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Jul 12, 2020
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch's China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, the unprecedented national security law descended on Hong Kong, changing the day-to-day life of the people there, as well as businesses across the […]
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Jul 12, 2020
Qualcomm has become the newest high-profile backer of four-year-old Reliance Jio Platforms, which has raised more than $15.7 billion in the past 12 weeks from as many investors. On Sunday evening, Qualcomm Ventures said it will invest $97 million in Reliance Jio Platforms to acquire a 0.15% equity stake "on a fully diluted basis" in the […]
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Jul 11, 2020
Editor's note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here. You could almost hear the internet cracking apart this week as international businesses pulled away from Hong Kong and the US considered a ban on TikTok. Software can no longer eat the entire […]
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Jul 11, 2020
With the release of "Hamilton" on Disney , Jordan and Darrell finally got to watch the musical biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton — albeit in recorded form, rather than live on-stage. And as we discuss on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, they were pretty delighted by what they found. Not that a […]
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Jul 11, 2020
This week we dig into the news of a possible TikTok ban in the U.S. Also, both Android and iOS saw beta launches. We also look at the coronavirus' impact on the app economy in Q2, and more.
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Jul 11, 2020
Welcome to The Exchange, an upcoming weekly newsletter featuring TechCrunch and Extra Crunch reporting on startups, money, and markets. You can sign up for it here to receive it regularly when it launches on July 25th. You can email me about it here, or talk to me about it on Twitter. Let's go! Ahead of parsing […]
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Jul 10, 2020
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has admitted that there is no practical way for Americans to avoid having their movements tracked by its license plate readers, according to its latest privacy assessment. CBP published its new assessment — three years after its first — to notify the public that it plans to tap into a […]
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Jul 10, 2020
We look at Rackspace's finances, a Facebook code change causes numerous app issues and electric vehicle company Rivian raises $2.5 billion. Here's your Daily Crunch for July 10, 2020. The big story: Rackspace is going public again The cloud computing company first went public in 2008, before accepting a $4.3 billion offer to go private […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Google announced its plans to acquire Fitbit for $2.1 billion back in November. As of this writing, the deal has yet to go through, courtesy of all the usual regulatory scrutiny that occurs any time one large company buys another. EU regulators are often a key hurdle for these sorts of deals, and this time […]
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Jul 10, 2020
In its first few weeks of release, the latest game from QuizUp founder Thor Fridriksson took the top spot in the Games Section of Apple's App Store and was the top app (for a brief time) in the App Store at large. Since its launch on June 17, Trivia Royale has been downloaded more than […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Replicated, the Los Angeles-based company pitching monitoring and management services for Kubernetes-based applications, has managed to bring on the former head of product of the $2.75 billion-valued programming giant, GitLab, as its new chief product officer. Mark Pundsack is joining the company as it moves to scale its business. At GitLab Pundsack saw the company […]
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Jul 10, 2020
HBO Max, the WarnerMedia-owned streaming service that launched in May, announced today that it has made a series commitment to an untitled TV show tied to the movie "The Batman" (currently scheduled for release in 2021). The show will be set in the Gotham City police department, with a creative team that includes Matt Reeves, […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Hey, ya'll. I'm experimenting with a bi-weekly roundup that looks at the state of labor in tech. We'll use this space to explore topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion, the future of work, issues relating to pay equality, notable personnel changes and much more. This week, we're looking at Facebook's civil rights audit, a […]
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Jul 10, 2020
If you're an angel who invested in a startup that was meant to go public in 2014, you might be getting a little bit impatient. High-risk, high-reward investing has lost its shine in this environment: the stock market is a mess these days, and you want your cash back. Enter recapitalization events, where startups restructure […]
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Jul 10, 2020
After going private in 2016 after accepting a $32 per share, or $4.3 billion, price from Apollo Global Management, Rackspace is looking once again to the public markets. First going public in 2008, Rackspace is taking second aim at a public offering around 12 years after its initial debut. The company describes its business as […]
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Jul 10, 2020
When Mallun Yen started Operator Collective last year, she wanted to build an investment firm for people who didn't have a voice in Silicon Valley. That meant connecting women and people of color with operators who have been intimately involved in building companies from the ground up, then providing early-stage investment. She then brought in […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Fringe is a new company pitching employers on a service offering lifestyle benefits for their employees in addition to, or instead of, more traditional benefits packages. "We didn't think it made sense that employees need to be sick, disabled, dead or 65 to benefit from their benefits," wrote Fringe chief executive Jordan Peace, in an […]
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Jul 10, 2020
As expected, fintech company nCino has raised its IPO price range. The North Carolina-based banking software firm now expects to sell its shares for between $28 and $29 per share, far more than its initial price range of $22 to $24 per share. At its $28 to $29 per-share price interval, nCino is worth $2.50 […]
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Jul 10, 2020
How should society address the scenario where the AI algorithm got it right but from an ethical standpoint, we're uncomfortable with the results?
