Alison Johnston didn’t plan to build a startup around death. An early employee at Q&A app Aardvark that was bought by Google, she’d founded tutoring app InstaEDU and sold it to Chegg. She made mass market consumer products. But then, “I had a family member who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and I thought about…
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. Airbnb agrees to acquire last-minute hotel-booking app HotelTonight Once the deal is complete, the HotelTonight app and website will continue to…
Sam Altman, the well-known president of the prolific Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, is stepping down, the firm shared in a blog post on Friday. Altman is transitioning into a chairman role with other YC partners stepping up to take on his day-to-day responsibilities, as first reported by Axios. Sources tell TechCrunch YC has no…
The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos has inspired quite a bit of content, including a NYT Best Seller, an ABC podcast, a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, and now an HBO documentary directed by Going Clear director, Alex Gibney. The documentary is called The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley. The tech world was…
PolyAI, a London startup founded by experts in the field of “conversational AI” — including CEO Nikola Mrkšić who was previously the first engineer at Apple-acquired VocalIQ — has raised $12 million in Series A funding to deploy its tech in customer support contact centres. The round was led by Point72 Ventures, with participation from…
After indicating that it was exploring its options for fighting the potentially deadly rise of anti-vaccination content on its platform last month, Facebook is making a plan of attack. Facebook’s strategy in the effort is to both minimize the spread of vaccination misinformation and to point users away from inaccurate anti-vaccination propaganda and toward “authoritative…
David Mayman has a vision for personal aviation that he’s spent the past dozen years and millions of his personal fortune chasing. He hasn’t accepted the convention that jetpacks were just a misguided fantasy for the future; his company, Jetpack Aviation, has been building them and he’s been zooming around in publicity-grabbing stunts in a…
As Airbnb gears up for its big leap into the public markets, it’s expanding its accommodations platform to include more than just treehouses and quirky homes. Today, the company has confirmed its intent to acquire HotelTonight, the developer of a hotel-booking application that lets travelers arrange last-minute accommodations. The deal was previously reported by The…
Huawei has decided to go on the legal offence against the United States government after defending itself against alleged espionage and bank frauds linked to American sanctions on Iran. During a press conference late Wednesday, Huawei announced that it has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, arguing that a ban on the use of…
The 2019 edition of a popular annual survey shows usage of social media by Americans is stalling while ownership of smart speakers and tablets has soared over the last year, as has consumer engagement with podcasts. The results are promising for Amazon and Spotify in particular. Earlier today, Edison Research and Triton Digital presented their…
