What we expect from MWC 2021

In a word: “telecom.” Network and enterprise have long played a key part in Barcelona’s big mobile show, but more than ever, such topics are going to have an outsized role at the event. The consumer element appears to be taking an increasing back seat at the event, which kicks off in earnest next Monday.…

Chain Reaction raises $70M, emerges from stealth to launch chips designed to compute encrypted data

As the networking industry explores homomorphic encryption, blockchains and other cryptographic techniques to take data protection and complex computing to the next level, one big roadblock to many of these working effectively and at scale has been the compute power required to run them. Today, one of the startups that believes it can address that…

Volition’s Larry Cheng on trying to raise a fund right now: “All of the LPs felt more constrained”

Last month, Volition Capital, a 13-year-old, 30-person Boston-based growth equity firm, announced it has closed its fifth fund with $675 million in capital commitments, bringing its total assets under management to $1.7 billion. While most VCs will tell you they had no problem raising their newest fund, Volition cofounder Larry Cheng — an alum of…

Tesla to build engineering HQ in California

Tesla is making California the home of its global engineering headquarters. CEO Elon Musk and California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that Tesla’s new engineering HQ will be at the former offices of Hewlett-Packard. The sudden rekindling of Tesla’s relationship with California may be surprising after the EV-maker up and moved its corporate headquarters from…

Black entrepreneurs ring Nasdaq bell

Nasdaq on Friday hosted the New Voices Foundation and Essence Ventures, inviting some of the most prominent Black professionals within the venture and startup space behind the podium to help open the markets. Though this isn’t the first time Nasdaq has honored Black History Month, some who were there commented that “history was made.” And…

Tumblr iOS revenue increased 125% since launching its parody of paid verification • TechCrunch

Tumblr’s parody of paid verification has already delivered the social network and blogging platform a 125% boost in iOS in-app purchase revenue since November, according to a new analysis of the app’s in-app consumer spending. The company, now operated by WordPress owner Automattic following its 2019 acquisition, launched its response to Twitter’s paid verification hustle…