TechCrunch Industry News

Drink making probably isn’t at the top of your list of jobs most likely to be fully automated. The past year-and-a-half have, however, brought into stark relief how large a role robotics could play in the food service industry. I’ve said it time and again on these pages, but the appeal is clear: Robots don’t […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Snap today announced a multi-year deal with Universal Music Group, one of the largest music companies in the world. From Queen to Justin Bieber, users can clip songs from the expansive UMG catalog to use in their Snaps and on Spotlight, the app’s TikTok competitor. This announcement comes after Snapchat added its Sounds feature in […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

Sneaker and streetwear empire GOAT just doubled its valuation in a massive new raise. The GOAT Group parent company shared today that it has raised $195 million in a Series F raise valuing the fashion giant at some $3.7 billion. The raise was led by a handful of hedge funds and P/E firms including Park […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Having read more SPAC investor decks in the last twelve months than I’d like to admit to, I thought I was over being irked by their bullishness. Call me conservative, but public companies shouldn’t be full of shit, and companies going public should probably aim for a similar target. That’s why S-1 filings for traditional […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s a big day for Kuaishou, TikTok’s largest rival in China. The Chinese short video company, known overseas for one of its video apps Kwai, announced it has sailed past the one billion monthly active user (MAU) mark. How big is that? Facebook’s MAUs stood at 2.85 billion as of March. TikTok was forecasted to […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inspired by this Hunter Walk tweet and the ensuing chatter. TechCrunch recently sat down with Leading Investor from Well Known Firm to chat about their investing theses, the state of today’s venture capital market, and why prices are so high for early-stage startups. We’ve been hunting down Leading Investor for some time, so it’s great […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com...

Freight technology startup, Forto, which we most recently covered when it raised $50 million late last year, is upping the stakes. It’s now raised $240 million in a round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 to expand its trade shipments between China and Europe. Forto manages shipping containers from origin to destination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This Thursday, Apple will mark the opening of a new store in downtown Los Angeles. The space occupies the newly renovated Tower Theatre, which opened in DTLA’s Broadway Theater District in 1927. Among other milestones, the 900-seat theater was the first in LA to be wired for the talkies, hosting a premier of “The Jazz […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chinese merchants selling on Amazon are having a moment. The scruffy exporters are used to roaming about suburban factory areas and dealing with constant cash flow strain, but suddenly they find themselves having coffee with top Chinese venture capital firms and investment representatives from internet giants, who come with big checks to hunt down the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit po...

TikTok announced today the launch of its Jump program, which expands the app’s potential for third-party integrations. TikTok began beta-testing this feature in February with Whisk, a recipe-sharing app, though only select creators could use the feature. Now, Jump will start rolling out to all users with an expanded slate of partners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

Music licensing marketplace Songtradr this morning announced a $50 million Series D. The oversubscribed round – which features Regal, Aware Super, Perennial, Argo and Greencape – follows a $30 million raise last August, bringing the Los Angeles company’s total funding to north of $100 million. The platform licenses music to high profile names for advertising, […] Learn more about your ad choices....

On-demand goods, food and alcohol delivery service Gopuff has acquired fleet management platform rideOS for $115 million to $125 million, sources familiar with the deal say. This acquisition comes just a few months after the Philadelphia-based startup announced a $1.15 billion funding round at a $8.9 billion valuation, up from $3.9 billion in October. Last […] Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...

Indian fintech startup BharatPe is in advanced stages of talks to raise about $250 million in a new financing round led by Tiger Global, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instagram Reels are getting ads. The company announced today it’s launching ads in its short-form video platform and TikTok rival, Reels, to businesses and advertisers worldwide. The ads will be up to 30 seconds in length, like Reels themselves, and vertical in format, similar to ads found in Instagram Stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The first EV will come to market just in time for Lincoln’s 100th birthday celebration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, it was only a matter of time. Advertising giant Facebook announced Wednesday that they’re going to begin testing advertising inside virtual reality titles on its Oculus platform soon. The first roll-out is limited enough, with Facebook testing ads inside a single gaming shooter title: Blaston from Resolution Games. They are interestingly not rolling this out with […] Learn more about your...

This weekend, all of your friends morphed one by one into animated, Pixar-inspired characters. This isn’t a fever dream, and you’re not alone. On Thursday, Snapchat released a Cartoon 3D Style Lens, which uses AR to make you look like a background character from “Frozen.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jaguar Land Rover is developing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle based on the new Defender SUV and plans to begin testing the prototype next year. The prototype program, known as Project Zeus, is part of JLR’s larger aim to only produce zero-tailpipe emissions vehicles by 20236. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court has given LinkedIn another chance to stop a rival company from scraping personal information from users’ public profiles, a practice LinkedIn says should be illegal but one that could have broad ramifications for internet researchers and archivists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Niantic has encouraged the world to roam the streets as Pokémon trainers and wizards… next up? Time to transform and roll out. 80’s mega toy Transformers is the latest IP to partner with Niantic to build a map-heavy, geolocation-centric game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NASA said Friday it was seeking proposals from commercial companies for two new private crewed missions to the International Space Station. The first mission would likely take place between fall of 2022 and mid-2023. The second one would follow sometime between mid-2023 and the end of 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With pent up demand from the pandemic, Canalys reports that U.S. PC shipments were up 73% over the same period last year. That added up to a total of 34 million units sold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After Apple acquired Dark Sky in March of 2020, we all knew the super-granular weather app was probably headed for shutdown. But while the company announced that the Android app would go dark in July of the same year, things were left a bit more open-ended for the iOS app. There would be “no changes” […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple has announced the next major version of macOS at WWDC 2021 — macOS Monterey. Among other features, Apple is going to release Shortcuts on macOS. It’s going to look and work a lot like Shortcuts on iOS and iPadOS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices