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To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Midweek? More like mid-weak! Okay, terrible pun, but we’re a little low energy in this heat wave today, so it kinda made sense. Oh! And good news, btw, we’re offering 15% off Disrupt tickets (excluding online or expo tickets) for you, our trusty Daily Crunch readers. Use promo code “DC” to claim your discount ! See you tomorrow!  — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Slumdog $5-illonnaire : Landa is the latest startup to attract venture capital, in this case $33 million, to democratize real estate ownership, Mary Ann writes. Its approach enables people to invest in the real estate sector, which is known for providing generational wealth, but in a less expensive, more fractional way, and in some cases, for as little as $5 initially. Snap, crackle and . . . fizzle : Despite the myriad of news and new revenue streams we’ve reported about ...

Lyft is facing a fresh batch of lawsuits from drivers and passengers who say they were sexually and physically assaulted during rides and accused the ride-hailing company of failing to protect its users. Seventeen lawsuits were filed in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise, the law firm representing many of the victims. These are separate lawsuits and not a class-action. The lawsuits are requesting a jury trial and do not specify a specific financial award except that they’re seeking compensatory damages, including all expenses and wages owed, damages for future loss of earnings, reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses and punitive damages. The lawsuits, 13 of which were from drivers and passengers who were sexually assaulted, allege that Lyft didn’t have proper safety measures to prevent such attacks and failed to adequately respond once the assau...

NASA has finalized an agreement with SpaceX to purchase five more astronaut transportation missions to and from the International Space Station, further entrenching the space company’s position as the prime services vendor for the space agency. The new contract — for the Crew-10, Crew-11, Crew-12, Crew-13 and Crew-14 missions — is valued at $1.4 billion. It brings the total contract value for all 14 transportation missions, part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program, to $4.9 billion. The funds include use of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to transport up to four astronauts, the Falcon 9 rocket for launch and all other return and recovery operations. NASA announced its intention to order the additional missions in June. The CCtCap program is under the aegis of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, a series of public-private partnerships designed to develop domestic launch capabilities. NASA issued the original $2.6 billion contract to SpaceX in 2014. The spac...

When it comes to types of venture capital instruments, party rounds are as controversial as they come. A party round is an early-stage financing round, usually occurring between the pre-seed and Series A stages, that includes a laundry list – or “party” – of individual investors. It’s different from a more traditional round, which may look like it’s led by one or two institutional investors with a few participating investors also taking part. The investment vehicle has been around for over a decade and has been a subject of debate for just as long. The positives are obvious: With more investors on their cap table, startups have more avenues for distribution, introductions and advice throughout their lifecycle. The cons are more complicated. Is the party-round investment as helpful as capital from fewer, more commitment sources? Are there too many cooks in the kitchen? Is it a negative signal that this startup had to raise from dozens of people instead of one high-conviction partner? ...

Don’t you hate it when they give everything away in the headline? So, a belated spoiler warning that, indeed, the iPhone 14 is almost certainly going to be the big headline announcement at Apple’s September event. A few other things seem close to certain, as well, including the Apple Watch Series 8. As ever, there may be one or two wildcards at the event. It will be interesting to see precisely how much Apple ends up announcing next week. The company was more than happy to spread announcements across events, in the two+ years when everything suddenly went online. The simple truth is it’s a lot easier to ask people to drop everything to cover your event when it involves sitting in front of a computer instead of flying across the U.S. This one, on the other hand, is most likely going to be worth the flight (I mean, I hope — no refunds on the tickets). Go for launch. Tune in for a special #AppleEvent on September 7 at 10 a.m. PT.  Tap the and we’ll send you a reminder on event ...

