Some time ago, I gave up on the idea of identifying a thread that could connect each story in this weekly roundup.

As a precaution against coordinated violence as the US approaches President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, Facebook announced a few new measures it’s putting in place.

GitLab has confirmed with TechCrunch that it raised a $195 million secondary round on a $6 billion valuation.

GitLab has confirmed with TechCrunch that it oversaw a $195 million secondary sale that values the company at $6 billion.

Of course COVID-19 was bound to be an unavoidable topic during the first-ever all-virtual CES.

WhatsApp delays enforcement of a controversial privacy change, Apple may get rid of the Touch Bar in future MacBooks and Bumble files to go public.

This week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey finally responded publicly to the company’s decision to ban President Trump from its platform, writing that Twitter had “faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance” and that he did not “feel pride” about the decision.

Marc Lore, the executive vice president, president and CEO of U. S.

Coinbase has a problem. As interest in bitcoin has soared along with its price, the popular cryptocurrency exchange has found itself the target of a growing spate of angry customers who haven’t been able to access customer service.

Based on my experience, taking the 15 steps below will help build the core of a high-performing fundraising and investor relations function.

Top Hat, a startup that digitizes textbooks and turns them into an interactive experience for college students, announced on Wednesday that it has acquired yet another business: Fountainhead Press.

Group Nine Media revealed last month that it was forming a SPAC (short for special purpose acquisition corporation) in order to raise money for acquisitions.

If you’ve got an Apple TV+ trial that’s set to expire sometime between now and June, good news: you’re getting some free bonus time.

Desktop Metal this morning announced its intention to purchase fellow 3D printing company EnvisionTEC.

WhatsApp said on Friday that it won’t enforce its new data-sharing policy until May 15, weeks after news about the new terms created confusion among its users, exposed the Facebook-app to a potential lawsuit, launched a nationwide investigation, and drove a lot of its loyal fans to explore alternative messaging apps.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson knows a thing or two about unleashing developers.

Block Party, an anti-harassment startup that aims to help folks feel safer on social media founded by Tracy Chou, launched today.

On the day a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U. S.. Capitol, a worried GitHub employee warned his co-workers in the D.

The United States’ GPS system, which is operated by the Defense Department, offers every one of us critical infrastructure around what is known as positioning, navigation and timing (PNT).

The dating and networking service Bumble has filed to go public.

German startup Moss has raised a $25. 5 million (€21 million) funding round led by Valar Ventures.

The European Medical Agency (EMA) has warned that information on COVID-19-related medicines and vaccines, which was stolen in a cyber attack last December and leaked online earlier this week, includes correspondence that’s been manipulated prior to publication “in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines”.

Another Uber spinout is in the works. Postmates X, the robotics division of the on-demand delivery startup that Uber acquired last year for $2.

I suspect it will be a while before I get excited over wireless earbuds.

If you’ve been following the gaming space – or just the state of the world, generally – over the past 12 months, this shouldn’t come as a major surprise.

The pandemic might have wiped out whole swaths of the economy, but one area that is pulsating with activity is home sales.

Today, let's peek at new and historical growth numbers from Gthmhub, Perdoo, WorkBoard, Ally.

At-home health testing kit startup Everlywell has raised $75 million, following the close of the $175 million Series D it announced in December.

While many venture capitalists might hope to fund the next Amazon or Shopify, Crossbeam is a new firm focused on backing the startups built on top of these platforms.

Apple has planned new upgraded MacBook Pros for launch “later this year” according to a new report from Bloomberg.

“Most people don’t even know that a job in tech sales is even a possibility,” says Shaan Hathiramani, the founder and chief executive of Flockjay, a company offering a tech sales training curriculum to the masses.

Amazon is selling access to the underlying technology stack of Alexa to let companies — starting with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — build their own intelligent assistants with unique voices, skills and wake words.

In mid-October, a little-known but critically important domain name for one country’s internet space began to expire.

Twitter has set out its plans for US Inauguration Day 2021, next Wednesday, January 20, when president-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office as the 46th US president and vice president-elect Kamala Harris will become VP.

After a troubled year that saw broadband satellite operator OneWeb file for bankruptcy, get rescue finance from the UK government and Bharti, and then emerge out of that with a launch of part of its fleet last month, the London-based company today announced a another $1.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is the latest to be added to the Trump Administration’s military blacklist.

