Tim Hsia & Neil Devani Contributor Welcome to this transcribed edition of The Operators. TechCrunch is beginning to publish podcasts from industry experts, with transcriptions available for Extra Crunch members so you can read the conversation wherever you are. The Operators highlights the experts building the products and companies that drive the tech industry. Speaking…
Shuly Galili is a founding partner at UpWest. According to CB Insights, the number of seed-stage funding deals in the U.S. declined for the fourth straight year in 2018, continuing a trend that has seen the number of deals steadily drop, while the average size of deals increased. It’s safe to say this is the…
NASA’s very own free-floating Companion Cube equivalent took its own first tentative “steps” in space today, demonstrating its ability to rotate on its own in zero gravity inside the International Space Station. The robot, called “Bumble” and one of a series of Astrobee robots that NASA developed to work along with astronauts on the ISS,…
Apple this morning announced a “voluntary” recall of MacBook Pro batteries due to potential overheating and safety risk. The recall only applies to mid-2015 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina displays. As the company notes in a press release, these models were primarily sold between September 2015 and February 2017. Concerned users can see if their…
Nigerian motorcycle transit startup MAX.ng has raised a $7 million funding round led by Novastar Ventures, with participation of Japanese manufacturer Yamaha. Based in Lagos, the company’s app-based platform coordinates motorcycle taxi and delivery services for individuals and businesses. Six-million of the investment is in Series A capital followed by $1 million in grants. MAX…
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Libra currently looks more like a fiat currency than a cryptocurrency Facebook unveiled a cryptocurrency called Libra yesterday. Romain Dillet looks…
Startup Battlefield is known around the world as TechCrunch’s premier startup competition, and today we’re proud to announce that on November 11-12 we are producing our hardware-focused competition, Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen in that amazing heartland of hardware, Shenzhen, China. The event this November will be TechCrunch’s fifth Hardware Battlefield, but our first ever…
Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s smart. David Cancel is the CEO and founder of Drift. He is a five-time founder, two-time CEO, podcast host and best-selling author of Conversational Marketing. Follow him on Twitter @dcancel. Four day work week. Open plan offices. Work life balance. Remote work. There are endless ways to set…
Ten months ago London startup Duffel hinted that it would be “a new way to book travel online, aiming at the booking experience ‘end to end’”, and announced a healthy $4.7M funding round, but not much else. Today it goes further, announcing a $21.5m in Series A funding from US VC giant Benchmark, which also…
After a year of teasing out Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Niantic (the company behind Pokémon GO) and WB Games have at long last announced an official release date for the game: June 21st. The news came this evening at a press event held just outside of Universal Studios’ Wizarding World (where else?). Though details were…
