Author: TechCrunch News

Austin-based venture firm 8VC, led by controversial Palantir founder Joe Lonsdale, has raised $880 million in its fifth fund. In a blog post published today, Lonsdale — who serves as 8VC’s general partner — said that his firm’s mission is “to fix a broken world.” While he did not specify which industries the new fund…

The big, giant message Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other execs tried to impart during its four-hour Tesla Investor Day was how the company would be the driver of a global shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. Investors, at least those active after the market closed, weren’t impressed perhaps because it lacked that…

Maintaining Snap Streaks — where you send a snap to your friend once every 24 hours — is really important to a lot of Snapchat users. To bank on that fact, the company is now allowing users to pause their Snap streaks, so they don’t have to worry about breaking them if they decide to…

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. TikTok just can’t dodge the watchful eyes of the watchmen: Earlier this year, Taylor reported that a string of universities banned TikTok from devices. Last week, Paul reported that the European Commission…

StudentFinance, a European fintech that funds educational programs for individuals through so-called income share agreements, has raised €39 million ($41 million) in a Series A round of funding. Founded out of Spain in 2019, StudentFinance partners with educational institutions such as Ironhack and Le Wagon to help finance those looking to upskill into disciplines like software…

On a recent winter morning in New Delhi, Rajan Anandan and Pieter Kemps were pacing on the floor of a five-star hotel, quizzing a group of over two dozen young startup founders about their goals. One founder set eyes on getting the most downloads in the mobile gaming category. Another pledged to reach an annual…

Amazon has struck a deal with embattled online mortgage lender Better.com to offer up a new benefit to employees. Better.com is launching Equity Unlocker, a program that allows employees to use their vested equity as collateral for a down payment when trying to buy homes. Amazon employees in Florida, New York and Washington State will…

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. There’s another episode out of Inside Startup Battlefield, the podcast mini-documentary getting a behind-the-scenes look at the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield. Maggie just dropped the new EP: Getting to know the Battlefield 200.…

A new Mastodon app called Mammoth has already gained 10,000 downloads in the first few days of its availability on the App Store. The app was built by a team that includes the developer of the Aviary app for Twitter, which was among those unceremoniously killed by Twitter earlier this year after new owner Elon…

The FTC, fresh off announcing a whole new division taking on “snake oil” in tech, has sent another shot across the bows of the over-eager industry with a sassy warning to “keep your AI claims in check.” I wrote a little while ago (okay, five years) that “AI Powered” is the meaningless tech equivalent of…