Speaker manufacturer Sonos is seeing some significant changes. Patrick Spence, the company’s chief executive officer (pictured above), is leaving the company after eight years in the job. Tom Conrad, the co-founder of Pandora and a Sonos board member, is stepping in as interim CEO starting today. Last year was complicated for the speaker manufacturer. The company released a major update to its … [Read more...]

Float Financial, an expense management and corporate card startup focused on the Canadian market, has raised $48.5 million in a Series B funding round. The Toronto-based fintech likens itself to U.S.-based fintech giants Brex and Ramp but says it is different in that its sole focus is on Canadian SMBs, which CEO and co-founder Rob Khazzam said are “overlooked due to Canada’s banking monopoly and … [Read more...]

A hack and data breach at location data broker Gravy Analytics is threatening the privacy of millions of people around the world, whose smartphone apps unwittingly revealed their location data collected by the data giant. The full scale of the data breach isn’t yet known, but the alleged hacker has already published a large sample of location data from top consumer phone apps — including fitness … [Read more...]

Nominet, the U.K. domain registry that maintains .co.uk domains, has experienced a cybersecurity incident that it confirmed is linked to the recent exploitation of a new Ivanti VPN vulnerability. In an email to customers, seen by TechCrunch, Nominet warned of an “ongoing security incident” under investigation. Nominet said hackers accessed its systems via “third-party VPN software supplied … [Read more...]

Healthcare is proving to be one of the more lucrative industries when it comes to building AI solutions to speed up how work is carried out across clinical, research and administrative operations. Today comes one of the latest examples of how that is playing out in terms of venture funding. Qventus, a startup that builds AI-based tools to automate work across a range of healthcare scenarios — they … [Read more...]

Coreweave, the $19 billion cloud computing company that provides companies with AI compute resources, has formally opened its first two data centers in the U.K. — its first outside its domestic U.S. market. CoreWeave opened its European headquarters in London last May, shortly after hitting a $19 billion valuation off the back of a $1.1. billion fundraise. At the same time, the company announced … [Read more...]

Decentralized social network organization Mastodon said Monday that it is planning to create a new non-profit organization in Europe and hand over ownership of entities responsible for key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components. This means one person won’t have control over the entire project. The organization is trying to differentiate itself from social networks controlled by CEOs like Elon … [Read more...]

In 2023, the U.K. made a big song and dance about the need to consider the harms of AI, giving itself a leading role in the wider conversation around AI safety. Now, it’s whistling a very different tune: today, the government announced a sweeping plan and a big bet on AI investments to develop what it calls a “decade of national renewal.”  Included in the so-called “Plan for Change” will be … [Read more...]

Groww, India’s largest retail stockbroker, is positioning itself to file for an IPO in 10-12 months and is seeking a valuation between $6 billion to $8 billion, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, in what would be a landmark listing for the country’s fintech sector. The Bengaluru-headquartered’s listing would be the first IPO by a digital-age trading platform in India. The targeted … [Read more...]

Around the world, public healthcare systems have struggled to reset post-pandemic, and in particular, the increasingly aged populations in Western countries are putting pressure on services, not least in the UK where ‘NHS in crisis’ is a regular headline in the media. As a result, private companies, many powered with technology, see a gap in the market. It’s with this background that Cera, a … [Read more...]

Fire-tracking app Watch Duty has become a crucial source of information for Los Angeles residents threatened by the ongoing wildfires.  As TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff explained, the app relies on a network of active and retired firefighters, first responders, official government reports, and volunteer reporters who monitor radio scanners to offer real-time updates on active … [Read more...]

Even before CES 2025 kicked off a few trends began to emerge — or more accurately, some gaps appeared.  All U.S. and some European automakers that have helped turn CES into an auto show were absent. Several Chinese automakers filled that void, notably Zeekr, the EV brand owned by China’s Geely Holdings. Wey, a premium brand under Great Wall Motor, and Xpeng also had booths.  The … [Read more...]

After more than two years — and nearly 100 episodes — as a host of TechCrunch’s recently ended Found podcast, I have learned a lot about how founders approach building their startups. I’ve heard stories about how founders know when it is the right time to expand from their core product, to how startups approach hiring, to what got entrepreneurs to take the leap in the first place, and everything … [Read more...]

Apple’s next major iPhone upgrade will include a new model called the iPhone 17 Air, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. This seems like an obvious way to expand the lineup, given Apple’s success with the Air moniker for thinner MacBooks and iPads (I’m currently typing these words on my MacBook Air), and could be more appealing than the iPhone Plus or mini. Gurman writes that the iPhone … [Read more...]

With iOS 18, Apple rolled out Apple Intelligence, which includes an AI-powered feature for summarizing notifications. When you get a bunch of notifications from one app, the feature summarizes the content of all notifications in one card that appears on the lock screen. You can dismiss the stack after you have read the summary, or tap on it to check out individual notifications. However, the … [Read more...]

Open source makes the technology world go ’round, forming as much as 90% of the modern software stack via frameworks; libraries; databases; operating systems; and countless standalone applications. The benefits of open source software are well understood, promising greater control and transparency. However, there’s a perennial struggle between the open source and proprietary realms, leading many … [Read more...]

Apple’s board of directors has come out in opposition to a proposal seeking to end the company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.  In a proxy filing, the company said the National Center for Public Policy Research (a conservative think tank) is submitting a proposal for Apple to “consider abolishing its Inclusion & Diversity program, policies, department and … [Read more...]

So-called reasoning AI models are becoming easier — and cheaper — to develop. On Friday, NovaSky, a team of researchers based out of UC Berkeley’s Sky Computing Lab, released Sky-T1-32B-Preview, a reasoning model that’s competitive with an earlier version of OpenAI’s o1 on a number of key benchmarks. Sky-T1 appears to be the first truly open source reasoning model in the sense that it can be … [Read more...]

Why does it cost some companies hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a popular video game? A couple weeks ago, The New York Times blamed the never-ending quest to deliver more photo-realistic graphics— and it suggested the industry is beginning to see diminishing returns, leading to layoffs and studio closures. However, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier argues this analysis is “a little bit … [Read more...]

Welcome back to Week in Review. I missed you! This week, we’re diving into all the gadgets and announcements out of this year’s CES, Meta’s decision to roll back its fact-checking program, TikTok’s response to employees affected by the California wildfires, and more! Let’s do this. CES 2025 came and went this week. The event featured keynotes from the big players in tech like Nvidia, Samsung, … [Read more...]