothing ever truly dies in Apple land. The Mac Pro went on an indefinite hiatus as the hardware design team regrouped and reengineered. MagSafe appeared to be gone forever, only to be reborn in altered form on MacBooks of recent vintage. Various models and sizes across different lines have been phased out, only to

“If you could open this article sort of Rolling Stone-style…” Brennan Lee Mulligan suggests, then without changing his tone, pitches his lede: “In a Corvette, racing down the 5, [podcast producer] Taylor Moore swerves, then bites right into a massive wheel of Brie cheese…” It’s what you’d expect from Mulligan, who got his start as

French startup Seyna is slowly building an all-in-one platform for insurance brokers so that they can create, sell and manage insurance products from scratch. And the company is launching a new product called Seyna Claims. As the name suggests, Seyna Claims empowers insurance brokers so that they can handle claims themselves. Seyna is an insurtech

Disclo CEO and co-founder Hannah Olson was diagnosed with Lyme disease when she was in college. At the time, she didn’t really see herself as someone with a disability, even though it meant spending hours each day hooked up to an IV. When she entered the workforce, she soon was confronted with the difficulties of

Countries worldwide have pledged to reduce their energy usage and reach net-zero energy targets by 2050. To get there, they will need to find clever ways to decarbonize especially dirty businesses, including the buildings sector. The push to clean up the built environment has spawned a lot of policy, as well as overlapping acronyms, including

Two quantum-adjacent technologies — quantum sensing (QS) and quantum communication (Qcomm) — are as important as quantum computing hardware itself since they help make quantum computers function more accurately.  A Sydney-based startup called Q-CTRL has built quantum-sensing software that helps reduce errors on quantum computers. Today, the company announced that it has raised another $27.4

Movano Health turned heads at CES with an ouroboros-esque smart ring designed for women. In the crowded field of fitness wearables, where the mainstream heavy hitter of the Apple Watch heads up a very long tail of typically less pricey and/or more specialist activity tracking bracelets and bands all keen to claim their own patch

Nearly a year after ViacomCBS announced its rebrand to become Paramount, the company is now making a major change to its portfolio with today’s news that it will be fully integrating Showtime into Paramount+ — the streamer known in previous years as CBS All Access. The integration will include both streaming and linear platforms, the company

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