Southeast Asian media is ablaze with discussion of the latest “decacorn” — $10 billion-valued startup — in the region after Go-Jek reportedly hit the milestone, but the Indonesia-based company is being prematurely anointed. Two sources close to Go-Jek told TechCrunch that the ride-hailing firm’s current valuation is just shy of the $10 billion mark —…
Welcome back to this week’s transcribed edition of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast that unpacks the numbers behind the headlines. Here we put the words of our wildly popular venture capital podcast, Equity, into Extra Crunch members’ eyes instead of their ears. This week, TechCrunch’s Kate Clark and Crunchbase News’s Alex Wilhelm get rapid-fire on…
Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Corporate biotech venture funding rises again 2019 US VC funds take a more boutique approach Venture investment in space technology is hitting stratospheric heights in recent quarters. But investors in the sector are betting it will rocket higher still. The latest example of high-velocity funding is satellite…
About half a year ago, Google gave the Assistant on phones a major visual refresh. Today, the company is following up with a couple of small but welcome tweaks that’ll see the Assistant on Android provide more and better visual responses that are more aligned with what users already expect to see from other Google…
You might be surprised what you can buy on Facebook, if you know where to look. Researchers with Cisco’s Talos security research team have uncovered a wave of Facebook groups dedicated to making money from a variety of illicit and otherwise sketchy online behaviors, including phishing schemes, trading hacked credentials and spamming. The 74 groups…
Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab is probably best known as the birthplace of the modular snake robot. Initially designed to squeeze into tight spots for search and rescue missions and infrastructure inspections, the lab’s snake robot has given rise to an army of different projects, and at least one Pittsburgh-area startup. Several years ago, the robot…
Twitter continues to experiment with ways to make conversations on its platform easier to follow. In addition to its prototype app twttr, which is testing threaded replies, the company also recently tested labeling replies to highlight those from the “original tweeter” — meaning it would show when the person who first tweeted a post then…
Bumble is the latest digital brand to try to extend its reach through a print publication. The dating app maker today announced the launch of Bumble Mag, a lifestyle publication it produced in partnership with Hearst that offers stories and advice about dating, careers, friendship and more to Bumble’s over 50 million users. On the…
It’s a big day for space: launches, tests, orbits, and now a distant probe is going to shoot an asteroid with its space gun and make a new crater to play in. It’s Hayabusa 2, Japan’s ambitious and so far highly successful sample return mission to an object called Ryugu. Launched in 2014, Hayabusa 2…
An apparent breakdown in talks between BuzzFeed management and the company’s newsroom union spurred expressions of solidarity from other unions — and even from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The employees of BuzzFeed News (the company’s journalistic arm) voted to unionize in February, following major layoffs. At the time, Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith reportedly…
