TechCrunch Startup News

I’ve been living for the past few years in a limbo between journalist and entrepreneur, trying to build startups the way I saw them being built on stage at Disrupt and discovering that my skill and will to win are no match against the world. That’s fine. These days I’ll take it. But for a few minutes in Chicago last May, I couldn’t. That day was normal for me. Learn more about your ad choices. Vis...

Propel, maker of the Fresh EBT app for managing food stamps and other benefits, announced today that it has raised $12.8 million in Series A funding. Fresh EBT (the EBT stands for the Electronics Transfer Benefit card, which is how food stamp participants receive their benefits) allows users to check their food stamp/SNAP balance and find stores that accept food stamps. Users can also track their...

Robinhood’s new high-interest, zero-fee checking and savings featureseems to be too good to be true. Users’ money may not be fully protected. The CEO of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a non-profit membership corporation that insures stock brokerages, tells TechCrunch its insurance would not apply to checking and savings accounts the way Robinhood claims. Learn more about your ad c...

The funding extravaganzamay be approaching its end for scooter “unicorns” Lime and Bird, but smaller startups in the micro-mobility space have continued to close venture capital rounds at a consistent pace. See Grin, Tier and Yellowfor examples. The latest is Dott, a European scooter startup founded by Maxim Romain, Ofo’s former head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Learn more about your ad...

PornHub, a popular site that features people in various stages of undress, saw 33.5 billion visits in 2018. There are currently 7.53 billion people on Earth. Y’all have been busy. The company, which owns most of the major porn sites online, produces a yearly report that aggregates user behavior on the site. Of particular interest, aside from the fact that all of us are horndogs, is that the U.S. L...

The lines between streetwear and luxury fashion have blurred in recent years, especially as excitement around sneaker brands like Yeezy and Off-White has soared. A marriage between a luxury fashion marketplace and a sneaker and streetwear reseller seems like a natural way to wrap up M&A in 2018. With that said, Farfetch has acquired New York-based Stadium Goods, opting to pay $250 million for the...

Fintech startup YayPay just raised another $8.4 million for its software-as-a-service solution focused on collecting money from outstanding invoices. The company participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield several years ago. Information Venture Partners led today’s funding round with existing investors Birchmere, QED, Fifth Third Capital, Gaingels and 500 Fintech Fund also participating. YayP...

Where there is discovery in an app, there is paid discovery. Google helped you choose between links, then sold ads that promote a few. Facebook helped you choose between pieces of content, then sold ads that promote a few. And eventually, as Uber helps you choose between restaurants, it will sell ads that promote a few. It could become the marketing platform through which the physical world vies f...

When the hell did building a house become so complicated? Don’t let the folks on HGTV fool you. The process of building a home nowadays is incredibly painful. Just applying for the necessary permits can be a soul-crushing undertaking that’ll have you running around the city, filling out useless forms, and waiting in motionless lines under fluorescent lights at City Hall wondering whether you shoul...

Rapper 2 Milly is suing Epic Games over Fortnite’s use of his dance move, the Milly Rock. The lawsuit claims direct infringement of copyright, contributory infringement of copyright, violation of the Right of Publicity under California Common Law, among other things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

First, background checks at startups, then Huawei’s finance chief is arrested, SoftBank’s IPO is subscribed, and I am about to record our next edition of TechCrunch Equity. It’s Thursday, December 6, 2018. TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the author (Danny at danny@techcrunch.com) if you like or hate some...

One of Europe’s most popular fitness applications is poised to flourish in the U.S. market with the help of several Los Angeles-based investors. Freeletics, headquartered in Munich, Germany, is today announcing its first round of private capital after bootstrapping since 2013. The $45 million Series A was co-led by FitLab, Causeway Media Partners and JAZZ Venture Partners, with participation from...

Telemedicine startup Nurx— once dubbed the “Uber for birth control” — has launched a direct-to-consumerHuman papillomavirus (HPV) testing kit. The addition means its customers can test for the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and a cause of genital warts and cervical cancer in the comfort of their own homes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber Eats has effectively invented its own native ad unit. Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that a test quietly running in markets around India allows restaurants to bundle several food items together and sell them at a discounted price in exchange for promoted placement by Uber Eats in a featured section of local “Specials”. In some cases, restaurants foot the cost of the discount, while in others Ub...

French startup Agricool is raising another $28 million round of funding (€25 million). The company is working on containers to grow fruits and vegetables in urban areas, starting with strawberries. Bpifrance, Danone Manifesto Ventures, Marbeuf Capital, Solomon Hykes and other business angels participated in today’s funding round. Some existing investors also participated, such as daphni, XAnge, He...

Augmented reality has been a buzzword for years, but for the most part, it has remained a novelty. WiARframe, which is competing in our Startup Battlefield competition today at Disrupt Berlin, believes that we are still very early on in the AR game and that part of what is holding the market back is that the tools need to become easier to use and that designers need to find better ways to find ins...

Lyft has finally given us a glimpse of its forthcoming line of shareable bikes, which the ridesharing company says will be available to rent within its mobile app in select cities “soon.” The news comes as the $15 billion company announces the final close of its acquisition of Motivate, the New York City-based mobility startup that owns a number of bike-rental services, like Citi Bike, Ford GoBike...

Meet Spin Analytics, a startup that wants to leverage artificial intelligence to automatically write credit risk modeling regulation reports. The company is participating in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. If you work for a big bank, you know how painful it can be to launch a new product. Every time you start selling a new asset, you need to comply with regulations around the wor...

After eight years of bootstrapping, Deputy sought scale. So the workforce management platform turned to venture capital, quickly raising a $25 million Series A in early 2017. Today, Deputy is announcing a major accomplishment: the close of an $81 million round — the largest Series B in Australian history. IVP has led the investment for the Sydney and Atlanta-headquartered company, with support fro...

The mainstream will never adopt blockchain-powered decentralized apps (dApps) if it’s a struggle to log in. They’re either forced to manage complex security keys themselves, or rely on a clunky wallet-equipped browser like MetaMask. What users need is for signing in to blockchain apps to be as easy as Login With Facebook. So that’s what Bitski built. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcast...

Airbnb has completed a much-needed hire ahead of its rumored 2019 initial public offering. Thehospitality giant has brought on Dave Stephenson, a long-time Amazon vice president and former president of Big Fish Games, as its chief financial officer. Stephenson replaces the company’s head of global financial planning and analysis, Ellie Mertz, who served as interim head of finance as Airbnb searche...

Banuba raises $7M to supercharge any app or device with the ability to really see you Walking into the office of Viktor Prokopenya – which overlooks a central London park – you would perhaps be forgiven for missing the significance of this unassuming location, just south of Victoria Station in London. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Part of Agora’s team. The cloud communications startup has offices in Santa Clara and Shanghai. Agora, a developer of cloud communication APIs, will create products for new markets and verticals after raising a $70 million Series C led by Coatue Management. Existing investors SIG, Morningside Capital, and Shunwei Capital also returned for the round, which brings Agora’s total funding so far to $12...

Move over Le Creuset? A new cookware startup founded by and for millennials is getting down to business Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine a product or industry that a new e-commerce startup hasn’t tried to remake already, fromslipperstomattresses, fromluggagetolipstick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French crowd-lending platform October (formerly known as Lendix), wants to educate more people about new ways to borrow money. That’s why the company is launching a project called Grandir Ensemble (grow together). 11 big companies are borrowing €100,000 each on October at a 2.5 percent interest rate. October users will be able to lend as little as €20 to one of these companies. If you look at the...