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Jul 10, 2020
Nanoleaf essentially created a new smart lighting category with its connected light panels, and since then it has iterated with its pixel-like Canvas, and most recently, its new Shapes Hexagons. The Hexagons already seem to be proving popular with customers, since they're currently waitlisted, but I got the chance to spend some time with them […]
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Jul 10, 2020
If you're an iPhone user, odds are fairly good you spent a frustrating portion of the morning attempting to reopen apps. I know my morning walk was dampened by the inability to fire up Spotify. Plenty of other users reported similar issues with a number of apps, including Pinterest and Waze. The issue has since […]
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Jul 10, 2020
The biggest story to come out of the post-March stock market boom has been explosive growth in the value of technology shares. Software companies in particular have seen their fortunes recover; since March lows, public software companies' valuations have more than doubled, according to one basket of SaaS and cloud stocks compiled by a Silicon […]
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Jul 10, 2020
When Ming-Chi Kuo offers up a new report, Apple followers listen. The latest offering from the analyst adds key detail to the potential roadmap for Apple's recently-announced push into its home baked ARM-based processors. Once again, Kuo notes that a 13.3-inch MacBook will be arrive in the fourth quarter of this year, sporting Apple's own […]
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Jul 10, 2020
TC Early Stage on July 21 and 22 will virtually bring together 50 experts across startup core competencies to give you the tools you'll need to be able to keep building your business and protect your assets. If you're on the fence about attending, here are just five reasons why you should get your tickets […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Rivian, the electric vehicle company aiming to become the first to bring an EV pickup truck to market, has raised $2.5 billion in a round led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. New investors Soros Fund Management LLC, Coatue, Fidelity Management and Research Company and Baron Capital Group also participated. […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We wound up having more to talk about than we had time for but we packed as much as we could into 34 minutes. So, climb aboard with Danny, Natasha, and myself for another episode of Equity. Before […]
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Jul 10, 2020
NASA has signed a new agreement with Japan that lays out plans for the two nations to cooperate on the International Space Station (continuing existing partnership between the countries there) as well as on NASA's Artemis program, which includes missions in lunar space and to the lunar surface. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine signed the agreement […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Food delivery startups in India have been struggling to make financial sense for years. They have each lost as much as $50 million a month to win and sustain customers by offering heavy discounts. And unlike some other markets, food delivery startups in India have been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic. But Zomato, one […]
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Jul 10, 2020
Spring 2020 was gloomy for Klook. As countries closed their borders and went into complete or partial lockdown, the SoftBank-backed travel platform saw its revenue plummet by as much as 90% through March and April. The World Travel and Tourism Council said in April that the coronavirus could put up to 100 million jobs in […]
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Jul 10, 2020
According to a report in Politico, California has become the 49th state to launch an antitrust investigation into Google. California and Alabama were the only states that did not participate in an antitrust investigation by 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, that began in September and is focused on Google's dominance in […]
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Jul 10, 2020
The Trump administration is set to finalize regulations this week that ban the United States government from working with contractors who use technology from five Chinese companies: Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, Dahua and Hytera Communications, according to a Reuters report. The ban was first introduced as a provision in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that […]
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Jul 10, 2020
The Trump administration is set to finalize regulations this week that ban the United States government from working with contractors who use technology from five Chinese companies: Huawei, ZTE, Hikvision, Dahua and Hytera Communications, according to a Reuters report. The ban was first introduced as a provision in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that […]
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Jul 09, 2020
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. is "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps, including the Chinese-owned company TikTok, comparing it to other Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE that have been deemed national security threats by the current administration. "With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, […]
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Jul 09, 2020
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. is "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps, including the Chinese-owned company TikTok, comparing it to other Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE that have been deemed national security threats by the current administration. "With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, […]
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Jul 09, 2020
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the U.S. is "looking at" banning Chinese social media apps, including the Chinese-owned company TikTok, comparing it to other Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE that have been deemed national security threats by the current administration. "With respect to Chinese apps on people's cell phones, […]
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Jul 09, 2020
