Startups Weekly: Where social startups will get funding in the future

[Editor’s note: Want to get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that startups can use by email? Subscribe here.]  While consumer tech has matured as a startup category in recent years, many investors continue to be bullish on specific trends like online gaming, voice, and the unbundling of platforms in favor of focused social networks. That’s the key takeaway from a survey that Josh Constine and Arman Tabatabai did this week with 16 of the most active investors in key social product categories over on Extra Crunch. Here’s an...

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Instacart’s hiring spree continues as it faces unprecedented demand

Instacart is adding more support roles to help its shoppers, customers, and retail partners, as the company faces unprecedented demand for its grocery delivery services due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders. Today Instacart announced that it has doubled its Care team, from 1,200 agents to 3,000 agents. Care team employees will work on answering questions about how Instacart works, delivery issues, address mishaps, and other general woes. The hiring news comes after Instacart shoppers organized a strike last month, demanding personal protective...

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Listen to our midweek chat with USV’s Albert Wenger

Earlier this week TechCrunch caught up with Union Square Ventures‘ (USV) Albert Wenger. Wenger, a managing partner at the venture firm, is well-known in the New York startup scene. USV has invested in former startups like Twitter, Twilio, Etsy and Cloudflare. TechCrunch is touching base with a number of investors during the COVID-19-driven economic slowdown. Everyone is already at home, in front of a computer, so why not get them on the phone? (Follow @TechCrunch for updates, we’re keeping the series alive over the next few weeks with more neat...

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Pangea.app raises $400K seed round to help connect student workers with businesses

Pangea.app, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup has raised a $400,000 Seed round, it told TechCrunch this week. The company’s new capital, raised as a post-money SAFE, comes from PJC, a Boston-based venture capital firm and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea.app raised money from angel investors. The company links “remote college freelancers,” per its website, to businesses around the country. College students want paid work and resume-building experience, while businesses need help with piece-work that students can help with, like graphic...

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Airbnb is buying trust during the COVID-19 travel slowdown

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Airbnb’s recent moves in the wake of a global travel slowdown are interesting and worth understanding in chronological order. What it details is a company spending heavily today to keep up its future health. Demand will return to the world travel market in time — how much, no one knows — and Airbnb wants to be a well-liked participant in the return to form. Building off our last look at the company, we should understand how Airbnb...

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Tips, tactics and cashflow strategies for startup survival during a crisis

Joe White Contributor Share on Twitter Joe is general partner of Entrepreneur First, a Greylock-backed early-stage deep tech fund; co-chair of GBx, a curated network of British entrepreneurs in the Bay Area; and a former co-founder of Moonfruit.com, a website and e-commerce platform. We’re in unprecedented times and are likely at the beginning of a long journey back to normal  —  whatever the new “normal” turns out to be. While governments rush to get debt-relief packages in place, the high-risk, high-reward tech sector will need something...

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Amid unicorn layoffs, Boston startups reflect on the future

As domestic and global economies grapple with the COVID-19 era, its impact on startups is coming into focus: All will be impacted, many will suffer and some will close. Boston, a city that TechCrunch keeps tabs on, has seen a number of well-known startups struggle in recent weeks. Their misfortunes come quickly after companies in the region recorded huge venture raises, generating notable momentum. In December, TechCrunch wrote that “despite winter’s chill, the Northeast’s tech ecosystem is white-hot,” taking into account Boston’s historical gains...

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So many Fintech eggs in so many baskets

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The whole crew was present this week: Natasha, Danny and Alex, along with our intrepid producer Chris. And like the last few episodes it was good to have everyone around as there was so very much to get through. Even better there was a lot of good, non-COVID-19 news to cover. Yes, there were bad tidings and some COVID-19 material as well, but, hey, not everything can be fun. We started with...

