Author: TechCrunch News

It’s that time of week again, folks. Welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular digest of the past week in tech. New here? Not to worry — sign up here to get WiR in your inbox every Saturday, then read on for the week’s recap. This week, we’re covering Netflix quietly axing its basic…

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. This week, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how some of the biggest companies in the world have as much — if not more — power than entire countries. Most countries, at least, have some level of democratic…

Travis VanderZanden’s slow-motion departure from Bird is now complete. The scooter rental company announced in a late-Friday news dump that the executive has stepped down from his role as chairperson of Bird’s board, “effective immediately.” Replacing VanderZanden is John Bitove, who played a role in saving Bird’s bacon this past December via its merger with…

Apple is the first publicly traded company to close a trading day with a $3 trillion market value. The company’s shares climbed about 2.31% on Friday to a new high. The tech giant first reached a $3 trillion market cap back in January 2022, but failed to close at that level. Apple’s stock has skyrocketed…

Fund of funds (FoF) were created to serve as a bridge for LPs to get access to managers they couldn’t back otherwise. But in an environment where funds are not seeing consistent support from their existing LPs, and there are more venture funds than ever, is their role still relevant? Fund of funds fundraising —…

Everyone knows that raising venture capital has been harder for startups lately — unless you are building an AI startup, of course. But instead of only talking to founders, we’re flipping the script today. We wanted to hear from investors how their portcos are handling a cash-light environment. To that end, TechCrunch+ recently asked 11…

Seoul-based e-commerce company Levit, an operator of the shopping app Alwayz, wants to make the shopping experience more entertaining and affordable. The two-year-old startup has recently raised $46 million in a Series B round of funding led by DST Global Partners with participation from new investor BOND and existing backers KB Investment, Mirae Asset Capital,…

The moment Amazon feared when FTC Chair Lina Khan was appointed may soon arrive: Bloomberg reports that the agency is putting the final touches on its most substantial antitrust case against the tech giant, and could file suit in the next few weeks. According to documents viewed by Bloomberg and sources familiar, the upcoming suit…

Credit card giant Visa is acquiring Brazilian payments infrastructure startup Pismo for $1 billion in cash in what is likely one of the largest fintech M&A deals taking place this year so far. Founded in 2016 by Juliana Motta (CPO), Ricardo Josua (CEO), Daniela Binatti (CTO), and Marcelo Parise (VP of engineering), São Paulo–based Pismo…

The past few wildfire seasons in the United States and Canada have been some of the most memorable — and dangerous — on record. But despite the billions of dollars that each government pours into fighting fires, first responders are still in need of real-time wildfire detection and monitoring data. Enter Spire Global and OroraTech.…