Mask Network, a Binance-backed startup that enables users to send cryptocurrencies and encrypted messages on established internet platforms like Twitter, has an ambitious goal: to become the corporate venture capital powerhouse in web3 as Tencent has done in web2. To that end, the five-year-old company recently completed the first close of its venture investment arm…
Amazon tried but then ultimately stepped away from building its own cost-intensive Grubhub and DoorDash competitor in the U.S. back in 2019. Now three years on, it’s taking a different approach to tackling the space to build in one more sweetener to encourage more sign-ups to its Prime subscription service. Today, the e-commerce giant and…
During the most recent Y Combinator startup batch, Peakflo stood out to TechCrunch. The company’s simple pitch — Bill.com for Southeast Asia — fit neatly into the broader narrative of the world increasingly digitizing its workflows and the generally hot market we’d seen for fintech companies. At the time, we noted that “there are huge…
Outschool, a marketplace for kid-friendly, virtual after-school programs, has laid off 31 people or 18% of its workforce, CEO Amir Nathoo confirmed to TechCrunch over text message. The layoff, conducted earlier this month, comes after a period of rapid fundraising for Outschool. The firm raised its Series B, C and D in a 12-month period,…
Inspiration for a new company can come from many different places. For Maya Ashkenazi Otmazgin, a biomedical engineer, it was while nursing her first child that she got the idea for harnessing the health benefits of breast milk, but in food and wellness supplements for adults. “I wondered why we were not understanding the proteins…
Onomondo, a startup offering a dedicated wireless network for internet of things (IoT) devices, today announced that it raised $21 million in a funding round led by Verdane with participation from Maersk Growth, People Ventures, and The Danish Growth Fund. In an email, CEO Michael Karlsen told TechCrunch that the new cash will be put…
Mumbai-based automaker Tata Motors wants to sell 50,000 electric vehicles by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, the company’s chairperson Natarajan Chandrasekaran said during a shareholders’ meeting on Monday. In the 2023/24 period, Tata — which produces passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses, luxury cars, and construction equipment — aims to hit…
As the crypto markets continue to trend downward, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, FTX, remains undeterred. “Our priorities have not changed,” Mark Wetjen, head of policy and regulatory strategy at FTX, told TechCrunch. “Markets will do what they do, but the reality is that the digital asset marketplace and digital asset ecosystem, we believe, is…
Over the weekend, TikTok wrote to Republican Senators to assure them that it’s working on a program called “Project Texas” to bolster data security for U.S.-based users. This was in response to the Senators’ letter to the company dated June 27 that questioned its data access policy after BuzzFeed News reported some China-based employees had…
Indonesia’s construction industry is large and growing quickly, but a lot of supply procurement is still done the old-fashioned way, through phone calls and text messages. Juragan Material wants to make things easier with a B2B marketplace for building materials from curated suppliers. The company announced today it has raised $4 million in seed funding…
