Welcome to my new weekly fintech focused column. I’ll be publishing this every Sunday, so in between posts, be sure to listen to the Equity podcast and hear Alex Wilhelm, Natasha Mascarenhas and me riff on all things startups! And if you want to have this hit your inbox directly once it turns into a…
Between 2016 and 2020, the number of people who ordered food online in China doubled to 400 million. The boom was in part thanks to the generous subsidies shelled out by the country’s food delivery contenders for customers and businesses. As two companies, Meituan and Ele.me, came to dominate the market, they began to raise…
Who’s ready to mobilize and meet up in real life? And by “mobilize” we mean join more than 2,000 mobile-minded movers and shakers at TC Sessions: Mobility 2022 in San Mateo, California, on May 18-19. We’re back for our fourth straight year, and can’t wait to see you in person for two days dedicated to…
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the…
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is Saturday, which means it’s not a usual day for us to drop an episode. But what are we if not try-hards at heart? So, we’re back today. What do we have…
Indian fintech CRED is in talks to back the Bengaluru-headquartered startup Smallcase, three sources familiar with the matter said, as the Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global-backed firm looks to expand its wealth offerings to customers. CRED’s proposed investment in Smallcase values the startup in the range of $300 million to $400 million, one source…
Things are getting worse at Better. More executives have resigned from Better.com nearly three months after the online mortgage lender laid off 900 employees via Zoom and as the company prepares for more layoffs, according to multiple sources familiar with the internal happenings at the company. Those sources include both current and former employees. The…
Delivery has become one of the fastest growing verticals for robotics investments amid pandemic-related shutdowns. There’s been plenty of interest in the category over the years, but Covid-19 has accelerated interest on all sides of the equation. Among this category, however, Agility stands out – in more ways than one. Born out of research from…
News that Databricks crossed the $800 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) threshold last year was impressive, but more notable was its growth rate of greater than 80% during the same period. That’s a wild expansion pace for a company of Databricks’ size, and it backed up its CEO’s general vibe that his team could weather…
The UK’s cost of living crisis has been making grim headlines for months — with no respite in sight. Just this week, newspapers reported that inflation had hit 5.5%, a 30-year high, further pushing up prices for everyday essentials like food. Worse is yet to come as an energy price cap will end in April,…
