Tech

Penfold, a digital pensions platform, has closed a £7m ($8.49m) Series A funding round led by Bridford Group, an investment group. Also participating in the round was Jeremy Coller, Chief Investment Officer and Chairman of Coller Capital. Penfold also raised additional funding via a crowdfund amongst its customer base. The cash will be used to

A day after Samsung announced a pair of foldable devices, Xiaomi launched its second-gen foldable, Mix Fold 2, in China. The new phone sports a 6.56-inch outer display, 8.02-inch inner display and a Leica-powered camera system. The phone is China-only for now for the base price of RMB 8,999 (~$1,335) for a version with 12GB

Amazon’s cash-cow cloud division AWS has launched a new service designed to help companies deploy their own private 5G networks — eventually, at least. AWS first announced AWS Private 5G in early preview late last year, but it’s now officially available to AWS customers starting in its U.S. East (Ohio), U.S. East (N. Virginia), and

As individuals try to manage medical information and understand their conditions, many typically turn to Google or WebMD — neither of which does much to verify or provide the latest information. But Roon plans to change this with a medical education platform for vetted information, sourced strictly from doctors, patients, and caregivers. By curating the

In the video game Katamari Damacy, players control an avatar who rolls a sticky ball that captures anything it touches. The goal is to create a sphere large enough to become a star or moon. E-commerce aggregators work in much the same way by purchasing smaller brands, then optimizing their manufacturing and sales channels to

When Hyundai acquired Boston Dynamics at the end of 2020, there were plenty of open questions. Chief among them was why we should assume this acquisition would be any different than the past few? The 30-year-old bleeding-edge robotics firm had been an uncomfortable fit for its last two owners, Google and SoftBank, but the Korean

VoltStorage’s iron-salt batteries help it land $24 million Series C from Cummins, the diesel engine giant Tim De Chant 8 hours With the impending passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, renewables are about to get a fresh jolt in the U.S. They’re already some of the cheapest sources of electricity to build and run, but

MGM (which is owned by Amazon) is making a viral video show based on footage from Ring security cameras (also owned by Amazon). The syndicated television show, “Ring Nation,” is poised to be a modern-day, surveillance-tinged spin on “America’s Funniest Home Videos” with Wanda Sykes as host. According to a report in Deadline, the show

A final decision on a complaint against Instagram’s handling of children’s data in the European Union is set to land within weeks, TechCrunch has learned, following the completion of a procedural mechanism to resolve regulatory disputes over how to enforce the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The enquiry about Instagram’s handling of kids’ data

Apple and Kim Kardashian announced their first collaboration this week, taking the Beats Fit Pro wireless earbuds to new, nude-toned heights. In hues so neutral they could make even Sir Jony Ive blush, Apple said the buds will come in three flavors: “moon,” “dune” and “earth.” They’ll debut on Apple.com on August 16 and “in

Streaming media platform Plex, already an expansive service for personal media, free streaming TV, and new content discovery, is venturing into a new area with today’s launch of a new feature, Discover Together. The friends-focused feature is laying the groundwork to develop Plex as not just a streaming hub, but a streaming community. Initially, this includes

Achieving similar marbling and texture as a cut of animal meat has been a challenge for food technology startups aiming to produce whole cuts of cultivated meat, but Novel Farms believes it has cracked the code with its pork loin. Armed with $1.4 million in SAFE notes, or simple agreement for future equity, the company,

Frederik Mijnhardt Contributor Frederik Mijnhardt is the CEO of Secfi, an equity planning platform for startup executives and employees. More posts by this contributor Late-stage tech companies must do right by their employees: Reassess your 409A valuations Inside Secfi’s 2021 state of stock options equity report Last year was a record 12 months for the

You’d be forgiven for missing this bit of news. I fully cop to not seeing it myself amid the buzz of last week’s Amazon acquisition news on Friday (knowing nod to Robot Report for pointing it out). Later that day, inside its quarterly earnings report, iRobot announced plans to cut 140 jobs — a figure

