Author: TechCrunch News

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices…

Garrett Winther Contributor Garrett Winther is a partner and program director at HAX, SOSV’s venture program for hard tech. An engineer by training, venture builder by trade, he is bringing hard-tech ventures to life at SOSV, IDEO and MIT. When I joined the team at SOSV’s HAX, a venture program designed to help early-stage hardware…

Last week, Apple announced it wanted employees to return to the Cupertino campus for three days a week starting in September. Some employees who have grown used to the flexibility of working at home pushed back. Prior to the pandemic, with few exceptions, most employees went into an office most days. But when COVID hit…

The U.S. insurance technology market is hot and has been for years now. Back in early 2020, to pick an example, TechCrunch reported on a wave of funding events among domestic insurtech marketplaces. Those companies have since gone on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars more. And after a long period of incubation, we’ve…

French startup Lydia is better known as the dominant app for peer-to-peer payments. But the company has been adding more features, such as a debit card, account aggregation, donations, money pots and more. This week, the company is adding savings accounts thanks to a partnership with French fintech startup Cashbee. If you aren’t familiar with…

Now that we have your attention, know this: Prices go up tonight on passes to TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising. If you’re an early-stage founder (pre-seed through Series A), don’t miss this chance to save $100 on our two-day virtual event dedicated to helping you build a stronger startup. It’s one of the…

Fixed-term-funds (FTFs) have historically been a bank-to-bank market. FTF products allow for investing into some of the safest assets including, UK Government bonds, US Government bonds and highly-rated corporations. They allow holders of large amounts of cash (such as charities, private funds, family offices etc) to reduce and diversify their risk, but also increasing returns.…

One clear outcome of the pandemic was that it pushed more people to do their shopping online, and that was as true for B2B as it was for B2C. Knowing which of your B2B customers are most likely to convert puts any sales team ahead of the game. Slintel, a startup providing that kind of…

Every startup is trying to fix something but Terraformation is tackling the only problem that must matter to all of us: Climate change. This is why it’s in such a big huge hurry. Its mission — as a ‘forest tech’ startup — is to accelerate tree planting by applying a startup-y operational philosophy of scalability…

French startup Pennylane has raised a new $18.3 million funding round (€15 million). Interestingly, this is Sequoia Capital’s first investment in France after they announced ambitious expansion plans in Europe. If you’re not familiar with Pennylane, the startup has been developing an accounting platform that improves accounting for both clients and their accountants. Focused on…