TechCrunch and Facebook are collaborating to bring TechCrunch‘s very first Startup Battlefield to Nairobi, on October 11. The pitch-off competition will feature startups from all over Africa in three categories: Productivity and Utility, Social Good, and Gaming and Entertainment. Top notch investors and founders, as well as TechCrunch editors, will serve as judges to pick the winners in Read More

We‘ve just watched 22 startups take the stage as part of TechCrunch‘s Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF, where they showed off their technology and answered tough questions from expert judges. We‘ve winnowed them down to the following six finalists, who will be presenting for a whole new panel of judges. At the end of the day, one of them will take home the Battlefield Cup Read More

iOS 11 is now available to download, First Miso Robotics flipping burger installed in a restaurant and Stack Overflow‘s salary calculator. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

Electric scooter maker Gogoro has closed a massive 300 million Series C round to expand its service. The company has sold scooters in its native Taiwan since 2015, and it Europe it offers them on a short-term rental basis. That‘s in Berlin, Germany, and Paris, France, where Gogoro provides a combined 1,600 scooters for an on-demand sharing service that‘s operated by Read More

Boundless is a Seattle based startup addressing the enormous issue of applying for immigrant status in the US. Founder Xiao Wang came to the US over when he was young from China. My family spent five months of rent money on immigration lawyers because we just didn‘t know how to do it and didn‘t know any better. And this is an experience that‘s repeated by millions Read More

Trust is one of the most important aspects of selecting a caregiver and Onva believes that it has a vetting process that‘s better than the rest. The San Francisco-based booking platform for elder, child and special needs care, screens its applicants with fingerprinting technology and FBI background checks as well as reference checks and interviews. Onva touts a 6% acceptance rate. It Read More

Talking about filling out a will and setting up life insurance is probably one of the more sensitive subjects you‘ll tackle as you get older but Dave Hanley says it‘s something that a lot of people end up dodging altogether. That‘s why he started Tomorrow, a company that makes it easier to set up life insurance and how assets and guardianship are divvied up. Rather Read More

Building hardware is fun but tough. We worked on Pebble for a full four years before we launched on Kickstarter in 2012. We went on to sell over 230 million worth of Pebbles, or just over 2 million watches. While it wasn‘t our top goal to sell to Fitbit last year, I‘m grateful that they‘re continuing to work on low-power, fun, hackable smartwatches. Startups in general are Read More

Apple just released iOS 11 to the public, and a big feature is ARKit, the company‘s SDK that lets developers easily create cool augmented reality apps. Even though Apple announced ARKit a few months ago, there aren‘t a ton of good options available right now to test out AR on your phone. But we‘ve found a few good ones that will at least let you see the potential of Read More

If I hand you an apple, you know from experience that it isn‘t something you can drive. And the tree it came from can‘t be woven, or its seeds bandied. You know that‘s nonsense, but AIs don‘t have the benefit of years spent navigating the world, and as such have no real idea as to what you can do with what but a little common sense could be coming their way. Read More

Launching on the Disrupt 2017 Startup Battlefield stage, the Danish startup Poshtel is really, really into shipping containers. And with good reason. The modular, industrial train car-esque structures are a versatile idea for the near future of housing, from providing permanent homes for the houseless to giving backpackers on a budget somewhere to crash for a night. While Poshtel sounds Read More

Forget algorithms. M8 is a dating app that‘s powered by human matchmakers. And these aren‘t just any matchmakers, they‘re your friends! M8 is unveiling its concept for a different dating app at TechCrunch Disrupt‘s Battlefield competition in San Francisco. With M8, friends can look through dating apps to find the perfect match for their friends. And if they‘re Read More

A recent deadly outbreak of salmonella has so far sickened more than 200 people throughout the Eastern and Southern United States. The culprit? Madrol papayas coming from three different distribution companies, all originating from four close by farms in Mexico. Now these distributers, the FDA and the CDC are scrambling to contain the outbreak from going further. Meanwhile, several law firms Read More

Matic, a company that wants to make the process of finding the right homeowner‘s insurance easier and more efficient, is launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt. If you‘ve ever shopped for homeowner‘s insurance, you know the process can be challenging, especially for first-time home buyers who aren‘t familiar with coverages, how they vary, or why they should pick one Read More

A startup called Lilu took the stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco to show off their prototype bra designed to help breastfeeding mothers pump milk more efficiently, and hands-free. The device, which is meant to be worn over or even attached to a standard nursing bra, utilizes a built-in compression mechanism that simulates the breast massage that some mothers perform to help Read More

Meet Augmedics, an Israeli startup that is working on an augmented reality headsets for surgeons performing spinal surgery. The company is participating in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. Computer assisted surgery systems are nothing new. Plenty of surgeons look at a screen while performing an operation. But Vizor is something new. Instead of making you look away from your Read More

Amidst all the drama happening between former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Benchmark, Kris Fredrickson has left his role as principal at Benchmark to join Coatue Management, Recode reports. Benchmark has since confirmed Fredrickson‘s departure on Twitter. 1/ Thrilled for @krisfredrickson to join Coatue as Partner. Terrific opportunity. Grateful for all Kris has done for @benchmark! Read More

New technology developed by Draper labs could help astronauts actually feel the ground beneath them. The product in question is a boot, outfitted with sensors and feedback motors that generate tactile response based on what they detect. You may not have worn space boots in the past, but they‘re very similar to any standard heavy boot - albeit likely heavier or at least thicker Read More

Something weird is going on over at Amazon. It seems the online retail giant is randomly telling some customers about purchases on their baby registry. The problem is these customers say they don‘t have a baby registry and some don‘t even have a baby. Retailers regularly keep tabs on our purchases so they can retarget us with ads and notifications based on that data in hopes we Read More

The app formerly known as Vigilante isn‘t going away. Today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, the crime tracker now known as Citizen announced that its parent company Sp0n has raised a 12 million Series A round led by Sequoia Capital. Paired with the funding news, Citizen, previously exclusive to New York City, will open its crime-conscious geogates to San Francisco. You may have heard of Citizen. Read More

Good news, Hulu subscribers with a Roku. (Or bad news, maybe, if you‘re not a fan of Hulu‘s big makeover.) The streaming service announced today its new Live TV service is now available on the Roku platform, including Roku streaming players, Roku Streaming Stick, and all Roku TV models. Specifically, the list of supported devices includes the Stick, Express/Express+ Read More

Apple today is releasing its completely redesigned iOS App Store to the wider public, as part of the launch of the new iOS 11 operating system. First previewed at its Worldwide Developer Conference in June, the new App Store has made a number of changes focused on the goal of improving app discovery across a storefront that now has over 2 million applications, according to the most recent Read More

What‘s the next 300 billion industry to be disrupted by technology? Wood. Specifically engineered wood. For background, engineered wood is the technical name for any wood product (like particle board) that is created by bonding wood chips into different shapes using an adhesive. It‘s much cheaper than using a solid piece of wood, and can be used to make anything from an Ikea desk Read More

The next project for TV from Stranger Things writer and producer Justin Doble. The overall deal means that he‘ll be producing television projects exclusively for Amazon Studios and Amazon‘s Prime Video streaming service. Doble‘s CV isn‘t limited to just his work on the Emmy-winning Stranger Things, which has been a huge surprise hit for Netflix, with a second season set Read More