TechCrunch Industry News

Bigger isn’t always better, but when the Looking Glass Factory announces a beast of a holographic display, it tickles our rods, cones and curiosity equally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Online marketplace Etsy is launching a new Purchase Protection program for buyers and sellers on its platform, the company announced on Monday. Starting August 1st, buyers on Etsy will be eligible to receive a full refund for purchases that don’t match the item description, arrive damaged or don’t arrive at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google has disabled businesses ability to use RCS for promotion in India, the company’s biggest market by users, following reports of rampant spam by some firms in a setback for the standard that the company is hoping to be the future of SMS messaging. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Crypto platform Gemini has cut approximately 10% of its workforce, per co-founders and twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Smartphone manufacturing giant Foxconn has confirmed that a ransomware attack in late May disrupted operations at one of its Mexico-based production plants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon is launching a new invite-based ordering experience for high-demand, low-supply products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Engineers are the bedrock of any tech product, and blockchains are no exception. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Venture capital firms continue to deploy and raise capital for crypto markets despite volatility in recent weeks, with Binance Labs closing a $500 million investment fund to focus on web3 and blockchain technology adoption. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Traditional venue photography providers like DEI Global, MagicMemories, Picsolve and Sharingbox are reliant on fixed equipment, permanent staffing costs, and on-site printed products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So-called “tech for good” accelerators addressing such worthy-sounding subjects as ESGs and SDGs have appeared in the last few years. Some observers have dismissed these efforts as scalable only put to a point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HitPay has almost everything SMEs need to run their businesses. In addition to being an online payment gateway, it also offers tools like point-of-sale software with card readers, plugins, payment links and no-code online stores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Given the likely global recession, small businesses are reaching for new kinds of financing. Thus, the Buy Now Pay Later business model is now expanding into this B2B world at a rate of knots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India has withdrawn a warning that asked users to not share photocopies of their national biometric ID following a widespread uproar from users on social media, many of whom pointed that this is the first time they were hearing about such a possibility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joywell uses a proprietary microbial fermentation process to produce sweet proteins that are nearly identical to those found in exotic fruits and berries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Much of the world’s attention around blockchain is on the highs and lows of cryptocurrency values. Startups like FlexID remind us that distributed ledger technology has the potential to play other roles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Despite a gloomy outlook for crypto markets based on the past few weeks of token turbulence, venture capitalists looking to spend their way into a web3 future aren’t taking their foot off of the gas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fintech startup and alternative credit asset manager Viola Credit, has closed its latest $700 million fund which provides asset-based lending capital to FinTech, PropTech, and InsurTech startups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sometimes when there is smoke, there is actually fire. Such was the case with the rumors of Broadcom’s interest in VMware this past weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You probably know Dyson for their vacuums, or maybe that too-powerful dryer you’ve tentatively stuck your hands in while waiting for a flight. Maybe you’ve seen their hair dryers or fans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you grow this quickly, yes, you can raise capital for your software business like it's still 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When DigitialOcean bought Nimbella last year, you knew it intended to go deeper into serverless technologies, and sure enough the company announced a new feature called DigitalOcean Functions today, based on Nimbella technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’ve been following Netflix lately, then you’d know the streamer is on shaky ground at the moment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

