In recent years, many have pushed to level the playing field for women in tech through new initiatives, funds, companies, support networks and more. White women, however, have emerged as the key beneficiaries. Less has been done to bolster black and Latinx female founders specifically. Enter digitalundivided. The organization, which encourages black and Latinx women to pursue…
Move aside Uber, China’s ByteDance is now the world’s highest-valued tech startup. That’s according to reports from Forbes and Bloomberg both of which claim that the company has completed a $3 billion investment that values the company at $75 billion. A source with knowledge of the deal confirmed the round to TechCrunch and suggested that…
Master of all things gadget accessory, Anker announced a handful of new products at an event tonight in Manhattan. The biggest/smallest of the bunch is the PowerPort Atom, a compact wall charger designed to free up spaces around an outlet. The $30 device sports a USB-C port and is smaller than most standard smartphone chargers.…
Most students in the U.S. have used or at least heard of Quizlet, the website for creating digital flashcards. The company leverages machine learning to predict in which areas its users need the most help and provides 300 million user-generated study decks, maps, charts and other tools for learning. Roughly eight months after closing a…
Snapchat continued to shrink in Q3 2018 but its business is steadily improving. Snapchat’s daily active user count dropped again, this time by 1 percent to 186 million, down from 188M and a negative 1.5 percent growth rate in Q2. User count is still up 5 percent year-over-year, though. Snapchat earned $298 million in revenue with…
Can’t wait to get your giant hand on Palm’s tiny “ultra-mobile?” Turns out it will be arriving sooner than later — next Friday, in fact. Verizon (you know, the giant telecom that owns the media conglomerate that owns TechCrunch) announced today that it will be launching the strange new thing on November 2. The 3.3-inch…
Tado, the smart thermostat and AC control maker, has raised a further $50 million in funding from an array of noteworthy and strategic investors. Backing the Munich-headquartered company this time around is Amazon, E.ON, Total Energy Ventures, Energy Innovation Capital, Inven Capital, and the European Investment Bank. It brings total funding to $102 million since being…
Facebook is working on a new app that it hopes could win back the attention of teens while capitalizing on its recently-attained major label music licenses. Facebook is building a standalone product where users can record and share videos of themselves lip syncing or dancing to popular songs, according to information from current and former…
Facebook wants to make YouTube-style monologue videos the new way for politicians to talk straight with their constituency. Today, Facebook launches Candidate Info, featuring thousands of direct-to-camera videos where federal, state, and local candidates introduce themselves and explain their top policy priority, qualifications, and biggest goal if they win office. Congress members including Elizabeth Warren…
TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin is right around the corner, and I’m excited to announce that we invited Threads founder Sophie Hill to talk about her innovative vision of luxury shopping. Threads is like nothing out there. It isn’t an e-commerce website with warehouses and and suppliers. It isn’t a marketplace website for second-hand luxury goods. It…
