Business

An email circulated to 500 Startups staffers by its Mountain View accelerator lead and partner Elizabeth Yin makes several claims that contradict the narrative presented by leadership so far. In the email, Yin resigns effective Friday, citing the lack of transparency and ‘several untruths’ presented by 500 Leadership. This email …

Tesla is likely to reveal the first production model of its hotly anticipated Model 3 this week, according to CEO Elon Musk, with the first batch of customers on track to get their vehicles by July 28. Musk took to Twitter, as he so often does, to reveal that the …

500 Startups has apologized to its Australian partner LaunchVic after the U.S. firm admitted that it failed to disclose an internal investigation into sexual harassment claims against co-founding partner Dave McClure. LaunchVic is a $460 million entrepreneurship scheme backed by the government of Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state. It’s a major …

The venture capital industry’s corrosive gender bias, on full display in the past few months, has already cost one of its most valuable new companies billions of dollars; brought about the dissolution of one partnership; and forced the resignation of one of its most public spokesmen. It’s also been on …

Microsoft is poised to layoff thousands of employees worldwide in a move to reorganize its salesforce. A source with knowledge of the planned downsizing told TechCrunch that the U.S. firm would lay off “thousands” of staff across the world. The restructuring is set to include an organizational merger that involves its …

Dave McClure, the founder and public face of 500 Startups — one of the most prolific and best-known accelerator programs for early stage companies — has stepped away from managing the firm he set up and largely built in his own image. McClure is the latest venture capitalist to be …

As impact investing gains traction in the market, a new accelerator for tech nonprofits called Fast Forward has raised $2.2 million in philanthropic funding from the nonprofit arms of some of the world’s largest companies and financial services firms. BlackRock, Google.org, Comcast NBCUniversal, and ATT joined Zendesk, Twilio.org, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the …

It’s still hard to say if the voice-controlled aluminum can will be the next smartphone or the next Segway, but either way, brands are preparing. This morning Adobe launched a new set of analytics tools, Adobe Sensei for Voice, to help brands take advantage of conversational data to improve targeting …

Almost every year my buddy Jack Deneut has helped set up PragueCrunch, our kind-of-semi-annual celebration of Czech startups. And it’s happening again this year! The event is on July 13, 2017 at Riegrovy Sady Beer Garden. You can RSVP here. We’ll have Kozel and Gambrinus beer all night and traditional …

Chinese startup Tantan, which is probably most comparable to Tinder, has raised $70 million in new capital as it looks to monetize its business for the first time and explore overseas expansion options. Three-year-old Tantan claims 60 million ‘validated’ users — i.e. not fake accounts — of which six million …