Industry News
Privacy data management innovations reduce risk, create new revenue channels
Investments in privacy tools and management practices now are almost certain to deliver major business dividends in the future.
HumanForest suspends London e-bike sharing service, cuts jobs after customer accident
UK-based startup HumanForest has suspended its nascent ‘free’ e-bike service in London this week, after experiencing “mechanical” issues and after a user had an accident on one of its bikes, TechCrunch has learned. The suspension has also seen the company make a number of layoffs with plans to re-launch next spring using a different e-bike. […]
The highest valued company in Bessemer’s annual cloud report has defied convention by staying private
This year’s Bessemer Venture Partners’ annual Cloud 100 Benchmark report was published recently and my colleague Alex Wilhelm looked at some broad trends in the report, but digging into the data, I decided to concentrate on the Top 10 companies by valuation. I found that the top company has defied convention for a couple of […]
Calling Helsinki VCs: Be featured in The Great TechCrunch Survey of European VC
TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey the venture capital investors of Europe, and their cities. Our <a href=”https://forms.gle/k4Ji2Ch7zdrn7o2p6”>survey of VCs in Helsinki will capture how the city is faring, and what changes are being wrought amongst investors by the coronavirus pandemic. (Please note, if you have filled the survey out already, […]
Cambridge Analytica’s former boss gets 7-year ban on being a business director
The former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, the disgraced data company that worked for the 2016 Trump campaign and shut down in 2018 over a voter manipulation scandal involving masses of Facebook data — has been banned from running limited companies for seven years. Alexander Nix signed a disqualification undertaking earlier this month which the UK […]
Why isn’t Robinhood a verb yet?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Natasha Mascarenhas, Danny Crichton and your humble servant gathered to chat through a host of rounds and venture capital news for your enjoyment. As a programming note, I am off next week effectively, so look for […]
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek pledges $1Bn of his wealth to back deeptech startups from Europe
At an online event today, Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, said he would invest 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of his personal fortune in deeptech “moonshot projects”, spread across the next 10 years. Ek indicated that he was referring to machine learning, biotechnology, materials sciences and energy as the sectors he’d like to invest […]
As tech stocks dip, is insurtech startup Root targeting an IPO?
During the week’s news cycle one particular bit of reporting slipped under our radar: Root Insurance is tipped by Reuters to be prepping an IPO that could value the neo-insurance provider at around $6 billion. Coming after two 2020 insurtech IPOs, Root’s steps towards the public markets are not surprising. But they are good news […]
Rephrase.ai raises $1.5M to use synthetic media for personalized sales pitches
Bangalore-based Rephrase.ai has an ambitious vision for reshaping how movies and videos are made. CEO Ashray Malhotra laid it out for me yesterday, saying that his co-founder Nisheeth Lahoti “came up with this concept — he wants to build an engine that can take any script as input and create a professional movie,” no filming […]