Our founder-focused summit, TechCrunch Early Stage, is back in-person this April in San Francisco! And we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us make this event happen. If you are interested in finding out what goes into building tech events, apply to volunteer, and if you are selecte…

In a further expansion of its policy responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine, YouTube has said it’s now blocking Kremlin-backed media outlets globally — not just in Europe where two Russia state-affiliated channels, Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, along with their subsidiaries, were sanctioned by …

Contactless stores are gaining traction, more so in Europe, but there are some trickling into the U.S., including Atlanta’s Nourish + Bloom Market that opened in January. In that article, we pointed out that the store was entering territory that included Amazon Go, 7-Eleven and Walmart. Behind som…

Over the last couple of weeks, since Russia first attacked Ukraine, we’ve been hearing about loads of tech companies joining businesses from a variety of industries in suspending sales in Russia. It’s been a broad response, and clearly sends a message that companies will not continue to conduct …

The Russian government has now said it will limit access to Instagram. It’s the latest state restriction targeting mainstream foreign tech platforms since the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is blaming a hate speech policy change by Meta, reported earlier by Reuters, for censoring Instagra…

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 saw Equity back on the live-taping game, with Mary Ann, Natasha, and Alex gathering with Grace and the TechCrunch video team (shoutout Julio and Yashad!)…

We’re no longer in startup Kansas, y’all. If current conditions hold, we’re going to see some startups struggle this year. Maybe even a lot of them.

A former Canadian government employee accused of carrying out dozens of ransomware attacks has been extradited to the United States, with more than $28 million in bitcoin seized in connection with the case. Sebastian Vachon-Desjardins, who worked as an IT consultant for Public Works and Government S…

Raven Gao didn’t set up virtual social platform MEW to ride the metaverse wave. He began working on MEW in mid-2019 with a Tencent veteran because he wanted to build a virtual safe haven for socially awkward introverts like himself. MEW’s interface can be perplexing for many people at first glan…

The European Parliament voted on Thursday to create a new “committee of inquiry” to investigate allegations that European member states acquired and used the powerful Pegasus mobile spyware. Lawmakers voted largely in favor to create the committee, which will investigate the use of Pegasus and o…