A beta version of Apple's latest mobile operating system is available to the public, Coinbase may go public and researchers discover a frightening smartwatch vulnerability. Here's your Daily Crunch for July 9, 2020. The big story: Apple releases public beta of iOS 14 Developers are no longer the only ones who can try out the […]
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Jul 09, 2020
PC shipments had a rough first quarter for all of the same reasons as everything that isn't a Clorox wipe or N95 mask. People just weren't ready to drop a ton of money on a new device. The impact of COVID-19 was lessened slightly by IT departments and individuals adapting to the new remote working […]
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Jul 09, 2020
In a statement issued this week, the U.S. Treasury Department notes that Amazon has agreed to pay $134,523 to settle potential liability over alleged sanctions violations. The charges specifically pertain to goods and services sent to people located in Crimea, Iran and Syria, which are covered by Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions, between […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Harley-Davidson, the storied and struggling Milwaukee-based company that last year launched its first production electric motorcycle in an effort to reboot sales and appeal to a younger customer base, is cutting 700 jobs from its global operations. About 500 workers will be laid off before the end of the year, the company said Thursday. The […]
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Jul 09, 2020
TikTok likes and views are broken for some unknown portion of the video app's user base this afternoon. The impacted users are seeing a "zero" like count on TikTok posts, including their own and those of other app users, as well as "zero" views. The company has acknowledged the issue and says it's working on […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Apple today announced its plans for a new, free resource aimed at helping educators of all skill levels gain the ability to teach both Swift and Xcode — the latest in Apple's educational initiatives focused on encouraging more students to learn app development. On July 13, Apple will begin offering free online training to educators […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Funding for virtual reality startups has grown more sparse over the past couple years, as investors have grappled with extended timelines for mainstream adoption. Meanwhile, connected fitness has exploded, gaining attention amid shelter-in-place as companies like Peloton have seen huge user gains with Mirror recently selling to Lululemon for $500 million. FitXR wants the virtual […]
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Jul 09, 2020
EQT Ventures, the Stockholm-headquartered venture capital firm that invests in Europe and the U.S., is losing founding partner Hjalmar Winbladh, TechCrunch has learned. Rumours that he was leaving the "multistage, sector-agnostic" VC fund that he helped launch in 2016, begun circulating within the European startup ecosystem last week, with multiple sources telling TechCrunch that Winbladh […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Apple unveiled the next major version iOS a few weeks ago. I've been playing around with beta versions of iOS 14 and here's what you should expect when you update your iPhone to the final release of iOS 14 this fall. The most interesting change is something you're not going to notice at first. The […]
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Jul 09, 2020
This is your opportunity to get a glimpse of the future of iOS — and iPadOS. Apple just released the first public beta of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, the next major version of the operating systems for the iPhone and iPad. Unlike developer betas, everyone can download those betas without a $99 developer account. […]
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Jul 09, 2020
If every California student without an adequate internet connection got together and formed a state, it would contain more people than Idaho or Hawaii.
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Jul 09, 2020
Venn, the company looking to be gaming's answer to '80s-era MTV, has revealed the first slate of shows to premier on the network when it launches August 5, 2020. Working out of studios in Playa Vista in Los Angeles and New York's World Trade Center (coming in 2021), Venn intends to use 1,000 square feet […]
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Jul 09, 2020
You just got your first customer! You just hired your first employee! You just got your first VC investor! These are huge milestones in the life of a startup and are extraordinarily exciting. That is, until that first draft of the contract arrives in your inbox and you suddenly realize you are 30 pages of […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Earlier this month, Spanish early-stage venture capital firm K Fund officially launched its second fund, which sits at €70 million, up from €50 million the first time around. Targeting Spanish startups with an international outlook, the seed-stage firm plans to invest from €200,000 to €2 million, writing first checks in 25-30 companies. Meanwhile, a portion […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Docker and AWS today announced a new collaboration that introduces a deep integration between Docker's Compose and Desktop developer tools and AWS's Elastic Container Service (ECS) and ECS on AWS Fargate. Previously, the two companies note, the workflow to take Compose files and run them on ECS was often challenging for developers. Now, the two […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Amie, a new productivity app from ex-N26 product manager Dennis Müller, has picked up $1.3 million in pre-seed funding to "kickstart" development and hiring. Backing 23-year-old Müller is Creandum — the European VC best known for being an early investor in Spotify — along with Tiny.VC and a plethora of angels. They include Laura Grimmelmann […]
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Jul 09, 2020
As the world continued to cope with the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, the second quarter of 2020 became the largest yet for mobile app downloads, usage, and consumer spending. According to new data from app store intelligence firm App Annie, mobile app usage grew 40% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2020, even hitting […]
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Jul 09, 2020
