British startup OakNorth has raised a $440 million funding round from SoftBank’s Vision Fund as well as the Clermont Group. The company is creating a digital bank and focuses on loans for small and medium enterprises and the technology behind those loans. Today’s funding round is the biggest funding round in a European fintech company.…
The head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is calling Altria and Juul to meet in Washington to discuss their tie-up and how it impacts the companies’ plans to combat teen vaping. Earlier this year, Altria href=”https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/20/juul-labs-gets-12-8-billion-investment-from-marlboro-maker-altria-group/”>invested $12.8 billion investment in Juul. “After Altria’s acquisition of a 35 percent ownership interest in JUUL Labs,…
It’s that time of the week again when Megan Rose Dickey and I talk about the good and could-be-better tech companies. This week, we talked about Instacart getting caught shorting its shoppers out of dough they rightfully deserved. Of course, the company apologized for its “misguided” approach. Which at least sounds better than apologizing for getting caught…
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. Instacart CEO apologizes for tipping debacle On the heels of a recently filed class-action lawsuit over wages and tips, as well…
Netflix today is launching a new feature on iOS devices that will help make it easier to watch its shows when you’re offline. The “smart downloads” feature, as it’s called, will automatically delete a downloaded episode after you’ve finished watching, then download the next one — but only when you’re connected to Wi-Fi. The idea…
Holding company IAC just released its fourth quarter earnings report, which includes positive numbers for Dotdash, the rebranded company formerly known as About.com — revenue increased 32 percent in the quarter (to $40.2 million), and it was up 44 percent (to $131 million) for the fiscal year. This comes after big layoff announcements from BuzzFeed,…
Illumio has raised $65 million in its latest round of funding led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, the security startup has confirmed. The news comes just weeks after the company was expected to announce a $50 million Series E round, but was delayed after a late addition pushed the figure up. The datacenter monitoring and…
There has never been a better time to start, join or fund a startup as a student. Young founders who want to start companies while still in school have an increasing number of resources to tap into that exist just for them. Students that want to learn how to build companies can apply to an…
Facebook’s crack down on non-consensual ad targeting last year will finally produce results. In March, TechCrunch discovered Facebook planned to require advertisers to pledge that they had permission to upload someone’s phone number or email address for ad targeting. That tool debuted in June, though there was no verification process and Facebook just took businesses…
Weather and climate-related disasters cost the U.S. economy $80 billion last year — and have hit the nation’s bottom line to the tune of roughly $100 billion per year over the last five years, according to a new survey from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That tally comes as NASA reported that 2018 was…
