As if the pessimism around crypto wasn’t enough, the industry has historically been hounded by hackers and scammers looking to make a quick buck. And to make things worse, it appears tracing and recovering lost funds is now getting harder than ever as attackers use increasingly sophisticated methods. According to a new report, only $4.9…
Hello Alice, a fintech helping small businesses access capital, and entrepreneurship ecosystem Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) created a $70 million Equitable Access Fund designed to bridge the financing gap experienced by women and BIPOC-owned founders. “There’s an estimated $40 billion gap among the BIPOC community alone,” Elizabeth Gore, Hello Alice co-founder, told TechCrunch. “Also, the…
Bluu Seafood, a German company creating cultivated (i.e. “lab-grown”) fish products, today announced it has raised €16 million ($17.5 million) in a Series A round of funding. Founded out of Berlin in 2020 originally as Bluu Biosciences, Bluu Seafood starts with a “one-time” fish biopsy — which, it says, doesn’t require killing any fish —…
Amazon subsidiary Zoox has begun testing its purpose-built, electric, autonomous robotaxis on public streets in Las Vegas, the company announced Tuesday. Zoox says this marks the first time that an autonomous vehicle built without pedals or a steering wheel has operated on public roads in Nevada. Zoox is starting small with a one-mile loop around…
The backlash against the encryption-busting Online Safety Bill continues to grow, suggesting the United Kingdom could soon face a looming exodus of secure messaging apps. First drafted in May 2021, the Online Safety Bill would allow the U.K. government to compel backdoor access to any end-to-end encryption system. While the government claims the complex legislation…
Several years ago, Noah Stanford teamed up with Michael Melone to found 0pass, a startup that aims to make it easier for companies to replace usernames and passwords with biometrics, like Touch ID and Face ID. Relatively quickly, 0pass gained the attention of investors including Y Combinator, recently closing a $3.5 million seed round led…
Meta announced today that WhatsApp Business, its app designed specifically for small businesses, has crossed the mark of 200 million monthly active users — up from 50 million in 2020. As the company is pursuing its “year of efficiency,” it also launched features like easier ad creation and a personalized message service for WhatsApp Business…
Arkam Ventures is courting its second fund, aiming for $180 million, nearly doubling the size of its maiden fund, as the Indian venture capital firm gears up to double down on the expanding ‘middle India’ opportunity. The firm’s partners said in an interview that they are hopeful to retain support from high-profile international institutional investors…
Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges globally, has been around for 10 years. And while the company has grown its offerings, products and services, its policy talking points haven’t changed dramatically, Kara Calvert, head of U.S. policy at Coinbase told TechCrunch+. But what has changed, she said, is the “momentum and urgency” for digital…
Investors aren’t the only ones who want to get their hands on hot tech companies in the field of AI: it’s also likely to spur a big wave of M&A, too: today, Databricks announced that it would pay $1.3 billion to acquire MosaicML, an open-source startup with neural networks expertise that has built a platform…
