Tech

First Star, backer of deep tech startups like Plus One and Fyto, aims to raise as much as $40 million for its third venture fund, TechCrunch has learned. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, First Star typically backs robotics, blockchain, AI and machine learning-focused startups at the early stage. The firm has not disclosed a first close

Autonomous and electric truck maker Einride is rolling into Germany, representing its first new market in Europe outside its native Sweden. Founded out of Stockholm in 2016, Einride has raised some $150 million in funding to commercialize a cab-less autonomous cargo truck, one that can be controlled remotely, if required, by human operators. It’s a

SpaceX and T-Mobile may have hogged the headlines with their flashy pre-announcement about Starlink connectivity last month, and Apple last week, but Lynk has been putting in the work and may very well steal their lunch with a satellite-to-phone connection that already works — with any device out there. In fact, they just got FCC

Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp is stepping into the film business. Earlier this week, WhatsApp announced its first original short film “Naija Odyssey,” which tells the story of NBA player Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was born in Athens, Greece to Nigerian parents. “Naija Odyssey” will premiere on Prime Video on September 21, 2022. The short film signifies

One could probably argue that Floodgate, the Bay Area-based seed-stage venture firm, punches above its weight. The roughly 15-year-old firm has just around $500 million in assets under management — including a $150 million fund that it quietly closed in January — and it makes just a handful of new investments each year. Yet with

Getting a bunch of bananas and avocados from your favorite 15-minute grocery delivery company at 3 a.m. might be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but some of these companies are finding themselves in somewhat of a cost-related pickle in such a low-margin business. While covering the recent news of Misfits Market acquiring Imperfect Foods,

The sneaker world has a dirty secret — the carbon footprint of just about every shoe out there weighs more than the shoe itself. Then there’s the extensive use of plastics and polyesters, foam and rubber, nearly all of which is derived from fossil fuels. Those clean kicks might not be so clean after all.

HICX, a supplier experience management platform designed to give companies visibility into their supply chain, has raised $30 million in a round of funding led by U.S. private equity firm Wavecrest Growth Partners and Canada’s Espresso Capital. The funding constituted a mixture of $22 million equity and $8 million in debt. Founded in 2004, London-based HICX

Amazon wants Alexa owners to buy more things. That’s the clear impetus behind the new Alexa feature announced today at Amazon’s Accelerate conference, called Customers Ask Alexa, which lets brands submit answers to common questions like “How can I remove pet hair from my carpet?” and “How to eliminate odor from soil stains?” Previously, Alexa

Yet another round of layoffs at Netflix has unfortunately affected 30 Netflix Animation employees. Deadline first reported the news, and Netflix confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is downsizing the department.  Earlier this year, Netflix brought on Karen Toliver as Vice President of Animation Film Content and Traci Balthazor as Vice President of Animation Film

EV charging company Monta has been building out EV charging solutions to make it easier to charge electric vehicles everywhere. It started in Europe, but it just raised an additional $30 million from Energize Ventures, at a $155 million valuation, to expand into the U.S. market. The company tackles one of the biggest bottlenecks to

AC Ventures (ACV), a venture firm focused on early-stage startups in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia, has reached the first close of its fifth investment fund (Fund V). The fund is targeting $250 million and has raised 65% of that capital so far, mostly from limited partners who invested in ACV’s previous funds.

At Tesla, the company’s stock price apparently isn’t the only thing that’s climbing lately. Powerwall sales are also poised to rise, now that the automaker’s big batteries are reportedly a prerequisite for Solar Roof installations. The requirement is new as of September, and it comes as Tesla ramps up Powerwall production at its Nevada factory,

A series of commitments offered by Amazon in the EU, where regulators are investigating competition concerns linked to its use of third party data, has been dubbed “weak, vague and full of loopholes” in a critical submission signed by a dozen civil society and digital rights groups, non-governmental organizations and trade unions. The submission, which

This week on The TechCrunch Podcast we talked with Natasha about the Y Combinator Demo Day for the Summer 2022 cohort; the highs, the lows, the new management and whether the accelerator moving to be more in-person-focused is a help or a hindrance to its further-flung participants. Then, ever a crypto-sceptic at heart, I was

YouTube TV announced on Twitter yesterday that it now supports 5.1 audio on Apple TVs and Amazon Fire TV devices. With the update, users can enjoy a movie theater-like experience in their homes. Surround sound is only available on compatible YouTube TV programs, and the feature is free for all subscribers. Note that you need

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

Happy Saturday, friends. Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we very quickly sum up the most read TechCrunch stories from the past week. Want it in your inbox every Saturday AM? Get it here. This week saw two big events running in parallel: an Apple hardware announcement and Y Combinator’s Demo Day.

Despite whispers of a downturn earlier this year, investors continue to express confidence in climate tech. Though numbers are down compared with 2021, a year that many agree is an outlier in the VC world, they’re on track to beat 2020 as the second hottest year for investment. What’s more, deal counts and values were

Amazon has made a string of startup acquisitions over the years to build out its robotics business; now, the e-commerce leviathan is taking an interesting turn in that strategy as it expands its industrial warehouse capabilities. Amazon is acquiring Cloostermans, a company out of Belgium that is a specialist in mechatronics. It’s been building technology to

GPS in its many regional flavors has become a ubiquitous feature in phones, smart watches, cars and other connected devices, but for all the location-based features that it helps enable (mapping being the most obvious) it has a lot of shortcomings: it can be slow and inaccurate, it can contribute to faster battery drain and,

Today is Disney+ Day, and, as part of its perks, the company is offering Disney+ subscribers a new AR experience in conjunction with the short film “Remembering,” starring and produced by “Captain Marvel” Brie Larson and directed and written by filmmaker Elijah Allan-Blitz. The eight-minute-long movie features a companion augmented reality app that allows users

And we’re back! Yes, today was the second day of pitches from Y Combinator, a U.S. startup accelerator with global outreach that conducts demo days twice a year. This year’s Summer 2022 cohort gave us hundreds of batch companies to consider. For participating founders, it’s a critical day; for investors, it’s a buffet; for us

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. Helloooo! Since our last Daily Crunch, our adrenaline-fueled TechCrunch team has added more than 70 stories to the site. We’re picking out some of the best below, but we’ll almost certainly miss

When it comes to consumer-facing climate tech, electric vehicles and solar panels may get all the attention, but every home has some even lower-hanging fruit — HVAC, or heating, ventilation and air conditioning. Residential and commercial buildings produce about a third of the carbon emissions in the U.S., and much of that comes from heating

French startup Sorare originally launched a fantasy football (soccer) game. This year, the company is expanding to new sports. After partnering with Major League Baseball earlier this year, the company is announcing a new partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). Thanks to this multi-year partnership, Sorare will launch

On August 9, Joe Biden signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The move marked a victory for a presidential administration in dire need of a win and the culmination of a hard-fought, months-long battle that ended with broad bipartisan support. Among the chief criticism leading up to the bill’s passage were

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. Hey, hey, hey! It’s going to be a busy week for the TC crew this week. We’re excited about the Apple event, and Y Combinator has its demo day. Alex welcomes you

Sam DeBrule Contributor Sam DeBrule is co-founder and head of marketing of Heyday, the AI-powered research assistant that helps you retain more of what you learn. Whether you’re building a product at an early-stage startup or fine-tuning an already built-out product at a larger company, there is a straightforward process that can help you improve