Founders Circle Capital, a nine-year-old, San Francisco-based investment firm that strikes agreements with private, venture-backed companies to buy some of the vested stock options of their founders and employees — so they can buy a house or just breathe a bit more easily — has closed its newest fund with $355 million in capital commitments,…
TechCrunch’s Early Stage 2021 is back for part two of our bootcamp-for-entrepreneurs event, with a focus on marketing and fundraising. Building on the first half of the event in April, this two-day virtual sprint will take place July 8 & 9, and we’re thrilled to welcome Rebecca Reeve Henderson as one of our all-star slate…
The director of a new unit set up this month inside the UK’s competition watchdog — with a dedicated focus on tech giants’ impacts on digital markets — has been giving a hint of how it could operate, once it’s on a statutory footing and imbued with powers to sanction problem platforms and potentially even…
Wunder Mobility built its business selling software to shared scooter, e-bike and even short-term car rental startups. Now, it’s banking on a new — and once secret — lending division to bring in more revenue that’ll giving micromobility operators another option to access capital without having pitch venture capitalists and other investors. The company announced…
Tesla’s relationship with bitcoin is not a dalliance, according to the comments made by the company’s CFO and dubbed “master of coin” Zach Kirkhorn during an earnings call Monday. Instead, the company believes in the longevity of bitcoin, despite its volatility. Tesla invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin this quarter and then trimmed its position by 10%,…
Dating startup S’More has launched a new feature called S’More TV, which CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei said could give users new ways to talk to each other. It also bringing the startup closer to his goal of becoming not just a dating app, but “a lifestyle brand.” The videos on S’More TV may be familiar to…
Facebook announced last week an expanded partnership with streaming music service Spotify that would bring a new way to listen to music or podcasts directly within Facebook’s app, which it called Project Boombox. Today, the companies are rolling out this integration via a new “miniplayer” experience that will allow Facebook users to stream from Spotify…
China’s plan to introduce its digital currency is getting a lot of help from its tech conglomerates. JD.com, a major Chinese online retailer that competes with Alibaba, said Monday that it has started paying some staff in digital yuan, the virtual version of the country’s physical currency. China has been busy experimenting with digital currency…
Investment app StashAway has raised a $25 million Series D led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from returning investors Eight Roads Ventures and Square Peg. After regulatory approvals for the funding are completed, Sequoia Capital India managing director Abheek Anand will join StashAway’s board of directors as part of the round. StashAway does not…
Earth Day may have come and gone, but with apps like #8meals from the non-profit Habits of Waste, anyone can try and do their part to help reduce deforestation and rising greenhouse gas emissions by cutting meat out of their diets for just 8 meals a week. The app, which was created by Habits of…
