Author: pekandesigns

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. SaaS stocks had a good run in late 2019. TechCrunch covered their ascent, a recovery from early-year doldrums and a summer slowdown. In 2020 so far, SaaS and cloud stocks have surged to all-time highs. […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Danny and Alex are back with more than ever to get through. 2020 has come out of the gate fast when it comes to news, so much so that we had to leave out of the show way more […]

Founder Andreas Kröpfl has spent almost a decade hard-grafting in the B2B unified communications space, building a videoconferencing business with a patented single-stream system and a claim of no “drop-offs” thanks to “unique low-bandwidth technology.” His Austria-based startup’s current web-based videoconferencing system, eyeson (née Visocon), which launched in 2018, has had some nice traction since […]

We’re down in Sunnyvale, Calif., where Alchemist Accelerator is hosting a demo day for its most recent batch of companies. This is the 23rd class to graduate from Alchemist, with notable alums including LaunchDarkly, MightyHive, Matternet and Rigetti Computing. As an enterprise accelerator, Alchemist focuses on companies that make their money from other businesses, rather […]

The private launch market is an area of a lot of focus in the emerging space startup industry, not least because it unlocks the true potential of most of the rest of the market. But so far, we can count on one hand the number of new, private space launch companies that have actually transported […]

Wikipedia has surpassed a notable milestone today: The English version of the world’s largest online encyclopedia now has more than six million articles. The feat, which comes roughly 19 years after the website was founded, is a testament of “what humans can do together,” said Ryan Merkley, chief of staff at Wikimedia, the nonprofit organization […]

As the number of drones proliferates in cities and towns across America, government agencies are scrambling to find ways to manage the oncoming traffic that’s expected to clog up their airspace. Companies like Airmap and KittyHawk have raised tens of millions to develop technologies that can help cities manage congestion in the friendly skies, and […]

Video advertising company Eyeview shut down in December, but its technology will live on thanks to an acquisition by Aki Technologies. Aki CEO Scott Swanson told me that he’s anticipating serious growth in the demand for ad personalization, particularly as consumers see personalization everywhere else online. Swanson argued that Eyeview’s technology stands out thanks to […]

Some of the biggest banks in the United States are among the most powerful institutions in the world. But like every incumbent, they still have to hustle to stay relevant. Morgan Stanley has increasingly gotten behind investors who say they want to see more direct listings, for example. Some of those investors wield a lot […]