Encoremusical messages let you commission a video performance to send to loved ones

Encore, the U.K. marketplace that lets you find and book a musician or band online for your event, is launching a new online product to help musicians find an additional revenue stream during the coronavirus pandemic, and bring a little joy to all of us.

Dubbed musical messages, the new offering lets you pay one of Encore’s musicians to create and s

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Researchers to study if startupwrist-worn wearable can detect early COVID-19 respiratory issues

It’s highly unlikely that the current coronavirus crisis will be neatly and fully “solved” by any one endeavor or solution, which makes new studies like one involving startup WHOOP’s wrist-worn fitness and health tracking wearable all the more important. The study, conducted by the Central Queensland University Australia (CQUniversity), in

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Digital truth has been 2 years away from mainstream adoption for the previous six years. Because time, significant companies have made large Virtual Reality bets just to stroll away, many VR startups have faded or flared out as well as financial investment has reduced significantly.Building an appealing VR product for large business to educate staff members from another location has continued to be among

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Money transfer service Azimo partners with Siam Commercial Bank for faster payments to Thailand

Azimo, the London-headquartered international money transfer service, has partnered with Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) to deliver instant payments for its customers from Europe to SCB bank accounts in Thailand.

According to the World Bank, Thailand is one of the top remittance destinations globally, with $6.7 billion received from abroad

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What happens to edtech when kids go back to school?

In just a few weeks, homeschooling has gone from a rarity to a baseline in homes across the country.

Jonah Liss, a 16-year-old student at International Academy of Bloomfield Hills in Michigan, was sent home out of precaution due to the coronavirus outbreak.

While the transition has been okay for Liss, who has used some of the extra time to create a

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Cue Health awarded $13 million government contract to develop portable, point-of-care COVID-19 test

Biotech startup Cue Health has secured a $13 million contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which will be used to speed the development and testing of a handheld molecular test that can detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus that causes C

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Flux and Pleo partner to bring itemised digital receipts to Pleo‘smart& expense cards

When three former employees of Revolut founded Flux in 2016, the mission was clear: build a platform to bridge the gap between the itemised receipt data captured by a merchant’s point-of-sale (POS) system and what little information typically shows up in your bank statement or mobile banking app.

Off the back of this, the young fintech saw an

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The Centers for Illness Control and also Avoidance (CDC) guidelines and also the COVID-19 pandemic has actually risen event terminations throughout the country. Technology workforces have actually discovered means to stay effective: back-to-back Zoom telephone calls, work-from-home delighted hrs as well as more Twitter strings than anybody asked for.But Jason Craparo, the founder of events system Hio,

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Startup group works to get flat-packed protective boxes to front-line COVID-19 medical workers

There are a number of initiatives by startup companies and entrepreneurs looking to support the healthcare response to COVID-19, and one that’s addressing a need in the realm of personal protective equipment is the COVID Box project launched by a group of volunteers in Toronto that includes startup founders and employees, as well as doctors and

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Notion hits $2 billion valuation in new raise

Notion, a startup that operates a workplace productivity platform, has raised $50 million from Index Ventures and other investors at a $2 billion valuation, the company told The New York Times.

A Notion spokesperson confirmed the raise and valuation to TechCrunch.

As startups across the board begin looking at layoffs or raising at less than

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Addionics, a startup creating ‘next-gen& batteries for electric cars and more, raises $6M

Addionics, an Israeli/U.K. startup that is developed next-generation rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and other applications, has raised $6 million in funding. The round is led by Next Gear Ventures, and includes a $2.5 million grant as part of the European Union’s Horizon2020 innovation competition.

Founded by former Imperial College

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Xage adds full-stack data protection to blockchain security platform

Xage, a startup that has been taking an unusual path to secure legacy companies like oil and gas and utilities with help from the blockchain, announced a new data protection service today.

Xage CEO Duncan Greatwood, says that up until this point, the company has concentrated on protecting customers at the machine layer, but today’s announcement i

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Olive, a startup developing an automation tool for healthcare administration, raises $51 million

Time is money, as the old adage goes, and this is doubly true in healthcare systems operating with thin margins now made even thinner thanks to the loss of revenue caused by a freeze on elective procedures.

Stepping in with a technology that automates much of the time-consuming back-end processes hospitals and healthcare providers need to keep up

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Vericool raises $19.1 million for its plant-based packaging replacement for plastic coolers

Vericool, a Livermore, Calif.-based startup that’s replacing plastic coolers and packaging with plant-based products, has raised $19.1 million in a new round of financing.

The company’s stated goal is to replace traditional packaging materials like polystyrene with plant-based insulating packaging materials.

Its technology uses 100% recycled paper

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Substack offers $100K in grants for independent writers

Substack is taking several steps to support the writers and publications using its newsletter platform.

After all, just as writers and newsrooms are starting to build real businesses on Substack, the COVID-19 pandemic is dealing a huge financial blow to the media industry.

