Startups

The newest companies that could change the world
  • If At First Your Acqui-Hire Sucks, Try AgainCRUNCH NETWORK

    If At First Your Acqui-Hire Sucks, Try Again

    It took back-to-back acqui-hires for me to learn there’s a right way and a wrong way to do them. We had made it. Despite running low on money and having little traction, my company was acqui-hired by Yahoo in October of 2013. I was thrilled to have a large salary at a well-respected company. Seventeen months later, I was laid off. Read More
  • Why Silicon Valley Should Bring Unsexy BackCRUNCH NETWORK

    Why Silicon Valley Should Bring Unsexy Back

    Neckties embedded with QR codes. Pants that make drum noises. “Uber for medical marijuana.” These are just a few of the goofy startup ideas that have cropped up in Silicon Valley in recent years. I can’t be the only one who’s disappointed with this. The Valley is the birthplace of game-changing innovations, like the microprocessor and the PC. It’s home to… Read More
  • Urban.us Raising $10 Million Fund To Invest In Startups That Impact City Living

    Urban.us Raising $10 Million Fund To Invest In Startups That Impact City Living

    Venture fund Urban.us is gearing up to close a $10 million fund to continue investing in startups focused on impacting urban city living across mobility and logistics, environment, utilities and local government. Urban.us expects to close the fund later this year, but it has already committed some of that money to smart irrigation startup Rachio, FutureMotion, the maker of electric… Read More
  • With Debt Round, Web Publisher LittleThings Plans For More Positivity-Fueled Growth

    With Debt Round, Web Publisher LittleThings Plans For More Positivity-Fueled Growth

    There’s a good chance that you’ve never heard of LittleThings, but apparently it’s seeing rapid growth, thanks to a focus on positive and inspirational stories. In fact, according to data from NewsWhip, LittleThings was responsible for the single most popular Facebook post of 2015. The story is basically just a write up of a two-year-old video of Ann and Nancy Wilson… Read More
  • What’s The Half Life Of A Unicorn?CRUNCH NETWORK

    What’s The Half Life Of A Unicorn?

    Cybercorns are companies that have surpassed the magical $1 billion valuation. Several of these extraordinary ventures are Okta, Sophos, Tanium, Palantir, FireEye, Splunk, Zscaler, Lookout, CloudFlare, Illumio and AVAST. But in a world where technology is changing rapidly, and in which attackers are agile and focused, which of these unicorns will survive? What is the half-life, perhaps measured… Read More
  • How To Stem The Global Shortage Of Data ScientistsCRUNCH NETWORK

    How To Stem The Global Shortage Of Data Scientists

    Data scientist might be considered the “sexiest job of the 21st century,” with many companies eager to hire data science talent. But 20 years ago the term was barely used, save for a few academic articles. Even a decade ago, explaining data science to employers was challenging. Few people understood the value of a skill set that combines computer science, statistics, operations… Read More
  • The Best Apps For Finding Events

    Bored? These apps will tell you what to do tonight. From concerts and art gallery openings to street festivals and wine tastings, these apps know where the action is. Read More
  • Meet Knightscope’s Crime-Fighting Robots

    The robots might one day rise up and take over, but a Palo Alto startup called Knightscope has developed a fleet of crime-fighting machinery it hopes to keep us safe. Knightscope’s K5 security bots resemble a mix between R2D2 and a Dalek from Doctor Who – and the system behind these bots is a bit Orwellian. The K5’s have broadcasting and sophisticated monitoring… Read More
  • Thinga Launches Its Kid-Friendly Search Engine

    Thinga Launches Its Kid-Friendly Search Engine

    Yahoo Kids died a quiet death two years ago, but to BJ Heiney (who worked on the product from 1996 to 2000) the shutdown was a “travesty,” depriving kids and parents of a valuable place to find fun, safe content. He’s aiming to fill that hole with a new search engine called Thinga. Read More
  • Debian Creator Ian Murdock Dead At 42

    Debian Creator Ian Murdock Dead At 42

    Ian Murdock – the ‘ian’ in Debian – was found dead at his home in San Francisco on Monday. The cause is yet unknown. Murdock was an integral figure in the open source movement. His Debian Project – and his work at Docker – were groundbreaking. Announced in 1993 and released in 1996, Murdock named the distro after his then wife, Debra, and himself. Debian… Read More
  • Slack’s New TV Commercial Is Adorable And Effective

