Editor’s Note: Shortened week Due to the U.S. Independence Day holiday this week on July 4th, Extra Crunch will not be publishing our normal editorial on Thursday and Friday of this week, nor will we send out this EC Roundup newsletter on Saturday. Normal publishing will resume starting next week on Monday. Conference Call Today…
SoftBank Vision Fund has single-handedly changed the game when it comes to tech startup investment. And that’s why I’m excited to announce that SoftBank Vision Fund partner David Thevenon is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. Thevenon spent most of his career working for Google on international and strategic partnerships, especially in Latin America, Asia,…
The new era of tech-enabled banks is coming, even in regulation-heavy Japan. Kyash, a fintech company with visions on becoming Japan’s first challenger bank, said today it has raised $14 million to continue its expansion. To be clear, Kyash isn’t a bank. Yet. But it is currently applying for a host of licenses in Japan…
Nathan Lustig Contributor Nathan Lustig is an entrepreneur and managing partner at Magma Partners, a seed-stage investment fund in Santiago, Chile. More posts by this contributor Latin America is the next stage in the race for dominance in the ride-hailing market Latin America’s Movile is quietly building a mobile empire It’s not easy to raise…
The Planetary Society’s crowdfunded LightSail 2 spacecraft reported back some good news today: It’s officially orbiting on its own after being delivered to space via rocket ride share about SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy last week. LightSail 2 “phoned home” today in the wee hours of the morning, a good sign that it’s well set up to…
Disrupt Berlin 2019, which takes place on 11-12 December, attracts an international community more than 3,000 people from over 50 countries. This two-day, program-packed event, focused on early-stage startups across Europe and beyond, represents an ocean of opportunity. We want to make that ocean available and affordable to as many people as possible, so we are…
In a meeting with a group of journalists in South Korea, Samsung Electronics CEO DJ Koh candidly addressed the company’s latest hardware mishap. “It was embarrassing,” he told reporters, as quoted by The Independent. “I pushed it through before it was ready.” That last bit no one can debate, really. After years of preamble, Samsung…
Bird strikes are a very real danger to planes in flight, and consequently aircraft are required to undergo bird strike testing — but what about drones? With UAV interference at airports on the rise, drone strike testing may soon be likewise mandatory, and if it’s anything like what these German researchers are doing, it’ll involve…
Lucid Motors, the electric vehicle startup backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has hired Peter Hochholdinger to head up manufacturing operations just a week after news leaked the automotive executive had left a similar post at Tesla. Hochholdinger, was an executive at Audi for more than two decades before joining Tesla as its top…
The rise of streamed video has seen the market for licensing streamed music boom in the last few years, with not only consumers using video as a medium to listen to tracks but video creators also extensively using music as part of their own productions. Today, a startup that has built a platform to capitalise…
