Tech

Access to quality and affordable healthcare has long been an issue in the United States. Not everyone can afford health insurance and even for those who can, medical care can still be cost-prohibitive. Sesame, a startup that aims to address those issues with its online medical care marketplace, has raised $27 million in a Series B

After finding itself embroiled in a lengthy saga over how its star podcaster Joe Rogan spread COVID-19 vaccine-related misinformation on his show earlier this year, Spotify has announced a new initiative that could help it in situations like these in the future. It has formed a Safety Advisory Council, with the aim of making better

Commercial EV maker Electric Last Mile Solutions said Monday that it will file for bankruptcy, the first among a spate of troubled EV manufacturer SPACs to go out of business. Electric Last Mile Solutions, which went public in June 2021 through a $1.4 billion merger with Forum Merger III, plans to liquidate through a Chapter

Apple’s health business could now stand alone as one of the largest in the sector in terms of sheer reach — if it could ever be disentangled from the company’s other products, which, by design, it really can’t. At the company’s annual WWDC global developer conference last week, a variety of new health-related features were

Disney and Mukesh Ambani-backed Viacom18 have won the five-year media rights for the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, according to several local sports journalists, beating rivals including Sony to a license that gave the California-headquartered giant a big leg up in amassing over 200 million subscribers. Viacom18 — a venture between Reliance and Paramount — 

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, best, and baddest technology news. We are back once again here with your weekly kickoff! Here’s what we got into: Stocks are down around the world,

Norwegian startup, Glint Solar, has built a SaaS platform to help developers identify strong contenders for ground-based (or floating) solar projects with the goal of supporting a fast-growing industry to spin up a strong pipeline of projects as a demand to accelerate the shift to renewable energy continues. Co-founder and COO, Even Kvelland, tells us

Trying to untangle what’s going on in web3 markets Alex Wilhelm 8 hours The web3 market is a mess. There’s enough going on that it will take us a moment to unpack the situation this morning, but leading indicators of sentiment in the blockchain ecosystem are sufficiently nasty to set the stage: Bitcoin is off around

Yahoo announced six new members of its board of directors today, about a year after the internet brand was acquired by private equity firm Apollo for $5 billion [Disclosure: TechCrunch is part of Yahoo]. The new appointees include Jessica Alba, actress and founder of The Honest Company; Aryeh Bourkoff, founder and CEO of the independent

Tomorrow, June 14, is the big day for anyone interested in the latest technology designed to fight climate change. More than 1,000 people will gather for TC Sessions: Climate & The Extreme Tech Challenge 2022 Global Finals in Berkeley, California to hear, learn from and engage with the leading climate scientists, founders, VCs, entrepreneurs, philanthropists

Alice Technologies, a startup developing software to help construction companies plan projects including bridges, tunnels, high-speed rail systems, and mixed-use towers, today announced that it raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Vanedge Capital with participation from Access Partners, Bouygues, Gaingels, GRID Capital, JLL Spark, and MetaPlanet. According to CEO René

Amazon today announced that Lockeford, California will be “among the first” locations in U.S. getting access to the company’s burgeoning drone delivery, Prime Air. Lockeford is a small, census-designation place of about 3,500, located roughly half-an-hour from Stockton. It’s also, fittingly, the one-time home of aviation pioneer, Weldon B. Cooke. The company says it’s currently

Education took some significant twists and turns when the Covid-19 pandemic descended on the world. We saw a surge of new users, and new tools, around online learning; but we also saw a number of people and organizations more basically start to rethink how to get the best out of learning environments overall. (In fact,

During the pandemic especially, it’s become overwhelming for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to answer all of their customer service requests. A Freshworks survey found that companies experienced a 71% increase in overall contact volume between February 2020 and January 2021, and expect it to increase further. At the same time, customers — while empathetic

Twitter GM of Consumer, Keyvon Beykpour, announced today he will be leaving the company after seven years. Beykpour first joined the social media platform by way of its acquisition of Periscope, which he founded, said in a tweet he was asked to leave by current CEO Parag Agrawal, who wants to take the team in

