Autonomous driving startups in China are in an arms race to put passengers in their machine-driven vehicles. Every few weeks, news arrives that another major player has got the greenlight to launch a new pilot program or a small-scale service. These press releases, often dotted with regulatory jargon and flowery language to aggrandize the companies’ […]
How Meituan is redefining food delivery in China with drones
On a congested sidewalk next to a busy mall in Shenzhen, a 20-something woman uses a smartphone app to order a milk tea on Meituan, a major food delivery company. In under ten minutes, the pearl-white drink arrives, not on the back of one of the city’s ubiquitous delivery bikes, but descending from the cloudy […]
The rapidly changing investor calculus on China’s tech giants
As wave after wave of regulatory crackdowns have dominated China tech news in 2021, one can be excused for losing track of what is being regulated, who is doing the regulating, and what exactly the regulations are. From fintech to data management to education, the rules of the game are being re-written by a range […]
Europe’s quick-commerce startups are overhyped: Lessons from China
More than 10 companies currently compete across Europe with an instant grocery delivery business model. Half of them were established in 2020, the year of the pandemic.
This Week in Apps: In-app events hit the App Store, TikTok tries Stories, Apple reveals new child safety plan
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. […]
As China shakes up regulations, tech companies suffer
Things in China seem to be changing for the worse, in terms of both future access to foreign capital for Chinese companies and doing business in the country overall.
Equity Monday: China boosts pressure on its tech sector as Duolingo’s IPO looks to raise a few more bucks
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You […]