March 29, 2024

Web and Technology News

Ahead of Congressional hearing on child safety, X announces plans to hire 100 moderators in Austin

X, formerly Twitter, is trying to placate lawmakers about the app’s safety measures ahead of a Big Tech Congressional hearing on Wednesday, which will focus on how companies like X, Meta, TikTok, and others are protecting kids online. Over the weekend,…

Tuesday Capital, a Silicon Valley firm that moved to Austin during the pandemic, captures $31M for its newest seed-stage fund

Austin seems to agree with Tuesday Capital. When the 12-year-old seed stage outfit — originally called CrunchFund  —  was co-founded by longtime Patrick Gallagher and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, it was interwoven with the Silicon Valley scene. In has since widened its net. Part of the shift owes to the pandemic, when many venture firms […]

StellarFi lands $15M to help people build credit by paying bills, rent on time

Building credit is hard when it’s difficult to even get credit. And while it’s not impossible to get loans or credit cards, they are usually offered at high interest rates to the people who can least afford to pay them. One Austin-based startup is out to help people build — or get — credit without […]

StellarFi lands $15M to help people build credit by paying bills, rent on time by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

8VC raises $880M in new fund that aims ‘to fix a broken world’

Austin-based venture firm 8VC, led by controversial Palantir founder Jon Lonsdale, has raised $880 million in its fifth fund. In a blog post published today, Lonsdale — who serves as 8VC’s general partner — said that his firm’s mission is “to fix a broken world.” While he did not specify which industries the new fund […]

8VC raises $880M in new fund that aims ‘to fix a broken world’ by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

Fatal police shooting of startup founder puts Austin’s diversity problem in the spotlight

For years, Austin has made headlines as an evolving tech hub where startups, large companies and investors alike have flocked to set up a presence. But as 2022 closes, the Texas capital is in the news for a very different, tragic reason — being home to the sudden death of a startup founder at the […]

Fatal police shooting of startup founder puts Austin’s diversity problem in the spotlight by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

Austin-based ICON awarded $57.2 million NASA contract for lunar construction tech

ICON, a construction tech company that’s raised more than $400 million in funding, has landed a new contract from NASA to develop new systems to build on the moon and Mars. The $57.2 million contract is a continuation of a previous Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) dual-use contract with the U.S. Air Force, which was […]

Austin-based ICON awarded $57.2 million NASA contract for lunar construction tech by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

Chick-fil-A taps Refraction AI for autonomous delivery pilot

When Refraction AI was founded in 2019, its goal was to use robotics to bring down the cost of last-mile delivery. Over the past couple of years, the startup has worked directly with restaurants in its hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to offer its bike-lane bound robots as a logistics layer for customers, rather than […]

Workrise fixes API that spilled users’ personal information

Workforce management unicorn Workrise has fixed an exposed API that was spilling some users’ personal information. The Austin, Texas-based startup, which previously went by RigUp, was founded in 2014 as a marketplace for on-demand and skilled labor in the oil and gas industry. The company changed its name to Workrise in February 2021 to accommodate […]

China’s gaming giant NetEase opens first US studio in Austin

NetEase, the second-largest gaming company in China and the sixth-largest in the world, has opened its first US-based studio in Austin as China’s gaming industry slows. The company’s archrival Tencent was a step ahead in expanding to North America. TiMi, Tencent’s cash cow studio known for the mobile blockbuster Honor of Kings, began hiring in […]

TechCrunch Live speaks with Silverton Partners and The Zebra on hiring external leadership

TechCrunch Live took a virtual trip to Austin, Texas, and we had a great time, even if the tacos were missing. Called TC City Spotlight: Austin, the show featured an extended lineup of guests, including the CEO of The Zebra and its early investor, Morgan Flager, managing partner at Silverton Partners. Together, they spoke extensively […]

TechCrunch Live speaks with Silverton Partners and The Zebra on hiring external leadership

TechCrunch Live took a virtual trip to Austin, Texas, and we had a great time, even if the tacos were missing. Called TC City Spotlight: Austin, the show featured an extended lineup of guests, including the CEO of The Zebra and its early investor, Morgan Flager, managing partner at Silverton Partners. Together, they spoke extensively […]

5 predictions for Tesla Q1 earnings

As usual, it’s been a dramatic quarter for Tesla. Tesla, which will announce its first-quarter financial results Wednesday, has benefitted from a global surge in consumer demand for electric vehicles and increasingly tough fuel economy mandates implemented by governments worldwide, including the Biden Administration’s own stringent standards beginning 2024. But the $1 trillion automaker faces […]

5 predictions for Tesla Q1 earnings

As usual, it’s been a dramatic quarter for Tesla. Tesla, which will announce its first-quarter financial results Wednesday, has benefitted from a global surge in consumer demand for electric vehicles and increasingly tough fuel economy mandates implemented by governments worldwide, including the Biden Administration’s own stringent standards beginning 2024. But the $1 trillion automaker faces […]

Startups in 2022 are indeed ‘harder, Better, Faster, stronger’

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This was our live show week! Yes, Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex got together with Grace for our Friday recording on Thursday, meaning that we gathered on Hopin and Twitter Spaces to […]

Startups in 2022 are indeed ‘harder, Better, Faster, stronger’

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This was our live show week! Yes, Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex got together with Grace for our Friday recording on Thursday, meaning that we gathered on Hopin and Twitter Spaces to […]

FabuLingua wins the TechCrunch City Spotlight: Austin pitch-off!

It’s my pleasure to announce FabuLingua won today’s City Spotlight: Austin pitch-off! The company competed against knowRX Health and Vertikal X on today’s TechCrunch Live episode and won free exhibition space at TechCrunch Disrupt this October. Mark Begert pitched his company to three Austin-based investors who found his messaging and pitch to be clear, concise, […]

Billionaire investor Jim Breyer left Silicon Valley for Austin in early 2020; here’s why he loves it

It’s hard to get Jim Breyer to say a critical word, publicly, about anything, so it’s no surprise that, when asked why he moved to Austin from his longtime headquarters in Silicon Valley two years ago, he spends some time talking first about the Bay Area and its many advantages, including Stanford University and the […]

Keeping Austin wired (for high-tech manufacturing)

Motorola’s Fort Worth, Texas assembly plant lasted almost exactly a year. The message from the Google-owned smartphone brand was simple: The whole exercise had proven too difficult. “What we found was that the North American market was exceptionally tough,” Rick Osterloh stated simply at the time. The writing was already on the wall when the […]

Austin’s Will Hurley on the city’s incredible tech rise

Laura Lorek Contributor Share on Twitter Laura Lorek has lived in the Austin area since 2000, where she’s been writing about established companies like Dell, NI, IBM, Apple, Oracle, Google, Meta and tech startups like Opcity, now Realtor.com, Homeaway, now VRBO, RetailMeNot, Indeed.com, Homeward, OJO Labs and others. She also covers consumer packaged goods startups, […]