Tech News

A new Twitter test feature aiming to “promote informed discussion” will nudge users to read before they retweet. The company describes the test as a step to help people be more aware of what they’re sharing in a broader effort to inspire “healthier conversations” on the platform. Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you

Online payments are often synonymous with card payments, but today a startup that’s built a profitable alternative, based around making and taking payments by way of a bank transfer, is announcing a round of funding amid a surge of growth. Trustly, a startup from Sweden that has built a platform to make it as easy

We’re just 24 hours away from the second installment of Pitchers and Pitches. If you want to whip your elevator pitch into shape, select your favorite beverage and join us for an interactive pitch-off and feedback session. We kick off tomorrow, June 10 at 4pm ET / 1pm PT. It won’t cost you a penny,

Propzy, a Vietnam-based startup that guides consumers through the entire process of a real estate transaction, announced it has raised a $25 million Series A led by Gaw Capital and SoftBank Ventures Asia, the early-stage venture arm of SoftBank Group. Other investors included Next Billion Ventures, RHL Ventures, Breeze, FEBE Ventures, RSquare and Insignia. Instead

The killing of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that resulted have been a major wake-up call for many with regards to the role of policing in the United States. Yesterday, Floyd’s hometown of Minneapolis announced plans to dismantle the city’s police department via a veto-proof majority in the city council. Among the factors that

Spanish startup Bnext is revamping its cashback program so that you can buy from partner stores directly from the Bnext app and get some money back. The company has partnered with Button and the feature is available as an open beta. Traditional cashback portals are a bit clunky. When you find an offer that gives

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox. Hi friends and first-time readers. Welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to

Millions have taken to the streets across the world to protest the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last month. Protesters have faced both unprecedented police violence and surveillance. Just this week, the Justice Department granted the Drug Enforcement Administration, an agency typically tasked with

The tech industry has generally wished that structural discrimination would go away, while pretending that it already has. But technology can be used by anyone for anything. And so, the world has watched video after video of police brutality against Black people in a real-time stream that plays through the closing days of quarantine, culminating

Amy Errett’s company, Madison Reed, sells women’s in-home hair coloring products. It may not sound like a glamorous business but, as it turns out, it’s a very durable one, done the right way. Not only has the seven-year-old outfit been slowly chipping away at the dominant personal care giants like L’Oreal that have long controlled

Earlier this week, TechCrunch covered a grip of earnings reports showing that some companies helping other businesses move to modern software solutions are seeing accelerated growth. Inside the Software as a Service (SaaS) world, this is known as the digital transformation. Based on how many software companies are talking about it, the pace of change

When Nigerian angel investor Tomi Davies backed his first company — Strika Entertainment in 2001 — he admits he wasn’t aware of his future role. “I was just helping out friends. I didn’t know it was angel investing. I didn’t know there was a structure to it,” he said. Seven years later, Davies received a

Today Slack reported its earnings results for the three months ending April 30, 2020, the first quarter of its fiscal 2021. The well-known SaaS chat service posted revenue of $201.7 million, up 50% compared to its year-ago period. Slack also reported an adjusted per-share loss of $0.02, and per-share losses of $0.13 when counting all

Amazon announced today it has added 12 new cargo aircraft to Amazon Air, bringing its total fleet to more than 80 aircraft, in part because of increased demand for shipments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The converted Boeing 767-300 were leased from the Air Transport Services Group. Amazon said one of the planes will begin transporting

If you want to capture investor attention, you need a killer pitch. And that’s under normal circumstances. You’ve probably noticed that circumstances are anything but normal. With a global pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis, you’ll need to up your pitching game and get ready to bring the heat. We can help. Register today for

French VC firm Idinvest has compiled some data about the European tech ecosystem. The firm has decided to focus on consumer tech in general, and there are some interesting trends that I’m going to break out here. You can read the full report here. The team has analyzed and surveyed 1,500 companies over multiple months.

New numbers from Canalys project a 7% drop in global PC sales, owing to financial strains. The category is one of countless impacted by the COVID-19-related shutdowns, but the group notes that the virus’s direct impact is mostly behind the industry, due to the rebounding of China’s supply chain. A resulting global recession, on the

Volkswagen Group finalized Tuesday its $2.6 billion investment into Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based self-driving car startup that came out of stealth in 2017 with $1 billion in backing from Ford. The deal turns Argo into a global company with two customers — VW and Ford — as well as operations in the U.S. and Europe

Well that didn’t last long. Apple has patched a security vulnerability that allowed hackers to build a jailbreak tool allowing deep access to the iPhone software. In a security advisory, Apple acknowledged that it had fixed the vulnerability in iOS 13.5.1, posted Monday. The technology giant credited the unc0ver team, which released the jailbreak just

Events in May offered support to the thesis that Africa can incubate tech with global application. Two startups that developed their business models on the continent — MallforAfrica and Zipline — were tapped by international interests. DHL acquired a minority stake in Link Commerce, a turn-key e-commerce company that grew out of MallforAfrica.com — a

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox. Hi and welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B. I’m

SpaceX on Saturday launched two NASA astronauts aboard its Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the accomplishment is a tremendous one for both the company and the U.S. space agency. At a fundamental level, it means that the U.S. will have continued access to the International Space Station, without having to rely on continuing to buy tickets

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here. Most tech companies base compensation on an employee’s local cost of living, in addition to their skills and responsibilities. The pandemic-era push to remote work seems to be reinforcing that — if

Acorns, which helps millions of people invest their spare change in the stock market, has laid off between 50 to 70 people, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources. The Irvine, Calif.-based company would not confirm the total number of people laid off, but did confirm that there were cuts at the company as a result

Box CEO Aaron Levie has been working to change the software world for 15 years, but the pandemic has accelerated the move to cloud services much faster than anyone imagined. As he pointed out yesterday in an Extra Crunch Live interview, who would have thought three months ago that businesses like yoga and cooking classes

Belvo, a Latin American fintech startup which launched just 12 months ago, has already snagged funding from two of the biggest names in North and South American venture capital. The company is aiming to expand the reach of its service that connects mobile applications in Mexico and Colombia to a customer’s banking information and now

How did yesterday’s launch of HBO Max go? We don’t have official numbers from WarnerMedia, but app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower says HBO Max was downloaded by nearly 87,000 new users across Apple’s App Store and Google Play. That number might seem pretty low compared to other streaming launches — like the 4 million

Vaya Africa, a ride-hail mobility venture founded by Zimbabwean mogul Strive Masiyiwa, has launched an electric taxi service and charging network in Zimbabwe with plans to expand across the continent. The South Africa headquartered company has acquired a fleet of Nissan Leaf EVs and developed its own solar powered charging stations. The program goes live

In a closely-watched decision today, the Supreme Court of British Columbia published a key decision in the extradition case of Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei Technologies, China’s largest telecommunications company and a frequent target of U.S. policymakers. In its ruling, the court said that the case met the standard for “double criminality,” and thus

Ola Electric, the EV business that spun out of the ride-hailing giant Ola last year, has acquired an Amsterdam-based electric scooter startup as the Indian firm looks to locally produce and launch its own line of two wheelers as soon as this year. The Indian firm said Wednesday it had acquired Etergo, a Dutch firm