Deal to create one of world’s biggest chemicals groups beset by management clashes

Cheap shale gas has fed an investment boom in products that often end up as waste. Has the petrochemicals industry miscalculated?

Demand surges as hospitals require more medical oxygen for coronavirus patients on ventilators

A number of UK entrepreneurs have banded together to survey Angels about their investment strategy. The initiative comes in the wake of the UK government’s “Future Fund” for startups, which has been criticized as being inadequate for the needs of Angel and Seed-stage startups. The group hopes the survey will give the UK early-stage investment […]

Meet Kairn, a new startup coming out of stealth today with a sneak peek of what the company has been working on. As Wunderlist shuts down, Kairn wants to prove that there’s still room for an innovative task-management service. “We’re building a task manager that is smart and focused on capturing tasks,” co-founder and CEO […]

Countingup, the business current account that “automates” your accounting, has raised £4 million in self-described bridge funding. Leading the round is ING Ventures, with co-investment from Triple Point, CVentures, and BiG Start Ventures. Founded by Tim Fouracre, who previously founded cloud accounting software Clear Books, and now boasting 20,000 business customers, Countingup’s long term vision […]

Deep Render, a London startup and spin-out of Imperial College that is applying machine learning to image compression, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Pentech, with participation from Speedinvest. Founded in mid-2017 by Arsalan Zafar and Chri Besenbruch, who met while studying Computer Science at Imperial College London, Deep Render […]

“Is Greta Thunberg a hypocrite?” Google that phrase and you will get thousands of results. It just goes to show that, to a large extent, the “Q&A” model is broken on the internet. Where once Yahoo Answers and Quora were considered the bright young things of Web 2.0’s “Read/Write Web,” today there is only the […]

Rich countries need to fund infectious disease treatments properly

Your guide to the investment and business revolution you can’t afford to ignore

Under lockdown, communities are finding new ways to voice their defiance, anger and support

Your guide to the investment and business revolution you can’t afford to ignore

As US health workers suffer from inadequate protection, there are signs of a shifting world order

Gillian Tett on how to assess risk in the age of coronavirus

This week we continue to look at how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the world of apps, plus the use of live-streaming apps as fundraising tools and more.

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a jumpstart for your week. Equity had a busy last few days, so to help you catch up: Friday’s episode was a lot of fun (Duolingo, Figma, OMERS, and aquafaba), and we also dropped an Equity Shot on Saturday, digging into the first major technology earnings week. […]

The new president should ensure governments grasp the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy

Research shows that the policy has had an adverse effect on economic growth

Investment strategies have failed to prepare the country for the technology shock

But statistics that show how many days one country is behind another are humbug

It is hard to overstate the turn to Euroscepticism. It will not go away when lockdown ends

It would be the underlying law and EU treaty that needs changing, not the ruling

COP25 attempts to confront climate change

UK government spending faces increasing pressures

Paige, the Sloan-Kettering spinout that has been building an artificial intelligence platform to improve cancer pathology and subsequently use those insights to develop better drug therapies, has raised an additional $5 million in funding to continue its work commercialising its platform and expanding its research reach, while also getting FDA clearance to launch in hospitals […]

The regulators said “NO” when Telefonica tried to combine its O2 operations in the UK with rival carrier, Hutchison-owned Three, back in 2015. But Telefonica didn’t let go of the idea of divestment, and five years later, in the middle of a health pandemic with related threats of a global economic depression looming over us, […]

Carmaker puts brakes on dividends and buybacks in order to preserve liquidity

The plan may be to keep the ‘pedal to the metal’ but self-funding is still out of range

In spite of being in the midst of a pandemic sowing economic uncertainty, one area that continues to thrive is cloud computing. Perhaps that explains why Microsoft, which saw Azure grow 59% in its most recent earnings report, announced plans to open a new data center in New Zealand once it receives approval from the […]

2020 and 2021 will be one of the periodic transitional eras in gaming as Sony and Microsoft debut their shiny new consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. To ease the process (and spur adoption of the next generation), EA may make its upcoming titles free to “upgrade” to your chosen console. On an […]

Microsoft and Amazon are at it again as the fight for the Defense Department JEDI contract continues. In a recent series of increasingly acerbic pronouncements, the two companies continue their ongoing spat over the $10 billion, decade-long JEDI contract spoils. As you may recall (or not), last fall in a surprise move, the DoD selected […]

Mike Mackenzie’s daily analysis of what’s moving global markets

First New York listing by a Chinese company since Luckin Coffee debacle

The coronavirus outbreak has driven more consumers to turn to their smart speakers for news, information, music and entertainment, according to new data released today by NPR and Edison Research. Around three-quarters of U.S. adults 18 and up said their routines have been impacted due to COVID-19 and their media habits have changed as a […]

This week we continue to look at how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the world of apps, plus the use of live-streaming apps as fundraising tools and more.

Twitter announced today it’s introducing a new layout for replies that will use lines and indentations to make it easier to understand who you’re replying to and how the conversation is flowing. The company will also test putting engagement actions — including likes, Retweet and reply icons — behind an extra tap to make replies […]

Pinterest is introducing new features that make it easier for those planning recipes, virtual events and other quarantine activities. These include the ability to add a date or notes to a board as well as automated ways to better organize your pins on a given board, with the aid of machine learning technology. The company […]

Target, which already owns on-demand delivery service Shipt, is in the process of acquiring technology assets from same-day delivery service Deliv. The retailer is characterizing the deal as more of an R&D type of acquisition and not one that will have an immediate consumer-facing impact. Deal terms were not disclosed, but we understand the deal […]

Investors seek better-quality government bonds

What the experts are forecasting for next year

I own a flat in London but I am looking to buy a house further out and commute every day

I employ 10 people and also own a couple of buy-to-let properties

My mother has early onset dementia and her health is deteriorating rapidly

My ex-husband and I have recently divorced and have a school-aged son

I own three properties and want to buy another with my new partner

Now that I’ve retired, I want to buy my first collector’s car

Our household income has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic

We are returning to the UK from the US following the virus outbreak

What are the alternatives to court for a divorcing couple?