Lots of demand, little supply, boom goes the price.

Samsung lowers prices with its latest Galaxy S phones, Google completes its Fitbit acquisition and Beyond Meat is coming to Taco Bell.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Capsule, a video Q&A platform aimed at brands, emerged last year in direct response to the challenges companies were facing in terms of reaching consumers during the pandemic.

A dozen active investors who offer funding via revenue-based, compensation-based and blended-return streams.

Only a few weeks after its SPAC IPO, Porch today announced that it has made four acquisitions, worth a total of $122 million.

According to a recent letter sent to its investors, Tiger Global Management, the New York-based investing powerhouse, is raising a new $3.

It’s official. 2020 was one of the warmest years on record either edging out or coming in just behind 2016 for the warmest year in recorded history according to data from US government agencies.

"Tesla is arguably the most interesting connected consumer hardware company since Apple exploded in scale with the success of the iPhone.

iSpot. tv announced today that it has acquired Ace Metrix, a deal that brings two TV and video ad measurement companies together.

Philips Hue bulbs are pretty great, but they have a mortal enemy: the humble light switch.

Medium is acquiring Paris-based startup Glose for an undisclosed amount.

Confusion over an update to Facebook-owned chat platform WhatsApp’s terms and conditions has triggered an intervention by Italy’s data protection agency.

Shares of Beyond Meat are soaring on news that the company will be working with Taco Bell on new menu items.

Most developers don’t enjoy writing documentation for their code and that makes life quite a bit harder when a new team member tries to get started on working on a company’s codebase.

In a brief announcement today, the Canadian nuclear fusion technology developer General Fusion announced that the investment firm created by Shopify founder Tobias Lütke has joined the company’s cap table.

Blue Origin launched its first mission of 2021, flying its New Shepard rocket in West Texas to a medium height of just over 350,000 feet.

Parents with kids stuck learning at home during the pandemic have had to look for alternative activities to promote the hands-on learning experiences kids are missing out on due to attending class virtually.

CFOs are the supposed omniscient owners of a company. While the CEO sets strategy, messages, and builds culture, the CFO needs to know everything that it is going on in an organization.

Poshmark priced its IPO at $42 per share last night, comfortably ahead of its $35 to $39 range that already greatly boosted the company's valuation.

A new cross-industry initiative is seeking to establish a standard for digital vaccination records that can be used universally to identify COVID-19 vaccination status for individuals, in a way that can be both secure via encryption and traceable and verifiable for trustworthiness regarding their contents.

According to Plaid CEO Zach Perret, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a "sea change" in consumer behavior.

WhatsApp is facing a legal challenge in India, its biggest market, after a petition was filed Thursday before Delhi High Court over the upcoming change in the Facebook-owned app’s data sharing policy.

Harness, the startup that wants to create a suite of engineering tools to give every company the kind of technological reach that the biggest companies have, announced an $85 million Series C today on a $1.

Even before the leaks, we all saw the Galaxy Buds Pro coming. It was a given that the company was planning to deliver its own take on Apple’s AirPods Pro, with improved sound quality and active noise canceling.

Samsung wasted no time this year. With Mobile World Congress pushed back six or so months, the hardware maker hitched its wagon to the tail end of the CES whirlwind — though unlike its press conference earlier in the week, the company is very much on its own for the latest Unpacked.

A security flaw in Ring’s Neighbors app was exposing the precise locations and home addresses of users who had posted to the app.

Alongside its other announcements at Samsung’s event today, the company introduced its new Galaxy SmartTag Bluetooth locator, a lost item beacon for Samsung owners and a competitor with Tile.

Privacy concerns that have been driving app users to alternative chat apps like Signal and Telegram in recent weeks, since Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced a T&Cs change, appear to also be generating some uplift for end-to-end encrypted email providers.

Following regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the pond, Google this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of wearables pioneer, Fitbit.

Emergency services continue to be a major force when it comes to coping with the Covid-19 health pandemic, and today a company that is building technology to help them run better is announcing a round of funding to continue expanding its business.

X1 Card is raising a $12 million funding round. The company is building a credit card that sets limits based on your current and future income, not your credit score.