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Startups, VCs in India request ‘relief package’ from the government to fight coronavirus disruption

More than six dozen startup founders, venture capitalists, and lobby groups in India have requested the government to grant them a “robust relief package” to help combat severe disruptions their businesses face due to the coronavirus outbreak. In a joint letter to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, startups requested the government to bankroll 50% of their workforce’s salaries for six months, provide interest-free loans from banks, waive rent for three months, and offer tax benefits among other things. “Unfortunately, our startup companies...

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Facebook’s new ‘Quiet Mode’ option lets you turn off the app’s push notifications

Facebook today is launching a new feature called “Quiet Mode” that will allow you to minimize distractions by muting the app’s push notifications for a time frame you specify. The company announced the change as an update on its COVID Newsroom post, describing it as a way for users to set boundaries around how they spend their time on Facebook as they adjust to new routines and to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Facebook, you can either turn on or off Quiet Mode as needed or you can schedule to it run automatically...

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Facebook to supply free Portals to some care home residents under NHS scheme

The U.K. government is pulling in tech firms to connect isolated residents and patients in care with family and friends via video call devices and services during the COVID-19 crisis. First to join is Facebook, which is supplying up to 2,050 of its Portal video-calling devices for free to hospitals, care homes and other settings including hospices, in-patient learning disability and autism units. The logistical rollout will be supported Accenture. Fifty of the devices have already been deployed to pilot sites in Surrey with Manchester, Newcastle...

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$75M weed giant Caliva ditches Eaze, launches delivery

It’s a brutal time for marijuana startups. I’m hearing some are raising at 1/5th of their 2019 valuation amidst rampant competition, tall taxes, and slow legalization. The struggles for marijuana’s best-known startup, delivery service Eaze, continue as today it’s losing one of its top partners. $75 million-funded weed brand empire Caliva has dropped Eaze in favor of launching its own delivery system. By partnering with Hypur banking to solve the marijuana payments legality issue, Caliva will be able to accept contactless mobile payments unlike...

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$75M weed giant Caliva ditches Eaze, launches delivery

{rss:content:encoded} $75M weed giant Caliva ditches Eaze, launches delivery https://ift.tt/3b0yNq8 https://ift.tt/3e7J71C April 09, 2020 at 10:15PM It’s a brutal time for marijuana startups. I’m hearing some are raising at 1/5th of their 2019 valuation amidst rampant competition, tall taxes, and slow legalization. The struggles for marijuana’s best-known startup, delivery service Eaze, continue as today it’s losing one of its top partners. $75 million-funded weed brand empire Caliva has dropped Eaze in favor of launching its own delivery system. By...

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Seeqc raises $5M to help make quantum computing commercially viable

Seeqc, a startup that is part of a relatively new class of quantum computing companies that is looking at how to best use classical computing to manage quantum processors, today announced that it has raised $5 million from M Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Merck, the German pharmaceutical giant. Merck will be a strategic partner for Seeqc and will help it to develop its R&D efforts to develop useful application-specific quantum computers. With this, New York State-based Seeqc has now raised a total of $11 million, including...

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Android gets a built-in Braille keyboard

{rss:content:encoded} Android gets a built-in Braille keyboard https://ift.tt/39VCNHj https://ift.tt/2Vhsmsk April 09, 2020 at 08:25PM Android has received a wealth of accessibility features over the last couple of years, but one that has been left to third-party developers is a way for blind users to type using braille. That changes today with Android’s new built-in braille keyboard, which should soon be available as an option on all phones running version 5 and up of the OS. Braille is a complex topic in the accessibility community, as in many...

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Quibi is the anti-TikTok (that’s a bad thing)

{rss:content:encoded} Quibi is the anti-TikTok (that’s a bad thing) https://ift.tt/2yIK9kl https://ift.tt/34sTY1F April 09, 2020 at 08:06PM It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020. You can decide which best describes Quibi, Hollywood’s $1.75 billion-funded attempt at a mobile-only Netflix of six to 10-minute micro-TV show episodes. Quibi manages to miss every trend and tactic that could help make its app popular. The company seems to believe it can succeed on only its content...

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