Author: TechCrunch News

Amazon is giving its Alexa voice platform a shot in the arm after seeing further declines in skill growth over the past year, indicating lagging interest from third-party voice app developers. At the company’s Alexa Live developer event today, the company announced a slew of new features and tools for the developer community — its…

Fintech startup Upgrade is launching a new credit card today. The Upgrade Bitcoin Rewards Card is a classic Visa credit card that works across the Visa network. But you get 1.5% in bitcoin rewards when you make payments. Upgrade isn’t the first company to announce a credit card with bitcoin rewards — but it’s the…

This morning Mural, a startup that builds digital collaboration software with a focus on visual presentation, announced that it has closed a $50 million Series C. The new capital, co-led by prior investors Insight Partners and Tiger Global, values the startup at more than $2 billion. Previously, Mural was valued at around $500 million when…

Employment Hero co-founders Ben Thompson and Dave Tong Four months after announcing its last round, Employment Hero has closed another $140 million AUD (about $103 million USD) in funding. The Series E was led by Insight Partners, the venture capital firm known for its ScaleUp program to help tech companies accelerate their growth. Employment Hero…

Temasek and Falcon Edge Capital have led a $220 million investment in Indian omni-channel eyewear retailer Lenskart, valuing the Bangalore-based startup at $2.5 billion. The new investment, which includes primary and secondary transactions, is part of a new round Lenskart unveiled a month ago when it raised $95 million from global investment fund KKR. Bay…

Shaun O’Meara Contributor Shaun O’Meara, global field CTO at Mirantis, has worked with customers designing and building enterprise IT infrastructure for 20 years. Several weeks ago, the Linux community was rocked by the disturbing news that University of Minnesota researchers had developed (but, as it turned out, not fully executed) a method for introducing what…

Like some of the best consumer tech from the last decade, I didn’t know I needed an e-bike until I was on one, breezing down the bike lane contemplating my newfound freedom. Before buying a Nintendo Switch, I would have never guessed how much a candy-colored gaming console that I could pop out of a…

John Flavin Contributor Share on Twitter John Flavin is founder and CEO of Portal Innovations, LLC. More posts by this contributor 2021 should be a banner year for biotech startups that make smart choices early Kevin O’Connor Contributor Share on Twitter Kevin A. O’Connor, Ph.D., is a partner in the Intellectual Property practice group at…

ServiceMax, a company that builds software for the field-service industry, announced yesterday that it will go public via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The transaction comes after ServiceMax was sold to GE for $915 million in 2016, before being spun out in late 2018. The company…

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 16, 2021. A PSA: A few of us at TechCrunch took some time this week to chat about funding rounds, covering them and how…