Blue Apron is now down from its IPO price during trading today, falling around 4% and down to around $9.60 — a bit south of its original price. Early in the planning process, Blue Apron was shooting for a price range of between $15 and $17, which would have helped it raise even more money and value the company at around $3 billion. Instead, it had to settle for a valuation below $2… Read More
Playground Ventures — the VC fund co-founded by Android inventor and former Google exec Andy Rubin that sits alongside an eponymous incubator/startup studio and is making some big bets in areas like artificial intelligence and new generations of hardware– is raising more money. A Form D filed with the SEC notes that Playground Ventures is in the process of adding another $15… Read More
Binary Capital, the San Francisco-based early stage fund whose cofounder, Justin Caldbeck, resigned this past Sunday, is shutting down for all practical purposes. A source tells Bloomberg that the young firm, which had closed its second fund last year with $175 million in commitments but barely begun to invest that capital, will be wound down. Binary’s portfolio companies, including from… Read More
Imagine sportswear that not only stays dry through the most sweat-inducing workouts, but also turns perspiration into a design element. Named after the driest desert in the world, Atacama uses microfluidic technology to create textiles that can do just that. The recipient of a grant from the National Science Foundation, Atacama is also exploring how its technology can be applied in a diverse… Read More
On-demand storage startup Omni wants to make it easier for you to have access to your favorite items without them taking up space in your closet. But now the company is taking a huge step toward making those items available to your friends, and to other people in your local community. Read More
Pray.com, an interfaith mobile app that helps religious leaders keep in touch with their congregants, will grow its team after receiving $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by Science Inc., an accelerator whose portfolio also includes Dollar Shave Club and DogVacay, with participation from Greylock Partners and Spark Capital. Read More
Startups in sub-Saharan Africa, your time is running out. You have just a few short weeks to apply for TechCrunch’s inaugural Startup Battlefield Africa competition, so those looking to participate in the competition should apply soon. Startups can apply to one of three categories: social good/productivity and utility/gaming and entertainment. Read More
Since launching two years ago, wireless networking startup Eero has sought to make it easier for consumers to blanket their homes in strong WiFi. With the its newest hardware products, Eero took a step forward in that goal, in part by introducing a small-footprint Beacons that can be placed nearly anywhere in a person’s house or apartment. Read More
LendUp has built business providing personal loans to customers that traditional financial institutions wouldn’t touch. As it looks to expand into credit cards and other services, the company has raised some strategic funding from PayPal and also has expanded its executive ranks. Read More
Why would a 131-year-old soda company with $44 billion in international sales possibly want to partner with small, pre-revenue technology companies emerging from places far-flung from its Atlanta headquarters? If the company is Coca-Cola (and it is), the answer is all about strategy. Read More
Zume Pizza has its eyes set on disrupting legacy pizza players like Pizza Hut and Domino’s by improving on both speed and quality with the help of robots. Over the last two years, founder Julia Collins has been steadily adding new machines to her pizza assembly line to maximize consistency without resorting to cheats that sacrifice the pizza itself. Today the company is announcing… Read More
Blue Apron — the next big consumer IPO for 2016 — isn’t looking as good as it was just a few weeks ago. The company said in an updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would cut its IPO price range target to between $10 and $11 per share, down from between $15 and $17 per share. Normally these price ranges move around, but this is a pretty… Read More
An anonymous source tipped off Crunchbase News that Eaze, the Series B-stage cannabis delivery startup with over $24 million in venture funding, has experienced a security incident. Some of its user data may have been stolen by a former employee of Don Davidson, MD, a medical service provider that provides patient consultations and medical cannabis recommendations (the equivalent of a… Read More
It was a lovely day for a meetup in Seattle, and the Showbox SoDo was packed as TechCrunch’s annual pitch-off in my home town took place last week. But as impressive as our ten contestants were, only three would leave with tickets to Disrupt SF. And here they are. Read More
Dating apps are, in their own way, a form of social networking – especially as they expand into new areas like friend-finding or professional networking. So it only makes sense that they would adopt video as well, given the growing popularity of the format on social apps like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, as well as the industry’s larger embrace of “Stories” as a… Read More
If none of what’s in the above headline makes sense, you probably weren’t following the biohacking trend for the last couple of years. But Silicon Valley is brimming with tech execs trying to become faster, stronger and smarter by “hacking” their genetic code through various experimental methods called biohacks. These would be the people drinking buttered coffee,… Read More
ThredUP, the online secondhand clothing store that has raised over $130M in funding is going old school. The startup has announced they will be opening at least five brick and mortar retails stores by the end of the year, with the first one soft-opening today in San Marcos, Texas. Why San Marcos, a small town of ~60,000 located somewhere between the cities of San Antonio and… Read More
Security firm Trend Micro is the latest corporate to jump into the startup investment world after it unveiled a $100 million corporate fund today. It is predominantly looking at opportunities in the internet-of-things (IoT) space, but the exact scope of how it will operate is not clear. The company is headquartered in Japan and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where its current value… Read More
You wait all day for a multi-currency account and three come along at once. Give or take a month or so, that’s appears to be the case with news that Monese, the London fintech that offers a mobile banking app and current account, is adding support for Euro accounts. Read More
Instacart CMO Cheryl Law is no longer at the company, Techcrunch has learned. Instacart confirmed the departure. We were tipped off about her departure a bit before the whole Amazon making a $13.7B bid for Whole Foods thing went down, but the company has now confirmed that she is no longer there. Law joined Instacart at the beginning of the year and was previously the CMO of… Read More
New York-based startup Stayawhile announced today that it’s scored $1.5 million in seed funding to provide travelers with what founder Janine Yorio refers to as “medium-term housing.” It’s a midway point between your standard hotel/Airbnb stay and a year-plus apartment lease, aimed at vacations and business travelers who’d like to spread out their stay in a new city… Read More
Put aside whatever shred of healthcare decency the Senate happens to be ripping out at the moment and take a look at Better, a startup helping people deal with out-of-network medical bills. The startup has just pledged 100 percent of its revenue towards relieving those stuck in serious medical debt — at least until this fall. Better raised $1.1 million in funding from Initialized… Read More
Wayra, the Telefónica backed accelerator network, is launching a new startup program in the UK that aims to tackle the so-called ‘poverty premium’ — whereby people on low incomes pay more for some goods and services. 
People already rent housing and lease cars, why not rent the furniture, as well? 
Your.MD, an AI-driven health information service delivered via a bot, has raised $10 million in new funding. 