Wonder, the incredibly stealthy new gaming company, has quietly created a signup page for information and perks related to its plans for global domination of the gaming market from its Los Angeles headquarters. The company is calling its new campaign the “Alpha Program”, and folks that are interested can get updates on Wonder’s product, provide feedback, and get perks and… Read More
French startup Travauxlib matches you with construction companies so that they can take care of your home. The company raised $1.9 million (€1.8 million) from Xavier Niel, Breega Capital and Bpifrance. Travauxlib usually works on complete home renovation, kitchen remodeling, bathroom work and home extensions. In other words, if you want to change something about your home and it costs… Read More
The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA) has granted Matternet a certification allowing their delivery drones to fly autonomously over cities at any time of day or night. Clearing this regulatory hurdle means that by early next year, Matternet partner Swiss Post plans to use the drones to deliver blood samples and other small parcels between hospitals in Lugano, a smaller city with… Read More
Meal kit makers Blue Apron may be preparing to file for a 2017 IPO, according to Reuters. The report says that the food startup has hired bankers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup to this end. The whole thing has stirred up quite the conversation over here at TechCrunch, and we’ve been arguing amongst ourselves about the likelihood that the Blue Apron IPO happens soon, or… Read More
Archaeological records show humans have been making alcohol since at least 7000 BC. We figured out wine more than 6,000 years ago. By the time the ancient Egyptians entered the scene, brewers were making at least 17 types of beer. Nonetheless, it appears we are not done innovating: Booze-related startups continued to rack up funding in the past year. Read More
Want to remember to tell a friend happy birthday, good luck or congratulations? Had a follow-up question for a client that just occurred to you at 1 AM? Want to write a heartfelt thank you to be texted at a later date? Unfortunately, neither SMS nor most messaging apps – including iMessage – allow you to draft a text in advance and schedule it to be sent out on a later date. But… Read More
For the first time, news aggregator Nuzzel will include advertising. That doesn’t mean you’re going to see banner ads popping up all over the startup’s app and website. Instead, the Nuzzel Newswire consists of sponsored links in Nuzzel’s email newsletter, pointing to a blog post, press release or news article of the advertiser’s choosing. So why call it a… Read More
Things are going incredibly well for Ledger these days. People find bitcoins, ethers and other cryptocurrencies exciting again. And the French startup just raised a $7 million Series A round to make hardware security devices ubiquitous. XAnge, Wicklow Capital, GDTRE, Libertus Capital, Digital Currency Group, The Whittemore Collection, Kima Ventures, BHB Network and Nicolas Pinto participated… Read More
Business intelligence platform Looker is announcing a wholesome $81.5 million Series D today led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s cleverly named growth investment arm. Goldman Sachs and Geodesic Capital helped fill out the round, joining existing investors, KPCB, Meritech Capital Partners, Redpoint and Sapphire Ventures. Rather than compete in segmented markets against visualization and data… Read More
A Santa Clara, Calif. startup called JoyRun has raised about $10 million in Series A and seed funding for its peer-to-peer food and drinks delivery app. Floodgate led the $8.5 million Series A round in JoyRun, and Norwest Venture Partners led the company’s earlier $1.3 million seed round. Other investors joining both rounds included: Visionnaire Ventures, Morado Ventures, CrunchFund… Read More
When Amazon acquired Kiva Systems in 2012, other retailers and third-party fulfillment centers panicked. The e-commerce giants took Kiva’s robots off the market, leaving their competitors without an important productivity tool. Lots of newcomers have cropped up to help warehouses keep up with demand since then. But one of the most hotly anticipated robots in this space was under… Read More
AdSemble has launched a new way for businesses to buy ads on digital billboards. To use the company’s new Open Display product, advertisers just set their weekly budget, choose the region where they want their ad to be displayed and upload their creative assets. Then AdSemble will automatically serve the ad to different billboards across its network, optimized to deliver the most… Read More
