According to a new report by Singapore-based venture capital firm Life.SREDA, last year was a mixed bag for fintech.On the one hand, the Money of the Future Report pegs 2016 as the first year to have an overall decrease in fintech funding after taking into account any outliers. By their calculations, dealflow slowed in the last couple of quarters of the year, while the amount of funding flowing...

Better products at lower prices are helping China’s drone giant take control of a fast-growing industry. The nascent drone market is growing. And one company has been rising to the top in many industry categories, with few serious competitors: China’s DJI.Stats for the drone market are somewhat hard to come by. Most top drone companies are not publicly held and are often based in China. And f...

There’s no doubt about the challenge ahead of McDonald’s. How do you reimagine and transform the greasiest beacon of American food on the planet into a modern restaurant chain that gives people what they want—healthier food served more efficiently? Certainly, McDonald’s has been feeling the need to change for some time. Executives there have watched same-store sales growth shrink for more t...

Few brands would be willing to hand control of its branding’s art direction over to its consumers, but that is exactly what Danish baby care brand Natursutten did. After scrolling through thousands of sweet images that show babies using their toxin-free products on Instagram—where it has a sizeable following—the company picked 12 adorable babies from around the world to feature on their new...

Could the skyscraper of the future dispense homes like a vending machine? Growing and adapting to Tokyo’s housing demand, this Pod Skyscraper is constantly under construction. Residents can order a ready-to-use modular dwelling manufactured by 3D printers on the top floor of the building, and then cranes lower it into place. The innovative skyscraper, designed by Haseef Rafiei, received honora...

A perfect storm of market changes is bearing down on the semiconductor industry, roiling existing business models. Long used to selling to a handful of PC and networking companies—and to shaping the path of technological development—chip makers must now work within a broader and more demanding set of ecosystems.They must create more chips for more diverse uses and contend with the increasing...

Uber Technologies Inc. isn’t required to report its finances publicly, but the privately held company has decided to forgo that luxury for the first time. Uber said its revenue growth is outpacing losses, hoping to show the business is on a strong trajectory as it attempts to address a recent cascade of scandals.The ride-hailing giant more than doubled gross bookings in 2016 to $20 billion, ac...

Rules governing the use of food delivery robots remain to be seen across the US. But major food businesses are investigating the possibilities already. In the latest deal, Yelp Eat24 has begun testing delivery by robot in partnership with Marble in select San Francisco neighborhoods.TechCrunch spied Marble’s delivery robots, stickered with a Yelp Eat24 logo, earlier this month. But the compani...

The key component of the solar-powered water harvester is the metal organic framework (in red) that is able to capture water molecules even in low humidity conditions.According to the latest report by the World Health Organization, nearly two billion people lack access to clean drinking water. To address this problem, researchers from UC Berkeley and MIT have created a solar-powered device that...