LG officially pulled the plug on its smartphone division in April of last year. It was another signpost in a dramatically changing mobile market that had left the electronics giant behind. HTC tends to be lumped into that conversation, though the Taiwanese manufacture has – in spite of everything –…
All this startup news, and we didn’t even talk about Juul
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today Natasha and Alex were on the mics, kicking back and riffing through the biggest technology stories of the week. Our dear Mary Ann was off this week, but will be ba…
Facebook Pay rebrands to Meta Pay as Zuckerberg details plans to create a digital wallet for the metaverse
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Facebook Pay has officially been renamed Meta Pay. The current product features and overall user experience that people are used to with Facebook Pay will remain the same across across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. The change is rolli…
Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Unity and others form Metaverse Standards Forum
As more tech companies develop virtual and augmented reality products, some oversight groups are trying to keep the industry on the same page. The newest of these is the Metaverse Standards Forum, which aims to drive open interoperability, which could make it easier for developers to build across p…
Meta’s latest VR headset prototypes will help it pass the ‘Visual Turing test’
Meta wants to make it clear it's not giving up on high-end VR experiences yet. So, in a rare move, the company is spilling the beans on several VR headset prototypes at once.
Tatsumeeko wants to bring the metaverse to Discord
Tatsumeeko, an “MMORPG-lite” game on Ethereum and Solana developed by the team behind cross-gaming platform ecosystem Tatsu.GG, announced today that it has raised $7.5 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by DeFiance Capital, Delphi Ventures and BITKRAFT Ventures, with participation from i…
Meta brings game development platform Crayta to Facebook Gaming’s cloud streaming service
Meta announced today that it’s bringing Roblox-like Crayta, a game development platform that lets you build and play games with your friends in real-time, to Facebook Gaming’s cloud streaming service. The company says Crayta provides an easy-to-use developer toolkit and makes game creat…
Why more funding equates more peace of mind for TRIPP and its users
LA-born startup TRIPP doesn’t want the metaverse to be a mere “shopping mall for virtual consumers,” its founder Nanea Reeves told TechCrunch. Instead, Reeves’ company is envisioning a metaverse experience that can “deepen connection to self, facilitate mental well-bei…
Having a great "ask" slide can reassure investors: It shows a founder wants to raise an amount of money that unlocks the next stage of growth and knows what milestones they need to hit to get there.