Blue Origin is launching its New Shepard suborbital rocket for the first time in 2021, with a liftoff planned for 9:45 AM CST (10:45 AM EST/7:45 AM PST) from its launch facility in West Texas.

Healthcare systems are always looking out for ways to save money and a startup called Lumiata has just raised $14 million to continue building out its service that aims to help them do it.

Cryptocurrency exchange company Gemini is acquiring Blockrize and announcing a new product today based on Blockrize’s work.

DecisionLink, an Atlanta-based company that provides software for cost-benefit analyses of business services from a customer’s perspective, has managed to woo one of Silicon Valley’s top venture firms to invest in its latest $18.

Amazon’s use of dark patterns that add friction to the process of terminating a Prime subscription is being targeted by 16 consumer rights groups in Europe and the US which are taking coordinated action to urge regulatory intervention.

Fintech startup Upgrade has been positioning itself as a neobank.

Tresl’s flagship product, e-commerce intelligence platform Segment Analytics, is designed to give small brands on Shopify access to the same kind of analytics larger online retailers have.

3Drens’ IoT mobility management platform not only lets fleet operators track where their vehicles are, but also produces data that helps them make business decisions.

OFLO is a voice communication system designed to replace traditional walkie talkies.

With the proliferation of subscription services, combined with our lives becoming almost 100% digital, there’s a rising need to be able to manage these services.

Google said on Thursday it has pulled some personal loan apps from Play Store in India and was implementing stronger measures to prevent abuse following reports that said several firms were targeting vulnerable borrowers in the country and then going to extreme lengths to recover their money.

Small enterprises remain one of the most underserved segments of the business market, but the growth of cloud-based services — easier to buy, easier to provision — has helped that change in recent years.

Short, snappy, entertaining videos have become an increasingly common way for young people to receive information.

Poshmark, the nine-year-old, Redwood City Ca. -based online marketplace for second-hand clothing, beauty, and home decor products, is set to start trading as a public company on the Nasdaq tomorrow after pricing 6.

Grab Financial Group said today it has raised more than $300 million in Series A funding, led by South Korean firm Hanhwa Asset Management, with participation from K3 Ventures, GGV Capital, Arbor Ventures and Flourish Ventures.

Sennder, a large digital road freight forwarder based out of Germany, has raised $160m in Series D financing.

Fresh off the announcement of more than $500 million in new capital across two new funds, Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group has announced that they’re adding Anu Sharma and Daniel Li to the team’s list of Partners.

Quite a bit has happened since Snapchat announced last week that it was indefinitely locking President Trump’s Snapchat account.

Following a comprehensive ban from Twitter and a number of other online services following last week’s assault on the Capitol by his followers, President Trump managed to put out a tweet in the form of a video address touching on the “calamity at the Capitol”… and, of course, his deplatforming.

U. S.. safety regulators have asked Tesla to recall 158,000 vehicles over media control unit failures that cause the touchscreen displays to stop working, following a months-long investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Tokyo-based SODA, which runs sneaker reselling platform SNKRDUNK, has raised a $22 million Series B led by SoftBank Ventures Asia.

One in five people have a mental health illness. Pace, a new startup founded by Pinterest and Affirm executives, wants to pay attention to the other four in that statistic.

The last several years have seen a substantial increase of ability for robotic exoskeleton technology.

Airbnb takes a big step to avoid violence at the inauguration, Intel gets a new CEO and Affirm goes public.

Weezy — an on-demand supermarket that delivers groceries in fast times such as 15 minutes — has raised $20 million in a Series A funding led by New York-based venture capital fund Left Lane Capital.

Every year, around 10 million pets go missing in the U. S.. , and millions of those end up in shelters where they aren’t always reunited with their owners, due to their lack of identification or a microchip.

With many social networks suddenly reevaluating their policies in light of political violence in the U.

The electric, autonomous vehicles of the future might be manufactured by Apple’s main supplier Foxconn and Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.

We’re always looking to make TechCrunch better, and part of that is regularly gathering feedback from the people that matter most – our readers.

The cloud isn't some omnipotent enemy here, but it is the excuse and tool that allows the mass collection of our personal data.

Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a set of fish-shaped underwater robots that can autonomously navigate and find each other, cooperating to perform tasks or just placidly school together.

Most of the takes we received were bullish regarding Plaid's chances now that it's no longer being acquired.