Putting an end to a fierce competition to dominate the pet-sitting business, Rover and DogVacay have agreed to join forces. Rover will be acquiring DogVacay in an all-stock deal. DogVacay’s investors, including Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, First Round and Foundation Capital, will now become Rover shareholders. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed, but “all of our… Read More
As competition to get the best startups into incubators gets increasingly challenging, many firms may find themselves looking earlier and earlier into the life of a company in order to get their attention — and part of the company through an investment. That also includes looking internationally, and 500 Startups is looking to tap into that by now getting Israeli startups into a short… Read More
Aiden, a London-based startup building a machine learning-powered personal assistant to save mobile marketers time and money, closed a $750,000 seed round today from Kima Ventures and a number of angels including Nicolas Pinto, Pierre Valade and Jonathan Wolf. The team first demoed the capabilities of its service on the stage of TechCrunch Disrupt as a Battlefield finalist. In recent… Read More
Matrix Labs just completed a successful crowdfunding campaign for what amounts to a AI voice recognition system for the Raspberry Pi which allows you, a mere mortal, to make your own Alexa in your basement. Created by Rodolfo Saccoman and Brian Sanchez their first board, the Creator, fits right on top of a standard RaspPi and gives you an 8 microphone array, a temperature sensor,… Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt NY is around the corner, and with it we’re introducing a brand new content type for the main stage. You’re probably familiar with our fireside chats — last year we spoke one-on-one with USV’s Fred Wilson, Uber’s David Plouffe, Facebook’s Stan Chudnovsky, Soledad O’Brien, Carmelo Anthony and Jessica Alba. We also host panels, like… Read More
A reminder that I’ll be holding a micro-meetup at Boomtown on Broadway in Boulder, Colorado on today, March 29th, at 7pm. You’ll have 2 minutes to pitch in front of two local judges and then 2 minutes of questions. No slides, no props, no costumes (Ok, maybe costumes.) Boomtown is at 2060 Broadway B1 in the basement. To get there, park around Spruce and Broadway and it’s in… Read More
Alchemist Accelerator has raised $2 million from GE Digital to start a new program for industrial IoT startups. Stanford lecturer Timothy Chou, formerly President of Oracle On Demand, will chair Alchemist’s new IIoT accelerator along with GE Digital’s West Coast group. In the past, enterprise hardware and software startups were seen as capital intensive, with the challenge of… Read More
Third-party app developer Readdle has developed some of the most successful productivity apps on iOS and macOS. And email client Spark in particular is going to be Readdle’s next big bet. Readdle just hired Terry Blanchard, an engineering manager for Apple Mail for six years. He’s going to build a new team in Silicon Valley. Readdle has built an entire company on the App Store… Read More
Owlet, a Utah-based startup monitoring your babies vitals, has a new and improved smart sock out today and we got a chance to catch up with the founders to talk about what they’ve been up to since appearing on stage at our 2014 CES Hardware Battlefield. Now version 2 of Owlet’s smart sock makes an even snugglier fit for your little one with a wrap-around design. The company has… Read More
In the recruiting wars, a cool office is critical. Not just for scrappy startups, but big businesses with regional HQs as well. So while WeWork signs questionable 20-year leases to provide desks for twenty-something engineers, Industrious is taking a more classy and conservative approach to cowering space. Think 30 to 60 year olds typing to Otis Redding, not post-frat bros blasting Tupac,… Read More
Evie is bringing its app search technology to a new location on your phone. The startup has partnered with Verizon (which owns TechCrunch) to launch a new product called AppFlash. Like Evie’s existing app launcher, AppFlash helps users find content and services across different apps — and Evie is working with Verizon to make this the default experience on customers’… Read More
Freightos, a startup that wants to digitize more of the international logistics process, announced today that it has raised a $25 million Series B extension round led by GE Ventures, General Electrics’ venture capital arm. 
LiveSmart, a London-based startup that offers a platform to help employees track and improve their health, has raises £700,000 in funding. 