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TechCrunch was founded in June 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare through Archimedes Ventures. It began as a blog about Web 2.0, early internet startups, venture deals, and Silicon Valley’s investment scene. Arrington, a lawyer and entrepreneur, became both editor and public face of the site in its first years.

In 2006, TechCrunch adopted the green visual scheme that would later become associated with the publication. By 2007, it had become one of the most read technology media outlets, working in the same field as Mashable and VentureBeat. Its coverage focused on venture capital and startups before they became known across the industry.

In 2007, the company launched TechCrunch40, later renamed TechCrunch50 in 2008. Yammer won the San Francisco event, gained 10,000 users and 2,000 organizations in its first day, and was later bought by Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012. In 2010, TechCrunch introduced Disrupt and Startup Battlefield, where companies such as Dropbox, Trello, Cloudflare, and Soluto received early public exposure.

AOL bought TechCrunch in 2010 for about $25 million. Arrington left in September 2011 after disputes with AOL over editorial freedom and conflicts of interest, then founded CrunchFund. Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion, later folding it with Yahoo into Oath and Verizon Media. In 2021, Apollo Global Management bought AOL, Yahoo, and TechCrunch for $5 billion. Yahoo closed TC+ in January 2024, then sold TechCrunch to Regent LP in March 2025. Soon after, its European team was shut down, including longtime editor Mike Butcher.