Databricks, the company behind the Apache Spark big data analytics engine, today announced that it has raised a $250 million Series E round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Coatue Management, Microsoft and NEA, also participated in this round, which brings the company’s total funding to $498.5 million. Microsoft’s involvement here is probably a bit of a…
Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal’s next act is aimed at helping the next generation of startup founders in India. Bansal has already etched his name into India’s startup history after U.S. retail giant Walmart paid $16 billion to take a majority stake in its e-commerce business to expand its rivalry with Amazon. Things turned sour, however,…
Two dog walking and sitting startups are merging: HouseMyDog, the U.K.-headquartered online community that enables dog owners to find and book local trusted dog walkers and sitters, has agreed to join forces with Gudog, a similar offering based in Spain. I understand that HouseMyDog and Gudog will continue to operate under their existing brands for…
Facebook is taking action in Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country where the social network has been used to incite racial tension and violence, after it banned four armed groups from its service. The U.S. company said in a blog post that it has booted the groups — the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance…
Tyra Banks, the supermodel-turned-entrepreneur, has unveiled her latest venture. Dubbed Modelland, the in-person theme park-like experience will bring technology to the forefront, Banks told TechCrunch over the phone last week. “We’re very open to partnering with and having integrations with different brands that bring technology to the forefront and make sure what we’re providing in…
Fall can’t come soon enough: in just a few months, Netflix will air a new show helmed by actor Gwyneth Paltrow, the brains behind wellness and self-care brand Goop. It’s making some people angry, but I’m here to tell you that it might well be one of the best things you’ll watch on the platform…
It’s 2019, and just opening an innocent looking office document file on your system can still allow hackers to compromise your computer. No, I’m not talking about yet another vulnerability in Microsoft Office, but in two other most popular alternatives—LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice—free, open source office software used by millions of Windows, MacOS and Linux…
Amazon’s annual 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed the high prices the e-commerce giant paid for its two biggest M&A deals last year. According to the filing, the company paid approximately $839 million in cash for Ring and $753 million for PillPack, with all other acquisitions totaling $57 million. GeekWire was…
There are many things worse than autoplaying video and audio on the web. The world is a messy place, after all. But it sure is distracting when you surf to a website and suddenly some video starts playing at full volume. Google’s Chrome browser and Microsoft Edge both offer tools to disable these annoyances and,…
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. Google intros a pair of Android accessibility features for people with hearing loss Live Transcribe is, perhaps, the more compelling of…
