Original Content podcast: Netflix’s ‘White Tiger’ tells a bloody capitalist fable

The new Netflix film “The White Tiger” tells the story of Balram, who is born to a poor family in the Indian village of Laxmangarh and escapes by using his intelligence and determination, ultimately becoming a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore. Viewers knows this from the start, as Balram (played by Adarsh Gourav) narrates his life […]
https://tcrn.ch/3r7ndkL

Stonks, flying burritos and my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here. What a week. What a month. Are you doing all right? It’s okay if […]
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Reddit co-founder on GameStop: ‘The collective public cannot unsee this’

When Robinhood, a startup that promises to make finance accessible for all, temporarily limited trading on GameStop, AMC, and other memestocks, many retail investors were pissed that the fintech darling suddenly didn’t live up to its name. The specific reasons may have been short-term and technical, but the choice looked corrupt to the average person. […]
https://tcrn.ch/39vzPfI

Robinhood limits users to a single share of GameStop and other stocks

Robinhood has detailed its latest step in the complex quagmire of market manipulation that is this week’s GameStop hedge fund Reddit army debacle. Users will for the present be limited to holding a single share of GameStop and dozens of other stocks. Several stocks were limited to five shares, and options contracts are likewise limited […]
https://tcrn.ch/3riQZmX

Extra Crunch roundup: Edtech VC survey, 5 founder mistakes, fintech liquidity, more

Edtech is so widespread, we already need more consumer-friendly nomenclature to describe the products, services and tools it encompasses.
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Firehawk Aerospace extends seed funding to $2.5 million with $1.2 million from Harlow Capital

Rocket fuel technology startup Firehawk Aerospace has added $1.2 million to its existing seed financing, bringing the full amount invested in the round to $2.5 million. The new tranche comes from Harlow Capital Management, a Dallas-based firm run by Colby Harlow, who will join Firehawk’s board of directors as part of the deal. Firewhawk, which […]
https://tcrn.ch/3pvJcSc

Chefclub raises $17 million to expand its food media brand beyond social networks

French startup Chefclub announced earlier this week that it has raised a $17 million funding round led by First Bridge Ventures. SEB Alliance, the venture arm of kitchen appliance maker Groupe SEB, Korelya Capital and Algaé Ventures are also participating. Chefclub has been building a major media brand on social media platforms. It has attracted […]
https://tcrn.ch/3t8cN6k

Xiaomi teases over-the-air wireless charging, but it’s not coming to its devices this year

Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, today unveiled “Mi Air Charge Technology,” which it says can deliver 5W power to multiple devices “within a radius of several metres” as the Chinese giant invited customers to a “true wireless charging era.” The company said it has self-developed an isolated charging pile that has five phase interference […]
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Twitter is already working on integrating newsletters on its site, following Revue acquisition

Twitter only announced its acquisition of newsletter platform Revue two days ago, but the company has already begun to integrate the product into the Twitter.com website. It appears “Newsletters” will soon be the newest addition to Twitter’s sidebar navigation, alongside Bookmarks, Moments, Twitter Ads and other options. The company is also readying a way to […]
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Shopalyst aims to make e-commerce advertising more effective

Indian startup Shopalyst has officially launched a new platform that it calls the Discovery Commerce Cloud, which it says can help brands take full advantage of digital advertising. Co-founder and CEO Girish Ramachandra told me that Shopalyst was created to allow for “one seamless journey for the shopper” across advertising and e-commerce — something he […]
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13 investors say lifelong learning is taking edtech mainstream

The venture potential of a startup that caters to individual students — instead of a slow-moving, small-pocketed institution — has a bullish aura that attracts investors. Add in a pandemic that forced many to embrace remote learning overnight, and it makes sense that we have seen companies like Outschool and ClassDojo turn first profits while […]
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Could meme stocks like GameStop kill bitcoin’s rise?

