Author: TechCrunch News

Despite its similarities, Instagram Threads is no X. At least, not yet. The text-focused social network — and Meta’s answer to Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter — missed a moment to shine on Friday when users once again turned to X to discuss the New York/New Jersey area earthquake. The traffic surge drove #earthquake to…

For years, banks have been financing large renewable power projects, from utility-scale solar farms to horizon-spanning wind farms. But smaller projects, like installing a heat pump in someone’s home or retrofitting affordable housing, often get passed over. They simply haven’t been lucrative enough. But the demand is there, which is why advocates have been clamoring…

Less than a week after The Wall St. Journal reported on how a Snapchat feature dubbed “solar system” was adding to teens’ anxiety, the company has responded by adjusting how the feature works. The ranking system for paid subscribers today shows you how close you are to your Snapchat friends by displaying your position in…

Just hours after Elon Musk claimed Reuters was “lying” about plans to ditch its $25,000 low cost EV and instead focus all its efforts on a robotaxi, the Tesla CEO announced on X that he would reveal said robotaxi in an event on August 8. The announcement comes as Tesla EV sales have lagged and…

The second half of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort presented on Thursday, once again bringing dozens and dozens of new startups before a chunk of the venture investing community. As we did on Wednesday, a number of the TechCrunch crew watched the entire run of presentations, picking out a handful of favorites to highlight. Enjoy…

Ford announced Thursday that it’s delaying the production of two electric vehicles, a next-generation EV pickup and a three-row EV SUV. The pair are now slated to arrive in 2026 and 2027, delays of one and two years respectively. In their place, the automaker will be introducing hybrids across its U.S. lineup. Ford’s CEO has…

Bitkraft Ventures — a games investor based out of Denver, Colorado, but with European founders — has raised its third fund, coming in at $275 million. The fund will make seed and Series A investments in gaming studios, and platforms to support game production. The moves comes at a time when games investments have actually…

Ghost Autonomy, a startup working on autonomous driving software for automaker partners, has shut down, TechCrunch has learned. The startup, which had raised nearly $220 million, posted a note on its website that it ended worldwide operations and wound down the company as of Wednesday. The company employed about 100 people and had operations in…

DCVC’s target for its first climate-focused fund, DCVC Climate Select, has been all over the place and highlights the roller-coaster venture fundraising conditions of the last few years and how LPs aren’t as quick to back new strategies from established managers. The Silicon Valley VC firm launched the fund in December 2022 with a $500…

For every tech success story, there are countless projects that slam headlong into the brick wall of reality. Apple’s electric vehicle ambitions are one of the most recent — and, frankly, best — examples of a project failing in spite of seeming to have everything going for it. The jury is still out on the…