There’s an open secret in the battery startup world — everyone is pitching their cells as the ones to spur consumers to ditch their gas-guzzling SUVs for sleek, fast-charging electric vehicles with cross-country range, even if they’re really eyeing something else. Sure, some companies will leapfrog the steady 5% annual improvements that lithium-ion batteries have

I’ve been learning Arabic for a couple of years, after one of my previous startups had a large-ish team of developers in Egypt. Even though I’m only a novice, I did spot something truly bizarre in today’s keynote at Google I/O: A bunch of the languages on the slide are … wrong? The text in

The United Kingdom has a small but growing space industry, with the number of space-related organizations increasing by an average of 21 percent each year since 2012, but there is one key component it’s lacking — launches. There have been no space launches from U.K. soil, but that’s about to change. The U.K. has announced

Offering a sneak preview of the Pixel 7 wasn’t enough, so Google’s really leaning in. Today at I/O, the company announced that it’s returning to the tablet business with a new device set for, get this, a 2023 launch. “Normally we wouldn’t tease a new product before it’s ready,” said Google’s hardware chief Rick Osterloh,

Google’s developer conference Google I/O is back, which means that the company has a few things to announce. During the opening keynote, Google is expected to unveil new hardware products, new software updates and new features for Google’s ecosystem. The conference starts at 10 AM Pacific Time (1 PM on the East Cost, 6 PM

Canoo’s first-quarter earnings shows a company burning through cash, no near-term revenue and a warning that it may not have enough money to stay in business. Shares of Canoo, which were down 5% Tuesday, fell another 17.5% in after-market trading following the release of its earnings. It has since recovered and is now down more

Private investment platform Republic’s ~$1 billion venture arm is reportedly in talks to raise $700 million for two new crypto-focused funds, according to Axios. The funds include a $200 million flagship venture fund and a $500 million dedicated crypto fund, Axios wrote in its Pro fintech newsletter. The venture fund will have 20% of its

While the world continues to wonder what ‘free speech absolutist‘ and gadfly billionaire Elon Musk might mean for the future of Twitter, the European Union has chalked up an early PR win in the long game of platform regulation — extracting agreement from the Tesla founder that its freshly rebooted approach toward content policy sounds

South Korean startup Seadronix wants to reduce the issue of marine accidents, 75% of which are caused by human error, according to a 2019 Allianz safety and shipping report. The company just secured a $5.8 million Series A extension to scale its AI-based ship berthing monitoring and navigation systems to help cargo ships navigate safely

Investment in stocks or retirement accounts can seem like a complicated process if you are not sure where to begin. Mentum is out to change that in Latin America, and is working on customizable investment APIs and widgets so businesses in Latin America can build and offer fully digital investment products, like local mutual funds,

Swedish startup PocketLaw — a contract automation software-as-a-service legal tech platform which is mainly focused on SMEs — has pocketed €10 million (~$11M) in Series A funding led by European VC firm, Atomico, to fuel expansion in Europe. Ben Blume, partner at the venture capital firm, is joining the board as part of the investment. The round

If drones are to take over any of the numerous tasks they are supposed to, they’re going to have to get a lot smarter — and learn to work together. In a demonstration of both of these things, Chinese researchers show off a swarm of drones collectively navigating a dense forest they’ve never encountered. We’ve

TikTok is introducing a new way to lure advertisers to its platform by giving them the ability to showcase their brands’ content next to the best videos on TikTok. Ahead of its NewFronts presentation to advertisers scheduled for this afternoon, TikTok announced the launch of TikTok Pulse, a new contextual advertising solution that ensures brands’

Startups need capital and often fundraise from investors. This requires pitching, numbers, stats and a story. And the time has to be correct. The key to timing is easy, according to this CEO: Fundraise when your confidence is high. Each week on TechCrunch Live, investors and entrepreneurs share lessons learned from personal experiences. And Front

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.  When you start a project, it’s easy to get caught up in it. Then time passes and suddenly it’s been a half decade. Equity, a podcast I got