sharing economy
Startups
Guesty books $170M to double down on property management tools for Airbnb and other rental platforms
Platforms like Airbnb have boomed with more consumers (and business users) than ever before keen to stay in private properties when traveling or working away from their usual home base.…
The idea for Gepek, a Croatian startup that aims to tap the sharing economy for same-day deliveries, came about because a brother and sister wanted to help their mother access…
In the world of beauty, independent professionals often end up renting a chair in a salon. Glambook reckons that market is ripe for some tech-forward disruption, not dissimilar from renting…
The gig economy is experiencing profound growth in Africa. Yet, all that growth hasn’t changed the status of workers who are seen as contractors rather than employees. Because many of…
A not-for-profit set up by a former Uber driver who successfully challenged the ride-hailing giant’s misclassification of drivers’ employment status in the U.K. has published a timely report pressing the…
EU lawmakers have formally proposed legislation for the gig economy they hope will improve conditions for platform workers across the bloc — including by establishing a framework to tackle the…
In a landmark court decision against Uber, the U.K. High Court has ruled that its business model is unlawful. The decision — which reboots the application of London’s regulations around…
California is not going to resolve this issue. Congress is not going to resolve this issue because it almost never resolves anything. So the game comes down to individual states.
Don’t let an imagined future state of regret drive a decision to launch or fund a new venture. Trends present real opportunities, but founders and investors should engage with caution.
Vacation rental startup Holidu has tucked $45 million in Series D funding into its suitcase — bringing its total raised since being founded back in 2014 to more than $120…
Mobility mavens, June 9 will be here before you know it, and that means it’s time to get your strategy ducks in a row for TC Sessions: Mobility 2021. You…
Airbnb won’t be hosting anyone in Washington DC during the week of the Presidential Inauguration, the company said in a statement. Brian Chesky took to Twitter to confirm the company’s…
Featured Article
5 questions from Airbnb’s IPO filing
Airbnb filed to go public yesterday, offering the world a look into its financial performance over the past several years. The company’s S-1 detailed an expanding travel giant with billions in annual revenue that was severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. But past our overview of Airbnb’s core financial results and…
After a tumultuous year for the travel industry, Airbnb’s long-awaited IPO filing just dropped. One thing is clear: there is still plenty of juice left in the home-sharing platform, and…
Featured Article
5 key innovations taking e-scooters to a half-billion rides in 2021
Shared e-scooters are on track to surpass half a billion rides globally in 2021. These are several of the most important innovations that got us here.
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…
This is The TechCrunch Exchange, a newsletter that goes out on Saturdays, based on the column of the same name. You can sign up for the email here. DoorDash filed to go…
Startups
Merging Airbnb and the traditional hotel model, Mexico City’s Casai raises $23 million to grow in Latin America
With travel and tourism rising across Latin America, Casai, a startup combining Airbnb single unit rentals with hotel room amenities, has raised $23 million to expand its business across Latin…
When you look at maps of micromobility across the world, it appears there’s not a ton of activity throughout Africa. Well, that’s because there’s not, Gura Ride founder and CEO…
AT TC Sessions: Mobility, we heard from Tortoise co-founder and president Dmitry Shevelenko, Elemental Excelerator director of Innovation, Mobility, Danielle Harris and Superpedestrian VP of Strategy and Policy, Avra van…
Class is about to be in session, students. If you’re passionate about mobility and transportation tech and hungry to learn from the visionaries, makers and investors who are building the…
It’s nearly October, startup fans, and that means TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 is right around the corner. On October 6 & 7, you’ll experience an incredible two-day agenda packed with…
While electric scooters first launched at scale in the U.S., they quickly made their way overseas. Now, there’s a bustling electric scooter market in Europe, China, Latin America and one…
Don’t you just love the feeling you get when crossing a task off your to-do list? It’s exponentially bigger and better when you can save $100 at the same time.…
Startups
HumanForest gets $2.3M from Cabify founders and others to grow a ‘free’ e-bike sharing service
HumanForest, a dockless, shared and ad-supported e-bike service which began trialling a service in London this June, has taken in its first tranche of external funding. The £1.8 million (~$2.3M)…
TechCrunch is on the hunt to feature 10 early-stage mobility startups at our virtual TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 pitch night. The pitch-off event, originally set for May, will now be…
Berbix, an ID verification startup that was founded by former members of the Airbnb Trust and Safety team, today announced that it has raised a $9 million Series A round…
When shelter-in-place was first announced in the United States, most companies in the travel space saw bookings drop. Some shuttered. Hipcamp, a San Francisco-based startup that provides private land for…
Airbnb has been implementing measures to help limit hosting of unauthorized parties at listings booked through its platform, and today it implemented the strictest of all: a global ban on…
New York City is on the verge of approving a shared electric scooter pilot program, opening up a potentially lucrative market and new micromobility battleground in the United States. The…