BUD, a nascent app taking a shot at creating a metaverse for Gen Z to play and interact with each other, has raised another round of funding in three months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Technology turned out to be a boon for pets during the pandemic. Without ready access to vets, pet owners turned to mobile apps to keep track on their pet’s health, often via educational content, and in some cases that was linked to insurance providers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CleverTap, a retention marketing platform which has raised $76.6M to date, is to fully acquire Bulgarian-originated but San Francisco-based Leanplum, a customer engagement platform which has raised $131.2M, for an undisclosed amount. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everstream Analytics, a supply chain insights and risk analytics startup, today announced that it raised $24 million in a Series A round led by Morgan Stanley Investment Management with participation from Columbia Capital, StepStone Group, and DHL. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There may be some irony in upgrading a laptop designed around the principles of user repairability/upgradeability. Though certainly Framework isn’t expecting too many folks who purchased last year’s model to replace their system with the latest and greatest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India is pushing ahead with its new cybersecurity rules that will require cloud service providers and VPN operators to maintain names of their customers and their IP addresses despite many players threatening to leave the world’s second largest internet market over the new guidelines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon said it will help neighborhood stores across India launch their own digital storefronts to better serve their customers, the latest effort by the e-commerce giant as it attempts to leverage the dense network of offline stores in the key overseas market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Unit, a banking-as-a-service startup, has closed on a $100 million Series C round of funding led by Insight Partners. Existing backers Accel, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Aleph, and Flourish Ventures also participated in the financing, which values the company at $1.2 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last January, Red Hat announced that it was acquiring Kubernetes security startup StackRox, a company that had raised over $65 million since it was founded in 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sydney-based Curious Thing is an aptly-named startup. The voice AI communication platform can call people and ask them questions like “How are you feeling today?” and then follow up with “how does it feel compared to yesterday?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tech giants including Amazon, Google and Microsoft have pledged millions of dollars to bolster the security of open source software. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has suspended trading of Terraform Labs’ Terra (Luna) and TerraUSD (UST) tokens across most of its spot pairs, and for Luna, additionally across all of cross margins and isolated margins pairs following one of the biggest meltdowns in the history of cryptocurrencies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter staff must really be wishing for a quiet life… Elon Musk, the gadfly billionaire who recently decided he wants to add the social media platform to his collection of tech firms, has just tweeted that his $43BN bid to buy the company is “on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stock-outs, unpredictable prices of farm produce and a lack of working capital are among the challenges that plague small restaurants and food vendors in emerging markets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

African payments company Interswitch has secured a $110 million joint investment from LeapFrog Investments and Tana Africa Capital to scale its digital payment services across the continent, the two private investment firms said in a statement Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

VC firm Educapital recently announced that it has reached the first close of its second fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While (former) startups like Lemonade came along to attack the tired world of insurance, the travel insurance market is now coming in for the same treatment from the likes of Safetywing (covered by TCÂ here) and Battleface. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Automating customer service tasks, particularly those that require agents to speak with customers on the phone, is something of a holy grail in the enterprise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Israeli trip-planning app Moovit is integrating with Orlando-based autonomous shuttle startup Beep, which will allow riders to view options for taking Beep shuttles alongside other forms of transit, like buses or trains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cloudflare today announced that it’s collaborating with Deno, the development company behind the eponymous Deno runtime, and individual contributors of the Node.js open source project to create standards that enable developers to write code between Deno, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Atma, an Indonesian startup that wants to make job hunting less painful, announced today it has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding led by AC Ventures, with participation from Global Founders Capital. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft is throwing its weight behind Epic Games in the fight against Apple — and bringing Fortnite back to iOS in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In February, Peloton CEO John Foley stepped down as the connected fitness pioneer cut 2,800 jobs. No one could say the news was unexpected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Porsche has read the room. With its first electric vehicle now outselling the quintessential 911 sports car, the German automaker is responding by upping its bet on EVs, in part via a hefty investment in lithium-silicon battery developer Group14 Technologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pinterest on Monday launched a new app aimed at making it easier for creators to live stream to its platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amberdata, an institutionally-focused digital asset data provider, has raised $30 million in its Series B, its CEO Shawn Douglass exclusively told TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hundreds of rocket engines manufactured by startup Ursa Major will be going to space company Phantom Space over the next few years, part of a massive order that reflects Phantom’s bullish stance on the small launch market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AccelByte, a platform that helps game creators build backend services and tools, has raised $60 million in Series B led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Sony Interactive Entertainment and returning backers Galaxy Interactive and NetEase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices