Author: TechCrunch News

The TechCrunch team is in Barcelona this week to bring you all the action going on at Mobile World Congress 2024. You already know what we’re expecting, so sit back, relax and stay tuned throughout the week as we bring you the products, announcements and startup news from MWC that you need to know. So…

Venture capital funding has never been robust for women or Black and brown founders. Alongside Crunchbase, we’ve been tracking funding levels to pinpoint moments of progress and regression for marginalized entrepreneurs. For example, Black founders saw record amounts of funding in the bull year that was 2021, but that amount dipped substantially as the market…

Rabbit co-founder and CEO Jesse Lyu isn’t afraid of death … the death of the company, at least. He told TechCrunch that the company is a startup whose fortunes may be swayed by the whims of multibillion-dollar rivals — but that’s no reason to give up and go home. Appearing onstage at StrictlyVC LA, Lyu…

The tech-wide reckoning that began in 2022 and ran throughout into 2023 has continued into this year. And while 2024’s losses are not at that scale, they’re still significant, driven by big names like Pixar, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and TikTok. It remains to be seen if this year’s layoff trends follow last year’s, in which…

A technology company that routes millions of SMS text messages across the world has secured an exposed database that was spilling one-time security codes that may have granted users’ access to their Facebook, Google and TikTok accounts. The Asian technology and internet company YX International manufactures cellular networking equipment and provides SMS text message routing…

Electric vehicle startup Fisker is planning to lay off 15% of its workforce and says it likely does not have enough cash on hand to survive the next 12 months. The company says it is trying to find a way to raise that money as it works through a pivot from direct sales to a…

Apple CEO Tim Cook is promising that Apple will “break new ground” on GenAI this year. Cook made the pronouncement during the company’s annual shareholders meeting today, which came in the same week the company reportedly scuttled its multibillion-dollar, decade-long plan to build an EV. Some of the staff on the EV project were reassigned…

Cuts to Techstars’ staff and its decision to shutter certain accelerators came after it missed its 2023 revenue goals, according to documents outlining its preliminary 2023 results viewed by TechCrunch. Techstars also lost millions of dollars more by year’s end (in adjusted EBITA) than it had anticipated it would, additional documents that discussed mid-year performance…

Apple’s secretive car project died without ever seeing the light of day. It’s a fitting end, considering we’ve collectively spent the last decade aware of it without really knowing too much about what the tech colossus was planning.  Neither has Apple, apparently. Dozens of contemporaneous reports over that span clued the public into the vague…

Apparently Frank Slootman, the veteran tech executive, was popular with investors, at least judging from their reaction that he will be stepping down as CEO of Snowflake. The company stock price has plunged more than 24% in after-hours trading on the news. Slootman will retreat into the role of chairman of the board, while Sridhar…