Populus, the San Francisco-based transportation data startup, got its start as shared scooter mania took hold and cities tried to make sense of how infrastructure was being used by fleets of tiny vehicles. Now, Populus co-founder and CEO Regina Clewlow is positioning the company, which collects data on transportation fleets and shares it with cities, to take advantage another hot opportunity: curbs and congestion.  Populus has continued to ride the micromobility wave and expand into other areas such as commercial fleets, ride-hail vehicles and other new mobility forms like autonomous vehicles. Its software-as-a-service product, which is now used by more than 100 cities across the U.S. and Israel, collects data on shared fleets like scooters, e-bikes and car-sharing. That data is then shared with cities to help planners and regulators understand and manage how streets are used. Cities also can use the Populus API to share information such as restrictions on motorized vehicles, ...

Clearco , a Toronto-based fintech capital provider for online companies, is walking back the international expansion it once touted as the future of the company . One month after cutting 25% of its total staff , Clearco is conducting another round of layoffs as it retracts its international presence in the U.K., Germany, Ireland and Australia. CEO and co-founder Michele Romanow tells TechCrunch over e-mail that Clearco had to let go of approximately 60 more employees on the international teams. The latest workforce reduction is just one step Clearco has taken over the past few months, including prior rounds of layoffs, to refocus its business operations amid the changing e-commerce scene. Similar to other employees laid off by the company, those impacted will receive severance pay, a two-year window to exercise equity and job support. As Clearco’s international workforce is cut, its global clients will now turn to Outfund, an e-commerce investor that operates in the U.K. and Austral...

Women-led mobile gaming startup Robin Games raised funding around the idea of carving out a new niche in the market of “lifestyle gaming.” The idea, the company explained at the time of its 2020 public debut , was to create a fantasy gaming experience that’s more sophisticated and stylish — something more in line with the sort of content you’d typically find in a lifestyle magazine or Instagram influencer’s profile. Today, the startup is releasing its first title to tackle this concept with the launch of a mobile game, PLAYHOUSE, which combines both gameplay and shopping in one experience. Available on iOS and Android, PLAYHOUSE is a DIY design game that allows players to drag-and-drop furniture and décor into spaces to create original looks for rooms using elements like wall art, sofas, chairs, tables, plants and more. This alone doesn’t make the app unique — the interior design genre is a popular subgenre within the Simulation Games category on today’s app stores where competitors ...

Box reported fiscal Q2 2023 revenue of $246 million last week , up 15% from its year-ago result. While that pace was down slightly from the 18% growth Box posted in its prior quarter, the rate of expansion appears to be what the company fancies in terms of growth moving forward. That $246 million figure puts the company on a run rate of nearly $1 billion, a magic milestone for any SaaS company. What’s more, the company’s guidance for the current quarter of between $250 million and $252 million puts it over the top in terms of reaching a 10-figure run rate. By now, it’s well-known that Box has not had an easy time in the public markets. To get to today, it had to survive the slings and arrows of an activist investor , to pick an example, something that it has now come out the other side of.

Amazon is lagging its chief rival Flipkart in India on several key metrics and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a scathing report by investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein. The American e-commerce giant’s 2021 gross merchandise value in the country, where it has deployed over $6.5 billion , stood between $18 billion to $20 billion, lagging Flipkart’s $23 billion, the analysts said in a report to clients Tuesday that was obtained by TechCrunch. India is a key overseas market for Amazon, where it competes with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail, which launched grocery shopping on WhatsApp this week , Walmart-owned Flipkart and social commerce startups SoftBank-backed Meesho and Tiger Global-backed DealShare . Amazon has so far offered “a weaker proposition in ‘new’ commerce” in the country, the report added. At stake is one of the world’s last great growth markets. The e-commerce spending in India, the world’s second largest internet market, ...

It’s an exciting day for Studio Ghibli fans — fans in the United States and Canada, that is. The majority of Studio Ghibli’s film catalog has just been released to major digital rental platforms, such as Apple TV , Amazon , Google Play , Microsoft  and Vudu, a report by Variety confirms. For the first time, Studio Ghibli’s films can finally be rented digitally in North America. Critically acclaimed titles like “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and the award-winning “Spirited Away” will be available to rent for as low as $3.99. However, although Google Play lists the titles at a $5.99 price point, it has a sale where the titles are available to rent for just $3.99 at present. All films will be available in HD, and customers can rent original Japanese-language or English-dubbed versions. Other titles now available to rent are “Castle in the Sky,” “Ponyo,” “When Marnie Was There,” “Princess Mononoke,” “The Cat Returns,” “The Tale of The...

