Category: apps
Indian startups raised $9.3 billion in 2020
The coronavirus pandemic — and a handful of other factors — slowed dealmaking for startups in India this year. Compared to their record $14.5 billion fundraise last year, Indian startups are ending 2020 with about $9.3 billion. This is the first time since 2016 that startups in India, one of…
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Daily Crunch: Telegram prepares to monetize
Telegram will introduce ads, TikTok’s parent company is moving into drug discovery and President Trump continues his battle against Section 230. This is your Daily Crunch for December 23, 2020. The big story: Telegram prepares to monetize Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging app will introduce advertising next year…
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Video: TechCrunch’s editors choose their top stories of 2020
[embedded content] As the year draws to a close, we asked members of our edit staff to choose a story or two that defined the last 12 months for their beat. Kirsten Korosec: Uber evolved from a company trying to cover everything in transportation to one focused on ride hailing…
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Honk introduces a real-time, ephemeral messaging app aimed at Gen Z
A new mobile app called Honk aims to make messaging with friends a more interactive, real-time experience. Instead of sending texts off into the void and hoping for a response, friends on Honk communicate via messages that are shown live as you type, with no saved chat history and no…
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Telegram to begin monetizing the app as it approaches 500 million users
Instant messaging app Telegram is “approaching” 500 million users and plans to start generating revenue starting next year to keep the business operational, its founder Pavel Durov said on Wednesday. Durov said he has personally bankrolled the seven-year-old business so far, but as the startup scales he is looking for…
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Substack explains its ‘hands-off’ approach to content moderation
Content moderation has been a thorny topic in 2020. And when I say “thorny,” I mean in the sense of having multiple congressional hearings on the subject. Twitter and Facebook in particular have been mired in concerns around the subject, fielding complaints that they both haven’t done enough to weed…
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