Did the U.S. forget to read the EU's homework? Back in 2022, the EU contended that Apple "abused a dominant position" around mobile wallets by preventing rival services from accessing the iPhone's contactless NFC payment functionality. Apple wound up planning changes afterwards, and that effort seems to have made its way into the DoJ's case against Apple's smartphone business. Oddly enough, the DoJ's case has few mentions of the EU's other work to curtail allegedly anti-competitive practices by tech companies. Read More
Speaking of the Apple case, don't expect it to have massive impacts in the short term — despite the deluge of headlines. Read More
World Fund closes €300M first fund: In some good news for European climate tech founders, a new firm in town has wrapped up its first fund. The less-good news is that World Fund fell short of its initial target for the fund by €50 million. Still, it's a handsome chunk of change that will go towards tech that we needed, like, yesterday. Read More
Edge & Node wants to use blockchain to fight big tech's data dominance: If the blockchain can do this, then I will forever stop worrying that the only use case for crypto is speculative trading. Edge & Node's project, The Graph, aims to organize and make available data on the blockchain in a manner that is both inexpensive and has rock-solid uptime. Organizing blockchain data is a good challenge. Perhaps the next one is getting more information onto the blockchain? Read More
Intuitive Machines is heading back to the Moon: Intuitive Machines was the subject of much banter after its first lunar lander wound up upside down on the Moon. However, detractors are not slowing down the company: Its "second moon mission is still on track to launch before the end of this year," TechCrunch's Aria Alamalhodaei reports. Read More
Wing Venture's Sara Choi on how to pitch VCs at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024: Our early stage event is just weeks away, and the killer lineup of speakers just keeps growing. See you in Boston in April! Read More
Nsave gets $4M to bring offshore banking to the world: When you think Swiss banking, you probably don't think of startups. But nsave is a particularly interesting Swiss banking company: It wants to help people from around the world use offshore banking to get their capital out of markets where currency fluctuations are eating away at the value of their savings. Read More
UK notches up probe of Three and Vodafone's $19B merger: The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority is taking its investigation into a proposed merger between Three and Vodafone to the next stage. The country is concerned that the combination would result in higher prices for consumers, and less investment. Yeah, more revenue and fewer expenses is probably the corporate goal here, so maybe the CMA has a case. Read More
