How do you leave the place that made you? You figure out what it made you for. TechCrunch made me a part of the startup ecosystem I love. Now it’s…
Featured Article
How freight master Flexport’s Ryan Petersen learned to CEO
“I didn’t know what the term ‘freight forwarder’ meant until a year into starting the business.” Considering his shipping logistics startup Flexport was last valued at $3.2 billion, that quote from my first interview with CEO and founder Ryan Petersen back in 2016 seems even more surprising now. But it also hints at why he’s…
8:54 am PDT • April 26, 2020
Media & Entertainment
Facebook launches drop-in video chat Rooms to rival Houseparty
11:15 am PDT • April 24, 2020
Facebook is co-opting some of the top video chat innovations like Zoom’s gallery view for large groups and Houseparty’s spontaneous hangouts for a new feature called Rooms. It could usher…
Leaked images obtained by TechCrunch reveal that Google considered and designed a feature that would let people donate money to websites to help support news publishers, bloggers and musicians. But…
Forget the calendar invite. Just jump into a conversation. That’s the idea powering a fresh batch of social startups poised to take advantage of our cleared schedules amidst quarantine. But…
Media & Entertainment
Instagram founders launch COVID-19 spread tracker Rt.live
1:25 pm PDT • April 18, 2020
Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have teamed up to launch their first product together since leaving the Facebook mothership. Rt.live is an up-to-date tracker of how fast COVID-19…
Media & Entertainment
Leaked pics reveal Google smart debit card to rival Apple’s
10:02 am PDT • April 17, 2020
Would you pay with a “Google Card?” TechCrunch has obtained imagery that shows Google is developing its own physical and virtual debit cards. The Google card and associated checking account…
Media & Entertainment
Investors explain COVID-19’s impact on consumer startups
7:00 am PDT • April 16, 2020
Home fitness and games as gathering places are a few of the startup verticals propelled by unprecedented shifts in behavior due to shelter-in-place orders. We surveyed the top investors in…
Enterprise
Replace non-stop Zoom with remote office avatars app Pragli
10:37 am PDT • April 14, 2020
Could avatars that show what co-workers are up to save work-from-home teams from constant distraction and loneliness? That’s the idea behind Pragli, the Bitmoji for the enterprise. It’s a virtual…
Media & Entertainment
$75M weed giant Caliva ditches Eaze, launches delivery
1:15 pm PDT • April 9, 2020
It’s a brutal time for marijuana startups. I’m hearing some are raising at 1/5th of their 2019 valuation amidst rampant competition, tall taxes, and slow legalization. The struggles for marijuana’s…
Featured Article
Quibi is the anti-TikTok (that’s a bad thing)
It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020. You can decide which best describes Quibi, Hollywood’s $1.75 billion-funded attempt at a mobile-only Netflix of six to 10-minute micro-TV show episodes. Quibi manages to miss every trend and tactic that could help make its app popular. The…
11:06 am PDT • April 9, 2020
Voice-based social networks and gaming as a new form of identity were among the top emerging trends in consumer social startups, according to an Extra Crunch survey of top social…
Sick of sharing those generic Zoom video call invites that all look the same? Wish your Zoom link preview’s headline and image actually described your meeting? Want to protect your…
Media & Entertainment
Zoom will enable waiting rooms by default to stop Zoombombing
2:05 pm PDT • April 3, 2020
Zoom is making some drastic changes to prevent rampant abuse as trolls attack publicly shared video calls. Starting April 5th, it will require passwords to enter calls via Meeting ID,…
What do you do if you’re an event discovery startup and suddenly it’s illegal to attend events? You lean into the cultural shift and pivot. Today, $11 million-funded calendar app…
Facebook Messenger is finally getting desktop apps almost 9 years after its debut. After seeing over a 100% increase in desktop browser audio and video calling, Messenger today releases its…
Featured Article
‘Content network effect’ makes TikTok tough to copy
