Sequoia Capital puts millions of dollars into Gather, a virtual HQ platform

Gather helps people, well, gather in virtual spaces for any reason, whether it be for weddings, magic conventions, or, just a regular day at work. Over the past few months, as remote workers look for better ways to interact with each other, the startup has quietly amassed more than 4 million users, and today, an …

SkyMul’s drones secure rebar on the fly to speed up construction

There are many jobs in the construction industry that fall under the “dull, dirty, and dangerous” category said to be ripe for automation — but only a few can actually be taken on with today’s technology. One such job is the crucial but repetitive task of rebar tying, which a startup called SkyMul is aiming …

6 Copenhagen investors share their outlook on investing in 2021

While Denmark and Copenhagen don’t often come up as a destination for European startups, it has a thriving local tech scene that’s home to some of the better startup conferences. After all, who doesn’t want to visit Copenhagen? A highly educated population, great universities, excellent healthcare and great transport links to Europe make the city …

This Week in Apps: Sneak peek at TikTok shopping, new iOS and Android betas, kids’ app Prodigy hit with FTC complaint

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 …

Daily Crunch: Jack Dorsey and Jay Z invest in bitcoin development

Jack Dorsey and Jay Z create a bitcoin endowment, Datadog acquires a Startup Battlefield company and BuzzFeed experiments with AI-generated quizzes. This is your Daily Crunch for February 12, 2021. Oh, and before we get started: Consider applying to the Early Stage pitch off and submitting a pitch deck for feedback on Extra Crunch Live! …

Rocket.Chat raises $19M for its open-source approach to integrated enterprise messaging

Chat platforms like Slack have been game-changers when it comes to what business users want and expect out of their work communications. Today, a company that’s aiming to move the goalpost again with an integrated, open-source alternative is announcing some funding to fuel its growth. Rocket.Chat, a startup and open-source-based platform of the same name …

Data automotive startup Otonomo to go public via SPAC

Otonomo, the cloud-based software startup that help companies capture and monetize connected car data, is headed to the public market. The Israeli-based startup said Monday it has agreed to merge with special purpose acquisition company Software Acquisition Group Inc. II with a valuation of $1.4 billion. Otonomo is joining a growing pool of automotive startups that …

Despite Brexit and COVID-19, Irish investors remain bullish

Ireland’s technology scene has come in leaps and bounds in the last decade, with a growing VC scene, plenty of startups and tech giants attracted by the nation’s favorable tax incentives and talent pool. Google, Facebook, Slack, Microsoft and Dropbox each have a European headquarters sited in Dublin. As the EU’s only remaining English-language speaking …

Twitter’s new API platform now opened to academic researchers

Twitter today is rolling out a new product track on its API platform, as part of its ongoing efforts to rebuild the Twitter API from the ground up. The track, which aims to serve the needs of the academic research community’s efforts, offers broader access to the Twitter archive and fewer restrictions on tweet retrievals, …