With the Senate passing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 last night, and House passage later this week all but assured, it’s likely that the U.S. will be taking significant — though not comprehensive — congressional action on climate change. The bill is expected to trim U.S. carbon emissions to 40% below 2005 levels by

Mike Hirshland is enjoying 2022. Despite the market’s zigs and zags, he has spent much of his time this past summer in Rhode Island, where relatives from afar have gathered on and off for an extended family reunion. He and partner Raanan Bar-Cohen were also able to close their fifth fund with $150 million in

Vadym Synegin Contributor Vadym Synegin is a Ukrainian impact entrepreneur, philanthropist and investor in fintech and crypto projects with more than 15 years’ experience as an entrepreneur in Europe and the UAE. Ukrainians have often pioneered market-leading companies and built products that positively impact society, especially in the fintech sector. Despite the hurdles of war,

Today in New York City, OnePlus held its first in-person launch event in two-plus years. That’s a lot of time away for a company that’s leaned so heavy on its fanbase for previous launches. Accordingly, the Gotham Hall event packed in fans and members of the press. COVID-19 may still be looming, but the OPPO-owned

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by

Last year was record-breaking for the cybersecurity market. Data from Momentum Cyber, a financial advisory firm for the security industry, showed that cybersecurity startups raised a “record-shattering” $29.5 billion in venture capital in 2021, more than doubling the $12 billion raised in 2020, while a record number — including Dragos and Noname Security — were

Most startups don’t have a clean run from their pre-seed round through an IPO when it comes to fundraising. Quickly growing tech companies sometimes pause at certain stages, raising a little extra cash against their prior round’s terms, for example. This becomes especially true when the economy changes for the worse and startups are incentivized

Hello again! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly recap the top stories to cross TechCrunch dot-com over the past seven days. Want it in your inbox? Get it here. The most read story this week is kind of a wild one: Bolt Mobility, an on-demand bike/scooter rental company co-founded by

Project Solar doesn’t make solar panels, nor does it employ crews to plop them on roofs, but the startup argues it can shake up the residential solar business by steering clear of sales reps and automating parts of the ordering, design and installation process. Backed by $23 million in fresh Series A funding led by

Gumroad’s Sahil Lavingia broke into the venture world as one of the early testers of the rolling fund, an AngelList product that allows investors to raise capital on a subscription-like basis. That was in 2020. Fast-forward to 2022 and a lot has changed. One of those changes? The number of pitches from founders looking to

Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the economy is “in a period of transition,” on the grounds that “we have a very strong labor market. When you are creating almost 400,000 jobs a month, that is not a recession.” Today, we learned that the U.S. added 528,000 new jobs last month and the

With the shift to working from home becoming permanent for many, it’s important to upgrade more than just your desk chair. A good keyboard is not only more pleasant to work on but can help you avoid pain or even change the way you work entirely. Here are a few that stray from the beaten

A popular anonymous social app that was misleading its users with fake messages has been forced to change. The top-ranked app NGL, which became the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store in June, quietly rolled out an update yesterday that sees it now informing users when they receive messages that aren’t from their

Swathy Prithivi started Found with the goal of improving the journey of weight loss. The company quickly discovered a huge demand and rapidly scaled its operations and expanded throughout the United States. The company’s story started in an Atomic incubator. On this episode of TechCrunch Live, we hear from Found’s co-founder and COO Swathy Prithivi

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate-focused VC firm linked to some of Earth’s wealthiest individuals, has joined a $44 million bet on solar startup Terabase Energy. Terabase aims to rapidly build new solar farms “at the terawatt scale,” CEO Matt Campbell said in a statement. The startup claims its automated, on-site factory can already speed up

Pony.ai, a Chinese autonomous vehicle company valued at $8.5 billion as of late, has sued two former employees over alleged trade secret infringement. The lawsuit is arriving months after Frank (Zhenhao) Pan and Youhan Sun, two former technical leaders at Pony’s autonomous trucking business in the U.S., resigned to start a competitor called Qingtian Truck.