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Daily Crunch: Stimulus bill increases penalties for illegal streaming services The stimulus bill includes significant changes to copyright law and enforcement, the Biden administration may have to build a presidential Twitter following from scratch and we round up the startups that shut down this year. This is your Daily Crunch for December 22, 2020. The big story: Stimulus bill increases penalties for illegal streaming services While we wrote several stories yesterday about the tech implicatio...

The big story: Telegram prepares to monetize Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging app will introduce advertising next year on public one-to-many channels. Durov wrote on his Telegram channel the ad platform will be “one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of server and traffic.” He also pointed to premium stickers as another way that Telegram could monetize, while emphasizing that existing features will remain free and that he does not support...

One final $100M ARR company and the startups we want to meet in 2021 As we head toward the exits of 2020, we have one more name to add to our roll call of private companies that have reached the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) milestone. Well, one and a half. But before we get into Nexthink and give Coalition a honorable mention, let’s talk about the startups we’re looking for in 2021. The $100 million ARR list came together by accident, a quirk of a news cycle that happened to ...

MIT Media Lab names Dava Newman as new director MIT’s famous Media Lab, the multidisciplinary idea factory that produces many a fascinating invention and influential thinker, has found a new director in its backyard after scouring the globe for candidates. Dava Newman, MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics and former deputy administrator of NASA under Obama, will helm the intellectual hub. The Media Lab is famed for its freewheeling techno-intellectual prowess, but for more than a yea...

As 2020 ends, new unicorn formation continues to impress Here in the final few working days of 2020, a surprising number of new unicorns have come to light. The mad scramble that investors are seeing in seed-stage startups appears to be reflected across the later stages as well. That deal-making is still alive is not a surprise, but the cadence at which the market is crowning new unicorns is slightly startling, given the time of year. I’ve given up expecting a slowdown in venture capital, but...

The big story: Stimulus bill includes money for broadband and energy The $900 billion pandemic relief bill that lawmakers agreed on over the weekend includes a number of provisions that could have a significant impact on the tech industry. For one thing, it commits $7 billion to increase broadband access, including $50 monthly payments to help qualifying families pay for broadband. The bill also includes $1.9 billion to “rip and replace” equipment from Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei. And ...

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How Zoox turned a failed Series C into the future I often begin calls with founders by asking why they’re willing to bet their livelihoods on an idea that will most likely fail. It’s a small hack that lets me see how vulnerable a founder is, and how much conviction they have behind their ideas. Sometimes, if they answer, it’s the lede of my story. And sometimes, if they don’t answer, it’s the reason I don’t write the story. As blunt as the question sounds, it can spark the best answ...

Orbital refueling and manufacturing go from theory to reality in 2021 The idea of satellites and other spacecraft being able to refuel, repair or even add new capabilities while in orbit has generally seemed like a “nice in theory” one, but as leaders from Maxar, Astroscale and Orbit Fab explained at TC Sessions: Space, 2021 will be the year that theory becomes reality — or at the very least, realistic. Once they go up, satellites are generally considered fixed assets that only depreciate...

How Zoox turned a failed Series C into the future TechCrunch 12/19/2020 Natasha Mascarenhas I often begin calls with founders by asking why they’re willing to bet their livelihoods on an idea that will most likely fail. It’s a small hack that lets me see how vulnerable a founder is, and how much conviction they have behind their ideas. Sometimes, if they answer, it’s the lede of my story. And sometimes, if they don’t answer, it’s the reason I don’t write the story....