Twitter expands Spaces to anyone with 600+ followers, details plans for tickets, reminders and more
Twitter Spaces, the company’s new live audio rooms feature, is opening up more broadly. The company announced today it’s making Twitter Spaces available to any account with 600 followers or more, including both iOS and Android users. It also officially unveiled some of the features it’s preparing to launch, like Ticketed Spaces, scheduling features, reminders, […]
Facebook rolls out vaccine finder tool in India, donates $10 million
Facebook has announced a $10 million grant to support emergency response efforts in India and has rolled out its Vaccine Finder tool in the country as the South Asian nation grapples with the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The American social network said that it has partnered with a number of organizations including United […]
This Week in Apps: EU rules Apple’s a monopoly, Spotify and Facebook team up, ATT arrives
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices […]
Digital comics startup Madefire is shutting down
R.I.P. Madefire, a startup that recruited high-profile artists to reinvent comics for new formats and platforms. An announcement on the Madefire website states the company entered into “an assignment of benefit for creditors” (explained as “a state-level insolvency proceeding similar to bankruptcy”) earlier this month, which was then reported this morning in The Beat. As […]
Instagram Live takes on Clubhouse with options to mute and turn off the video
In addition to Facebook’s Clubhouse competitor built within Messenger Rooms and its experiments with a Clubhouse-like Q&A platform on the web, the company is now leveraging yet another of its largest products to take on the Clubhouse threat: Instagram Live. Today, Instagram announced it’s adding new features that will allow users to mute their microphones […]
MoviePass co-founder’s PreShow Interactive raises $3M to expand into gaming
PreShow Interactive is giving gamers a new way to earn in-game currency in exchange for watching ads — a concept that’s become familiar in mobile games but hasn’t really made much headway on PCs or consoles. The startup is led by MoviePass’ founding CEO Stacy Spikes. When I spoke to Spikes about PreShow two years […]
Vivid Money raises $73 million to build a European financial super app
German startup Vivid Money has raised a new $73 million Series B funding round (€60 million) led by Greenoaks with existing investor Ribbit Capital also participating. Following today’s funding round, Vivid Money has reached a valuation of $436 million (€360 million). Vivid Money could be considered as a Revolut competitor designed specifically for the Eurozone. […]
Daily Crunch: Uber adds vaccine booking
Uber unveils half a dozen new features, Samsung announces a new flagship laptop and Zomato files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for April 28, 2021. The big story: Uber adds vaccine booking Uber announced a half dozen new features today, including the ability to make a vaccine appointment at Walgreens and then […]
Kids-focused fintech Greenlight raises $260M in a16z-led Series D, nearly doubles valuation to $2.3B
Greenlight, the fintech company that pitches parents on kid-friendly bank accounts, has raised $260 million in a Series D funding round that nearly doubles its valuation to $2.3 billion. The funding comes just months after the Atlanta-based startup landed $215 million in funding at a $1.2 billion valuation. With the latest round, Greenlight has now […]