After two days locked up in an Italian prison, American Max Craddock was finally able to make his case to a judge. “It’s not a weapon of war,” his lawyer told the investigating magistrate. “It’s a toy they sell to children.” Craddock had been arrested in the Sardinian port city of Olbia in June 2018 […]

Autonomous vehicle company Cruise raises a $2 billion new round, Netflix keeps growing and WhatsApp faces more privacy concerns. This is your Daily Crunch for January 19, 2021. The big story: Microsoft backs Cruise Cruise announced today that it has raised $2 billion in new funding at a $30 billion valuation, with Microsoft joining as […]

Podchaser, a startup building what it calls “IMDB for podcasts,” recently announced that it has raised $4 million in a funding round led by Greycroft. In other words, it’s a site where — similar to the Amazon-owned Internet Movie Database — users can look up who’s appeared in which podcasts, rate and review those podcasts […]

Adthena is expanding its partnership with market research company Kantar by acquiring Kantar’s paid search business. The two companies announced an agreement earlier this month, through which Adthena data will be integrated into Kantar’s ad intelligence product. Now, through this new acquisition, Adthena said Kantar search clients will get access to the Adthena product suite. […]

Bay Area-based construction startup TraceAir today announced a $3.5 million Series A. Led by London-based XTX Ventures, this round brings the company’s total funding up to $7 million. The raise includes existing investor Metropolis VC, along with new additions Liquid 2 Ventures, GEM Capital, GPS Ventures and Andrew Filev. We first noted the company back […]

Every picture posted to Facebook and Instagram gets a caption generated by an image analysis AI, and that AI just got a lot smarter. The improved system should be a treat for visually impaired users, and may help you find your photos faster in the future. Alt text is a field in an image’s metadata […]

Netflix is always in search of a better way to instantly connect users to something to watch, instead of having them waste time unsuccessfully scrolling through all the available programming options. Now, the company says a recent test focused on solving this problem, Shuffle Play, has proven popular enough to roll out to all users […]

The Qualtrics debut is going to be huge, and that matters. Can the bankers get its IPO price closer to what retail investors are willing to pay?

Netflix capped off a year of impressive streaming growth by adding 8.5 million net new paying subscribers during the fourth quarter. That means the streaming giant now has a total of 204 million paying subscribers worldwide — net growth of 37 million new subscribers for the full year, up from 28 million net additions in […]

When should deep-tech companies hire marketers, and do these hires need industry experience?

Bolt Mobility, the Miami-based micromobility startup co-founded by Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, is expanding to 48 new markets after acquiring the assets of Last Mile Holdings. Bolt Mobility’s rise and Last Mile’s demise captures the uncertainty that plagued micromobility companies in the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic upended business models that were, in […]

SpaceX’s next spacecraft is in development in Texas, and CEO Elon Musk previously revealed that the company was planning to build floating spaceports for Starship operations, after a job ad was posted looking for someone to oversee their development. Now, SpaceX has purchased two oil rigs to convert for this purpose, as first reported by […]

A new music platform, Uppbeat, aims to make it easier for YouTubers and other content creators to find quality free music to use in their videos. The system, which is designed to navigate the complexities of copyright claims while also fairly compensating artists, offers an alternative to existing free music platforms, including YouTube’s own Audio […]

Volta, the developer of a network of electric vehicle charging stations that monetize using advertising, has raised $125 million in new funding in a process managed by Goldman Sachs. Volta builds and operates a network of electric vehicle charging stations that are sited in parking lots around grocery stores, pharmacy chains, banks and hospitals. The […]