Funding to fintechs continues to decline, but at a slower pace
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at just how much fintech startups raised in 2024, a slew of fundraising deals, Plaid’s reported revenue growth last year, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00
Read moreStripe is laying off 300 people, but says it still plans to hire in 2025
Fintech giant Stripe is laying off 300 people, according to a leaked memo reported on Tuesday by Business Insider. The affected employees are “largely in product, engineering, and operations roles,” the memo said. Despite the layoffs, Chief People Officer Rob McIntosh said that Stripe intends to still grow its headcount
Read moreForum software NodeBB joins the fediverse
Before there was social media, there were internet forums. Millions of forum sites continue to operate, which is why it’s notable that one top forum software provider, NodeBB, is now joining the fediverse, also known as the open social web. The fediverse today includes apps like decentralized X rival Mastodon,
Read moreSamsung Unpacked 2025: Here’s how to watch and what we expect
The biggest reveal from last week’s Samsung CES press conference may well have been another press conference. The hardware giant closed out the main event by teasing the company’s upcoming show. The next Samsung Unpacked event is set for Wednesday at 10 a.m. PT. As with all recent Unpacked events,
Read moreMeta will soon let you link your WhatsApp account with Instagram and Facebook
Meta announced on Tuesday that users will soon be able to add their WhatsApp account to their Accounts Center, a hub where users can manage connected experiences across their Facebook, Instagram, and Meta Quest accounts. With this integration, users will be able to cross-post their WhatsApp Status as Stories on
Read moreIMDb founder steps down as CEO after 35 years
IMDb, the Amazon-owned online database that provides information on movies, TV shows, and celebrities, announced on Tuesday that its founder, Col Needham, is stepping down as CEO. Nikki Santoro, who has served as the chief operating officer since 2021, has been appointed as his successor. Santoro’s appointment is significant, as
Read moreAnthropic plans to release a ‘two-way’ voice mode for Claude
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says that the company plans to release a “two-way” voice mode for its chatbot, Claude, as well as a memory feature that lets Claude remember more about users and past conversations. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Amodei also
Read moreNemetschek Group Unveils AI Assistant
The Nemetschek Group, a software provider for the AEC/O and media industries, unveiled a preview of the AI Assistant, the group’s first AI-agent-based technology, for Archicad. Introduced at Munich’s BAU 2025, the leading trade fair for architecture, materials, and systems, the AI Assistant streamlines creative exploration while saving time and
Read moreQomodo raises $13.9M to expand BNPL for Italy’s main-street retailers
Payments and financial solutions are two-a-penny at this point, but mostly for online e-commerce. What about physical stores? In 2023 Qomodo, a Milan-based “all-in-one” payment methods aggregator for physical merchants, came out with a €34.5 million ($36.9 million) pre-seed round (mostly debt), which we covered, to expand the BNPL model
Read moreVFS Global Debuts Indonesia e-Visa on Arrival Online Platform
VFS Global has launched a new user-friendly and efficient online platform to streamline Indonesia’s Electronic Visa on Arrival (e-VoA) application process for travelers, promote inbound tourism, and improve the overall customer experience. The platform is consistent with the Indonesian government’s continuous efforts to improve tourist infrastructure and services. The new
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