    Slack’s New TV Commercial Is Adorable And Effective

    If you’re in the tech world, then you know exactly what Slack is and does. As you eke outside of our little techosphere, however, you might get some puzzled faces when you talk about your favorite work communication tool. Read More
  • Credit Karma Acquires Innovative Mobile Notifications Startup Snowball

    Credit Karma Acquires Innovative Mobile Notifications Startup Snowball

    Credit and finance management platform Credit Karma, known best as the startup that offers free, no-strings-attached credit scores, has made its first acquisition. The company has acquired the makers of the mobile application Snowball, with plans to leverage the team’s expertise in mobile notifications. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the Snowball app will be pulled from… Read More
  • Uber Taps Vinli To Provide WiFi In Las Vegas Cars During CES 2016

    Uber Taps Vinli To Provide WiFi In Las Vegas Cars During CES 2016

    Las Vegas just got a touch more bearable. Uber is using Vinli and T-Mobile to equip its Vegas cars with Wifi. Thanks to Vinli’s hardware, the cars will become mobile hotspots. This is a limited time offer — just for CES. Vinli is working to add Wifi into the ridesharing equation. This is a good first step. And a wise one at that. Vegas is packed with the consumer industry’s… Read More
  • Foodpanda Lays Off 15 Percent Of Its Staff In India

    Foodpanda Lays Off 15 Percent Of Its Staff In India

    Foodpanda, the restaurant delivery service backed by Rocket Internet, has laid off about 300 of its employees in its Indian unit. This means Foodpanda India, which launched in 2012, has lost 15 percent of its workforce. Read More
  • Recognizing Probabilities In Budgeting And ForecastingCRUNCH NETWORK

    Recognizing Probabilities In Budgeting And Forecasting

    Based on practical experience with hundreds of early stage companies over many years, we generally recommend the following budgeting best practices. We call it the Bessemer Optimal Budget, and it involves explicitly recognizing probabilities in budgeting and forecasting. Read More
  • Group Commerce Startup Massdrop Is Working With Its Users To Design New Products

    Group Commerce Startup Massdrop Is Working With Its Users To Design New Products

    Massdrop’s investors have argued that the group commerce site is more a community than a straightforward marketplace. Here’s one way that Massdrop is doing things differently — a new initiative called Massdrop Collabs. The startup has built specialist communities for folks such as audiophiles and mechanical keyboard fans, and it offers group-buying opportunities to those… Read More
  • Flaming Wreckage Of Clinkle Rebuilds As A Referral Service

    Flaming Wreckage Of Clinkle Rebuilds As A Referral Service

    Clinkle imploded after employees quit en masse in May, protesting how its young CEO Lucas Duplan was mismanaging the $30 million-funded payments startup. But Duplan won’t quit. TechCrunch has attained emails showing Duplan is pivoting Clinkle away from its former ultrasound payments and loyalty debit card products. Now Clinkle is an SDK called Treats that other apps can integrate to… Read More
  • Microinsurance Is The Answer To The Insurance IndustryCRUNCH NETWORK

    Microinsurance Is The Answer To The Insurance Industry

    Let’s be real. The insurance industry has barely evolved since Benjamin Franklin introduced the concept in the late 1700s. You’d think after three hundred years and a market size of $1 trillion in the United States alone, insurance companies like MetLife and AIG would have nailed it. But they haven’t. Instead, they’ve left millions of Americans paying toward… Read More
  • Yarn’s App Lets You Share Short Clips From Movies, TV Shows And Music Videos

    Yarn’s App Lets You Share Short Clips From Movies, TV Shows And Music Videos

    GIF-sharing is so 2015. Or at least, a startup called Yarn hopes that will be the case. The team’s recently launched mobile app offers a different way to have fun while messaging your friends, by offering a way for you to search for and discover short clips from movies, TV and music videos that you can then pop into your conversation. Today, Yarn only supports Facebook Messenger, but… Read More
  • SmartThings And Samsung Team Up To Make Your TV A Smart Home Hub

    SmartThings And Samsung Team Up To Make Your TV A Smart Home Hub

    Samsung and SmartThings are buddying up to introduce Samsung’s latest line of Smart TVs, complete with SmartThings platform integration so folks can use their TVs as an interface to control the home. There is no shortage of internet-connected devices out there, from standard security systems and smart lighting systems all the way to the connected kettle. But a connective language… Read More
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