Cryptocurrencies, more so than most other things, are only valuable because of a shared agreement that they are valuable. Their value is a product of digital handshakes over millions of transactions firming up that consensus. For bitcoin, the trust that it has worth has turned more valuable in the past several months; it’s been on […]
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Following acquisition, Episerver rebrands as Optimizely

After acquiring Optimizely last fall, content management company Episerver is adopting the Optimizely name for the entire organization. CEO Alex Atzberger told me that the company will be rolling out new branding in the next coming months, as well as renaming its entire product suite to reflect the Optimizely brand. “We believe it’s no longer […]
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Renewable investment wave continues as solar lending company Loanpal raises $800 million

Days after the billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya announced his involvement in the $1.3 billion acquisition of the solar and home improvement lending business Sunlight Financial, a collection of investors announced a nearly $1 billion cash infusion into Loanpal, another renewable energy and home improvement lender. The $800 million commitment to Loanpal arrives alongside a flurry […]
https://tcrn.ch/3a7qgTk

These investors want to back ‘ridiculously early’ female-led African startups

In 2019, female-led companies received less than 5 percent of the global venture capital. Bringing it to Africa, only 10 percent of the West African startups that cumulatively raised $1 million had at least one female co-founder in the past decade. There are many stats to back up the underrepresentation of women in starting a […]
https://tcrn.ch/39ivn3Q

Fast raises $102M as the online checkout wars continue to attract huge investment

This morning Fast, a startup that provides online checkout and identity products, announced that it has closed a $102 million Series B. The new funding event was led by Stripe, a previous investor in Fast. Stripe, an online payments giant, also led Fast’s Series A last year, a deal worth $20 million. Fast has raised […]
https://tcrn.ch/39kGMQM

Jam collaborative software launches Jam Genies to give small startups access to experts

As the world moves towards remote work, the collaborative tools market continues to expand. Jam, a platform for editing and improving your company’s website, is adding to the trend by introducing a new arm to its product today called Jam Genies. Jam Genies is a network of highly experienced product experts that Jam users can […]
https://tcrn.ch/2MrMMOB

Google claims almost no change in ad revenue from targeting proposals in its Privacy Sandbox — but privacy upside less clear

As Google’s Privacy Sandbox remains under scrutiny over competition concerns, the tech giant has released an update claiming experimental ad-targeting techniques it’s developing as part of the plan to depreciate support for third-party cookies on its Chrome browser show results that are “nearly as effective as cookie-based approaches”. Google has been working on a technique […]
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Early-stage African VC firm, Microtraction reports portfolio boom despite the weight of COVID-19

In a year marred by the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that early-stage startups on the African continent are continuing to see some notable growth, both in terms of their business and from investors looking to back them.  Microtraction, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Lagos, Nigeria, saw funding nearly quadruple for its portfolio. In […]
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Apple’s new Fitness+ feature brings celebrity-guided walks to your wrist

Here’s a bit of a curve ball from Apple. A month-and-a-half or so after launching the Fitness+ app premium workout service, the company’s offering up an add-on intended to offer an exercise dimension beyond the confines of iOS (and your living room). Arriving today for Fitness+ subscribers, Time to Walk is a new, guided walking […]
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Clubhouse announces plans for creator payments and raises new funding led by Andreessen Horowitz

Buzzy live voice chat app Clubhouse has confirmed that it has raised new funding – without revealing how much – in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz through the firm’s partner Andrew Chen. The app was reported to be raising at a $1 billion valuation in a report from The Information that landed […]
https://tcrn.ch/36awH6J

Watch SpaceX’s first dedicated rideshare rocket launch live, carrying a record-breaking payload of satellites

  SpaceX is set to launch the very first of its dedicated rideshare missions – an offering it introduced in 2019 that allows small satellite operators to book a portion of a payload on a Falcon 9 launch. SpaceX’s rocket has a relatively high payload capacity compared to the size of many of the small satellites […]
https://tcrn.ch/2Y7BuBp

8 investors tell us the story behind the Romanian startup boom

With record funding levels and three unicorns to show, local investors are buoyant about Romania’s prospects heading into 2021. We caught up with eight of them recently, and heard how the country’s technical talent pool, broadband access and low cost of living have positioned it for the era of remote-first global companies across industries. The […]
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This Week in Apps: TikTok viral hit breaks Spotify records, inauguration boosts news app installs, judge rules against Parler

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. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices […]
https://tcrn.ch/399BzuH

Could giant SPACs be next?

While many deemed 2020 the year of SPAC, short for special purpose acquisition company, 2021 may well make last year look quaint in comparison. It’s probably not premature to be asking: is there any company too big to be SPAC’d? Just today, we saw the trading debut of the most valuable company to date go […]
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Daily Crunch: Alphabet shuts down Loon

Alphabet pulls the plug on its internet balloon company, Apple is reportedly developing a new MacBook Air and Google threatens to pull out of Australia. This is your Daily Crunch for January 22, 2021. The big story: Alphabet shuts down Loon Alphabet announced that it’s shutting down Loon, the project that used balloons to bring […]
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Google refreshes its mobile search experience

Google today announced a subtle but welcome refresh of its mobile search experience. The idea here is to provide easier to read search results and a more modern look with a simpler, edge-to-edge design. From what we’ve seen so far, this is not a radically different look, but the rounded and slightly shaded boxes around […]
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Apple reportedly planning thinner and lighter MacBook Air with MagSafe charging

Apple is said to be working on a new version of the MacBook Air with a brand new physical case design that’s both thinner and lighter than its current offering, which was updated with Apple’s M1 chip late last year, per a new Bloomberg report. The plan is to release it as early as late […]
https://tcrn.ch/3plOejO

Privacy complaint targets European parliament’s COVID-19 test-booking site

The European Parliament is being investigated by the EU’s lead data regulator over a complaint that a website it set up for MEPs to book coronavirus tests may have violated data protection laws. The complaint, which has been filed by six MEPs and is being supported by the privacy campaign group noyb, alleges third party […]
https://tcrn.ch/3sPzQmk

Facebook’s Oversight Board will review the decision to suspend Trump

Facebook announced Thursday that its newly established external policy review group will take on one of the company’s most consequential acts: The decision to suspend former President Trump. On January 7, Facebook suspended Trump’s account indefinitely. That decision followed the president’s actions the day prior, when he incited a violent mob that stormed the U.S. […]
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TripActions raises $155M at $5B valuation as corporate travel recovers from pandemic lows

This morning TripActions, a software company whose tools help businesses book and manage corporate travel, announced a new $155 million investment. Three investors led the round: prior investor Andreessen Horowitz, Addition Ventures, and Elad Gil. The new investment, a Series E, values TripActions at $5 billion on a post-money basis, a company spokesperson wrote via […]
https://tcrn.ch/2Y2qkhy

The biggest step the Biden administration took on climate yesterday wasn’t rejoining the Paris Agreement

While the Biden Administration is being celebrated for its decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement in one of its first executive orders after President Joe Biden was sworn in, it wasn’t the biggest step the administration took to advance its climate agenda. Instead it was a move to get to the basics of monitoring and […]
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Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the challenger bank and says he’s ‘struggled’ during the pandemic

Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the U.K. challenger bank entirely at the end of the month, staff were informed earlier today. Blomfield held the role of CEO until May last year when he assumed the newly created title of president and resigned from the Monzo board. However, having been given the time and space […]
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Alibaba shares jump on Jack Ma’s first appearance in 3 months

Alibaba’s billionaire founder resurfaced as he spoke to 100 rural teachers through a video call, three months after his last public appearance in October, sending the e-commerce firm’s shares up more than 8% in Hong Kong. A recording of the call was first posted on a news portal backed by the government of Zhejiang, the […]
https://tcrn.ch/3o55Saa

Landbot closes $8M Series A for its ‘no code’ chatbot builder

Barcelona-based Landbot, a ‘no-code’ chatbot builder, has bagged a $8M Series A led by the Spanish-Israeli VC firm Swanlaab, alongside support from Spain’s innovation-focused public agency, CDTI. Previous investors Nauta Capital, Encomenda and Bankinter also participated in the round. We last chatted to Landbot back in 2018 when it raised a $2.2M seed and had […]
https://tcrn.ch/3qCekzp

Uppbeat launches a freemium music platform aimed at YouTubers

A new music platform, Uppbeat, aims to make it easier for YouTubers and other content creators to find quality free music to use in their videos. The system, which is designed to navigate the complexities of copyright claims while also fairly compensating artists, offers an alternative to existing free music platforms, including YouTube’s own Audio […]
https://tcrn.ch/3nZynpQ

Senator: ‘More transparency is needed’ by exam proctoring tech firms

Three of the leading exam proctoring companies are facing calls to be more transparent, amid continued claims of bias by students forced to take remote exams because of the ongoing pandemic. Exam proctoring tech lets students take remotely invigilated tests from home. Students are told to install their university’s choice of proctoring software, which allows […]
https://tcrn.ch/3nWrOo4

StackPulse announces $28M investment to help developers manage outages

When a system outage happens, chaos can ensue as the team tries to figure out what’s happening and how to fix it. StackPulse, a new startup that wants to help developers manage these crisis situations more efficiently, emerged from stealth today with a $28 million investment. The round actually breaks down to a previously unannounced […]
https://tcrn.ch/3bWz1Sy

It may not be as glamorous as D2C, but beauty tech is big money

Shifting consumer demands within beauty and retail are creating rich opportunities for U.S.-based beauty/consumer tech SaaS companies.
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Flipkart doubles down on rewards program, partners with 5,000 retail outlets in India

Flipkart on Monday launched SuperCoin Pay that its customers will be able to use across thousands of retail stores across the country as Walmart-owned e-commerce giant bets on its loyalty program to win and sustain its user base in the world’s second largest internet market. The Bangalore-headquartered e-commerce giant said it had partnered with over […]
https://tcrn.ch/2M2JvEW

Personio raises $125M on a $1.7B valuation for an HR platform targeting SMEs

With the last year changing how (and where) many of us work, organizations have started to rethink how well they manage their employees, and what tools they use to do that. Today, one of the startups that is building technology to address this challenge is announcing a major round of funding that underscores its traction […]
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Virgin Orbit reaches orbit for the first time

Virgin Orbit launched its LauncherOne rocket to orbit for the first time today, with a successful demonstration mission that carried a handful of satellites and will attempt to deliver them to low Earth orbit on behalf of NASA. It’s a crucial milestone for the small satellite launch company, and the first time the company has […]
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Original Content podcast: Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz have a good time in ‘Pretend It’s A City’

The concept behind the new Netflix documentary series “Pretend It’s A City” is pretty straightforward: Author Fran Lebowitz talks, while Martin Scorsese (who’s both director and an on-camera presence) listens and laughs. Lebowitz’s musings across seven episodes are organized by loose themes, such as “Metropolitan Transit” and “Library Services,” with the more recent footage interspersed […]
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After a record year for Israeli startups, 16 investors tell us what’s next

Israel’s startup ecosystem raised record amounts of funding and produced 19 IPOs in 2020, despite the pandemic. Now tech companies across industries are poised for an even better year, according to more than a dozen investors we talked to in the country. Mainstay sectors like cybersecurity continue to matter, they said, but are maturing (more […]
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This Week in Apps: Parler deplatformed, alt apps rise, looking back at 2020 trends

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. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using […]
https://tcrn.ch/2XTha6F

Daily Crunch: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash

WhatsApp delays enforcement of a controversial privacy change, Apple may get rid of the Touch Bar in future MacBooks and Bumble files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for January 15, 2021. The big story: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash Earlier this month, WhatsApp sent users a notification asking them to consent to […]
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Twitter’s decentralized future

This week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey finally responded publicly to the company’s decision to ban President Trump from its platform, writing that Twitter had “faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance” and that he did not “feel pride” about the decision. In the same thread, he took time to call out a nascent Twitter-sponsored initiative called […]
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Tracy Chou launches Block Party to combat online harassment and abuse

Block Party, an anti-harassment startup that aims to help folks feel safer on social media founded by Tracy Chou, launched today. Currently only available for Twitter, Block Party helps people filter out the content they don’t want to see and into what Block Party calls the Lockout Folder. That’s where all of the filtered-out content […]
https://tcrn.ch/2LtsZ1a

Amazon’s newest product lets companies build their own Alexa assistant for cars, apps and video games

Amazon is selling access to the underlying technology stack of Alexa to let companies — starting with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — build their own intelligent assistants with unique voices, skills and wake words. The new Alexa Custom Assistant product, which was announced Friday, can coexist and cooperate with the Alexa assistant. Theoretically, this means an […]
https://tcrn.ch/2XPljbL

A security researcher commandeered a country’s expired top-level domain to save it from hackers

In mid-October, a little-known but critically important domain name for one country’s internet space began to expire. The domain — scpt-network.com — was one of two nameservers for the .cd country code top-level domain, assigned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. If it fell into the wrong hands, an attacker could redirect millions of unknowing […]
https://tcrn.ch/3iidjJL

Beyond Meat shares soar after inking deal with Taco Bell on new menu items

Shares of Beyond Meat are soaring on news that the company will be working with Taco Bell on new menu items. The company’s stock was up $17.13, or 13.67%, to $142.48 and climbing in midday trading after Taco Bell announced that it would embrace Beyond Meat to come up with new menu items due to […]
https://tcrn.ch/38I4jKU