While the coronavirus has accelerated the dealmaking pace for many early-stage startups, activity has not come without adaptation. Remote investment struggles for investors were clear from the get go: it’s challenging to invest millions in someone you have never met, and there’s not a lot to learn from “off-the-cuff” conversations that are calendared days in…
Category: COVID-
Notes from a chat with Appian CEO Matt Calkins Now that the great Y Combinator rush is behind us, we’re returning to a topic many of you really seem to care about: no-code and low-code apps and their development. We’ve explored the theme a few times recently, once from a venture-capital perspective, and another time…
The last couple of years have been tough on the smartphone industry, as sales plateaued and eventually eroded. But nothing could have prepared manufacturers for 2020. This was supposed to be the year numbers began bouncing back, courtesy of 5G and some radical new designs. But the real figures have been utterly dismal. According to…
Before the COVID-19 epidemic, Density was being used by companies like TechCrunch’s parent company, Verizon, to see how it could better use office space after the Yahoo!/Aol merger. Now, thanks to the COVID-19 epidemic everyone wants the company’s technology to track building and room occupancy and use. It’s one reason why the company managed to…
Questionable stories on COVID-19 from state-backed outlets in Russia, China, Turkey and Iran are being shared more widely than reporting by major news organizations around the world, according to Oxford analysts. French, German, Spanish and English news sites see far less social engagement than these foreign-originated ones in their languages. The study is part of…
The COVID Tracking Project reported on Monday that COVID-19 deaths continue to fall in the United States but also noted in a series of tweets the number of cases is up slightly over the past seven days and that they are watching closely five states where current hospitalizations have increased over the past two weeks.…
A lot of U.S.companies have had near-death experiences in recent months. Among them is Branch, a 1.5-year-old, venture-backed New York-based startup that sells what it calls “exceptional office furniture, at half the price” — and which nearly went kaput because of the pandemic. After generating roughly $800,000 in revenue in the first weeks of March,…
On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” host Anderson Cooper said that protesters are “putting themselves at greater risk” from coronavirus because “That is how urgently people want real and lasting change” and remarked on the White House not arranging its chairs for a press conference for social distancing by saying, “So much for all those…
Many lost jobs in the U.S. are unlikely to recover due to disruptions in supply chains and consumer demand. A study from the University of Chicago suggests that even a vaccine may not aid economic recovery. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz predicts double-digit unemployment until 2022. When the U.S. recovers from the coronavirus pandemic and reopens…
The elder care crisis in Pennsylvania was highlighted this week when data released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health showed the average age of those who have died of COVID-19 in the state is 80 years old and that more than two-thirds of the 4,505 who died of the virus as of Tuesday morning were…