Kate Anthony started in the Lone Star State. It was there, in 2019, that she launched her app Euphoria , seeking to provide information and resources on gender-affirming care. She knew the stakes were going to be high, and as the state passed anti-trans legislation, she and her company were forced to flee. Settling in Denver, Anthony made a plan on what to do next. She decided to maintain business as usual while the fight for trans rights continues. She’s not alone in that decision. Many apps, if not all, that service the trans community are hyperexposed, under fire and seemingly undeterred. TechCrunch conducted a vibe check to see how trans entrepreneurs servicing their communities are navigating this moment. The Human Rights Campaign told TechCrunch that legislators in state houses have introduced 344 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session, with more than 140 specifically targeting the trans community. “We will not allow these anti-trans people to bully us into giving information.” Ayd...

Headquartered in Singapore, proptech startup Propseller is on a mission to make real estate transactions more efficient and data-driven for sellers and buyers alike. Its platform is able to tell users the likelihood of a conversion each step of the way. Today Propseller announced it has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India.   Other investors participating in the round include returning backers Hustle Fund, Iterative and Rapzo Capital, along with new investors Partech, ICCP SBIT, Vulpes Ventures and Redbadge Pacific. It also includes several prominent proptech founders, like PropertyGuru’s Jani Rautiainen, OpenAgent’s Marta Higuera, Homeday’s Steffen Wicker and Tushar Garg of Flyhomes.   Founded in 2018, Propseller will use its Series A to scale its business model, expand its offerings (including adding services like moving) and enter overseas markets. It currently has about 50 employees, including 20 salaried real estate age...

Don’t you hate it when, after going just five or 10 meters underwater, you lose signal completely? Now this vexing limitation of modern technology is being addressed by researchers at the University of Washington, who have made an underwater communication app that uses sonic signals to pass messages to your other submerged friends. It may sound silly, but millions of people could use this tech in both recreational and professional diving situations. The communication problem underwater is simple: Rradio waves are absorbed by water, and no signal our phones send or receive can travel more than a few inches without being completely lost. That’s one reason submersibles and the like need a tether: to pass data back and forth to the surface. Sound waves, on the other hand, travel through water quite readily, and are used by countless aquatic species to communicate. Not humans, though — because the way we make sound only works well in air. So for as long as anyone can remember, divers have...

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Good morning, you crunchy ol’ pirates. Good to see you again, and hope you had a swell weekend. On Wednesday, we’re hosting a healthcare-focused TechCrunch Live. It’ll be fun! Tune in here , and if you want to be part of the 2-minute pitch practice , Haje will be on the lookout for your applications. Now, grab yourself a glass of water, and settle in with some tech-newsy goodness from the TC team! — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Order up : Meta joined forces with Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms two years ago to test grocery shopping on WhatsApp in India, and Manish and Jagmeet write that customers can now “browse JioMart’s entire grocery catalog on WhatsApp, add items to a cart and make the payments via local payments rail UPI without ever leaving the instant messaging service.” Welcome back : Former Amplify co-founder and CEO Segu...

With the Twitter trial date rapidly approaching , Elon Musk’s legal team sent a subpoena to former Twitter head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, who filed a whistleblower complaint against the company that was made public last week . In the complaint,  Zatko alleges that he witnessed “egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy” within Twitter, which he says tried to hide its messy inner workings from regulators and investors. Zatko, a well-respected security researcher, joined the company in 2020 after hackers gained access to a cluster of high-profile Twitter accounts — Joe Biden and Elon Musk among them — to promote a cryptocurrency scam. He was fired in January by Parag Agrawal, who replaced Jack Dorsey as the company’s chief executive. Musk’s team is seeking a deposition and a broad swath of documents from Zatko, hoping to bolster its case before the October 17 trial in Delaware’s Chancery Court. Zatko also receive...