Many TikTok videos don’t start from scratch, so neither can its competitors. TikTok is all about remixes where users shoot a new video to recontextualize audio pulled from someone else’s clip, or riff on an existing meme or concept. That only works because TikTok’s had time to build up an immense armory of content to…
2:48 pm PDT • April 1, 2020
Media & Entertainment
Snapchat preempts clones, syndicates Stories to other apps
5:00 am PDT • March 31, 2020
If you can’t stop them, power them. That’s the strategy behind Snapchat App Stories, which launches today to let users show off their ephemeral content in other apps too. The…
Media & Entertainment
Facebook deletes Brazil president’s coronavirus misinfo post
5:39 pm PDT • March 30, 2020
Facebook has diverted from its policy of not fact-checking politicians in order to prevent the spread of potentially harmful coronavirus misinformation from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Facebook made the decisive…
Media & Entertainment
Facebook Messenger preps Auto Status location type sharing
1:14 pm PDT • March 30, 2020
Facebook Messenger could soon automatically tell your closest friends you’re at the gym, driving or in Tokyo. Messenger has been spotted prototyping a ported version of the Instagram close friends-only…
Media & Entertainment
Facebook appoints Treasury’s Kimmitt as lead independent board director
1:11 pm PDT • March 26, 2020
Facebook has filled the lead independent board director role with former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and U.S. Ambassador to Germany Robert M. Kimmitt. His job will be to serve…
Google, Amazon and Microsoft are the landlords. Amidst the coronavirus economic crisis, startups need a break from paying rent. They’re in a cash crunch. Revenue has stopped flowing in, capital…
Enterprise
Control each other’s apps with new screensharing tool Screen
1:33 pm PDT • March 24, 2020
It’s like Google Docs for everything. Screen is a free interactive multiplayer screensharing app that gives everyone a cursor so they can navigate, draw on and even code within the…
Biotech & Health
Snapchat’s Zenly launches shelter-in-place leaderboard
10:23 am PDT • March 24, 2020
Snapchat’s location-sharing app acquisition Zenly has gamified shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 outbreak. Today the app launched its Stay At Home challenge that shows a leaderboard of which friends have spent…
Now you can scroll Instagram together with friends, turning a typically isolating, passive experience into something more social and active. Today Instagram launched Co-Watching, which lets friends on a video…
Featured Article
Under quarantine, media is actually social
The flood of status symbol content into Instagram Stories has run dry. No one is going out and doing anything cool right now, and if they are, they should be shamed for it. Beyond sharing video chat happy hour screenshots and quarantine dinner concoctions, our piece-by-piece biographies have ground to a halt. Oddly, what remains…
12:23 pm PDT • March 21, 2020
Startups
Hospital droid Diligent Robotics raises $10M to assist nurses
12:08 pm PDT • March 20, 2020
Twenty-eight percent of a nurse’s time is wasted on low-skilled tasks like fetching medical tools. We need them focused on the complex and compassionate work of treating patients, especially amid…
Fintech
Instagram founder launches gift card site for quarantined restaurants
10:03 am PDT • March 20, 2020
Coronavirus quarantines are hurting local businesses, but Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger wants to help them keep revenue rolling in. Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn this week launched SaveOurFaves, a directory…
Media & Entertainment
Instagram prototypes Snapchat-style disappearing text messages
3:44 pm PDT • March 19, 2020
Instagram is finally preparing to copy Snapchat’s most popular feature, and one of the few it hasn’t already cloned. Instagram has prototyped an unreleased ephemeral text messaging feature that clears…
Media & Entertainment
Facebook now lets most users opt-in to dark mode & desktop redesign
9:53 am PDT • March 19, 2020
Facebook today officially rolled out its sweeping desktop redesign that offers dark mode, tabbed home screen and a cleaner profile. Facebook tells TechCrunch that “starting today, the majority of people…