In response, the startup says it will donate $100,000 in grants — which will r

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A former chaos engineer offers 5 tips for handling online disasters remotely

I recently had a scheduled video conference call with a Fortune 100 company.

Everything on my end was ready to go; my presentation was prepared and well-practiced. I was set to talk to 30 business

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OrbitFab secures National Science Foundation funding to propel its satellite refueling tech to space

On-orbit satellite refueling technology is closer than ever to a practical reality, which could help immensely with the cost and sustainability of orbital businesses. Startup OrbitFab, a 2019 TechCrunch Battlefield finalist, is one of the companies working to make orbital refueling a reality, and it just secured a new contract from the National

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Venture capital isn&t escaping the downward spiral of the global economy

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

This morning we’re looking at what venture capitalists got up to in the first quarter of the year and how they are really responding to the current global crisis.

It’s easy to find mixed signals on Twitter, with some VCs noting that

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Venture debtnew reality: ‘The last thing we want is management walking away from a company&

Maurice Werdegar is the longtime CEO of venture debt shop Western Technology Investment, one of the most active venture debt lenders in the U.S.

It’s also one of the older firms, having loaned out money for roughly 40 years to startups that needed to achieve certain milestones, reach profitability or wanted additional runway and didn’t necessarily w

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On-demand shuttle bus start-up Via has hit a $2.25 billion valuation following a Series E funding round led by Exor, the Agnelli family members holding firm that owns stakes in PartnerRe, Ferrari and also Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.The Collection E financing round, that included other financiers, completed $400 million, according to a resource acquainted with the deal. ExorOn-demand shuttle bus

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Dining and takeout startup Allset raises $8.25M as it adapts to life under lockdown

Even though this might seem to be the absolute worst time to try to round up funding for a restaurant-related startup, Allset is announcing that it’s raised an $8.25 million Series B.

It was not, to be clear, an easy process. CEO Stas Matviyenko (who founded the company with COO Anna Polishchuk) admitted that when he set out to fundraise, the goal

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Philter Labs nets additional funding in quest to build a better portable smoking filter

Philter Labs aims to reduce the stigma associated with vaping tobacco and cannabis. The company’s product is simple enough: It’s a portable filter that, to my surprise, eliminates nearly all secondhand smoke and vapor.

The company today is announcing an additional $1 million in funding from a private equity firm that invests in the cannabis

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[Postponed] Join the FirstMark Capital squad for a live Q A on Zoom tomorrow at 9am PDT

Update: Unfortunately, we’re going to have to postpone this call. We’ll be in touch soon with the new dates. In the meantime, we have plenty of exciting calls slated and can’t wait to share them with you. Stay tuned!

Stuck at home?

JK! I know you are! You’re not alone.

FirstMark Capital partners Rick Heitzmann, Amish Jani, Matt Turck, Beth Ferreira,

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As companies get to holds with a wider (and, recently, a lot more applied) design of remote working, a start-up that offers a system to assist track as well as take care of all the gadgets that are accessing networked solutions-- an essential part of cybersecurity policy-- has raised a huge round of growth funding. Axonius, a New York-based company that lets

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How bad will SaaS churn get in the downturn?

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

This morning we’re talking about churn — the bane of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies big and small — in the new world we find ourselves in. SaaS companies, from startups to huge public firms, have built their businesses under

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How to value a startup in a downturn

The value of technology companies has fallen as the broader public markets have repriced themselves in light of COVID-19-related market and economic disruptions.

And as the public markets sort out the new value of a huge piece of global business, private companies are being shaken as well.

What happens in the public markets trickles into the private

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Leading VCs discuss how COVID-19 has impacted the world of digital health

In December 2019, Extra Crunch spoke to a group of investors leading the charge in health tech to discuss where they saw the most opportunity in the space leading into 2020.

At the time, respondents highlighted startups in digital therapeutics, telehealth and mental health that were improving medical practitioner efficiency or streamlining the

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TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco is known worldwide as the place where the early-stage startup area gathers to discover and release, connect and also work together. We understand COVID-19 has developed obstacles, however Disrupt SF is still on routine (maintain tabs on our updates below). Like startup owners all over, we quickly find out where, when and also how to

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Color is launching a high-capacity COVID-19 testing lab and will open-source its design and protocols

Genomics health technology startup Color is doing its part to address the global COVID-19 pandemic, and has detailed the steps it’s taking to support expansion of testing efforts in a new blog post and letter from CEO Othman Laraki on Tuesday. The efforts include development of a high-throughput lab that can process as many as 10,000 tests per

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Monzo CEO won&t take salary for 12 months after limited number of staff offered voluntary furlough

This article was updated 1:07 PM GMT to clarify Starling and Revolut’s furlough situation.

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank with over 4 million account holders, is taking a number of precautionary steps to help see it through the current coronavirus downturn, including voluntary furloughs and its CEO forgoing a salary, TechCrunch understands.

In an

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