It's hard to believe that Alexa was only announced in November 2014. In few than six years, the smart assistant has gone from consumer electronics curiosity to a nearly ubiquitous tech phenomenon. Launched alongside the first Echo device, Alexa has helped definite a new paradigm of voice computing, alongside Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant. According […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Today, the U.S. exceeded three million COVID-19 cases and 132,000 deaths. In several states, new hotspots have rolled back plans to reopen businesses. The novel coronavirus has — and will continue — to profoundly impact the way we live and work. For the moment, that includes a shift in the employment status of many Americans. […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Wi-Fi 6 is here - making its way to more and more devices, with a noteworthy inclusion on last year's flagship iPhone 11 lineup. This next-generation Wi-Fi technology provides faster speeds for transferring data between devices, but more importantly, it also means your system will be better equipped to handle multiple Wi-Fi devices connected at […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Wifi 6 is here - making its way to more and more devices, with a noteworthy inclusion on last year's flagship iPhone 11 lineup. This next-generation Wifi technology provides faster speeds for transferring data between devices, but more importantly, it also means your system will be better equipped to handle multiple Wifi devices connected at […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Customer engagement company Freshworks today announced that it has acquired Flint, an IT orchestration and cloud management platform based in India. The acquisition will help Freshworks strengthen its Freshservice IT support service by bringing a number of new automation tools to it. Maybe just as importantly, though, it will also bolster Freshworks' ambitions around cloud […]
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Jul 09, 2020
When COVID-19 began to shutter the United States economy, startups jumped into cost-cutting mode as expectations rose that venture capital was about to get a heck of a lot harder to raise. After all, prior downturns in the broader economy, and tech sector in particular, had taken a bite out of the ability for startups […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Coinbase is the latest mega-startup that may approach the public markets. The digital currency exchange company could follow Palantir, which is also nearing its IPO, after the secretive data-focused unicorn announced that it had filed privately. Earlier today Reuters reported that Coinbase, a popular American-based cryptocurrency trading platform, could pursue a public debut later this […]
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Jul 09, 2020
There's been a wildfire in the economy these past few months, but one of the few redwoods still standing is that great bulwark of enterprise software known as SaaS. SaaS stocks and SaaS startups and SaaS founders have (mostly) survived the pandemic unscathed, but that doesn't mean that adaptability hasn't been crucial to keeping these […]
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Jul 09, 2020
YouTube Kids, the family-friendly version of YouTube with built-in parental controls and a curated selection of kids content, is now available on Amazon's Fire TV. The app's arrival comes after Google and Amazon came to a mutually beneficial agreement that also allowed YouTube to launch on Fire TV last year and Amazon's Prime Video to […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Canon has finally fully revealed its much-anticipated R5 and R6 mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and they look like very strong contenders for the field. The R5 is the new flagship of Canon's mirrorless line, and it's priced accordingly at $3,899 for the body alone. The R6 is its ‘affordable' sibling at $2,499 for the body […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Vulnerabilities could have let hackers send medication reminders to patients as often as they wanted.
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Jul 09, 2020
Singaporeans have a growing appetite for plant-based meat substitutes. In fact, demand for products from companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Quorn have grown during the pandemic, partly because consumers are making more health-conscious decisions, according to the Straits Time. Now there is a new entrant to the market. Headquartered in Singapore, Karana announced […]
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Jul 09, 2020
The GoPro Hero 8 action camera can now be used as a webcam thanks to a software utility. The software, which is still in beta, lets users connect a Hero 8 camera through USB and use it as a webcam. Without this utility, owners had to use a combination of dongles and HDMI cables to […]
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Jul 09, 2020
LogDNA, a startup that helps DevOps teams dig through their log data to find issues, announced a $25 million Series C investment today along with the promotion of industry vet Tucker Callaway to CEO. Let's start with the funding. Emergence Capital led the round with participation from previous investors Initialized Capital and Providence Equity. New […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Cloud services continue to be a key component of how organisations remain operational even as so much else — such as physically working in enclosed offices — is forced to change because of the COVID-19 health pandemic. Today, MariaDB Corporation, the company behind MariaDB SkySQL and one of the startups leading the charge on open source […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Google is announcing the global availability of Swirl, an ad format that the company unveiled in beta just over a year ago. The Swirl format involves banner ads that include interactive 3D product models. As the company put it in a blog post: Swirl lets consumers engage with a product like it's right in front […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Everywhere you go, you are being followed. Not by some creep in a raincoat, but by the advertisers wanting to sell you things. The more advertisers know about you — where you go, which shops you visit, and what purchases you make — the more they can profile you, understand your tastes, your hobbies and […]
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Jul 09, 2020
While you may mostly think about Twilio in the context of its voice and text messaging platform, the company has recently made a number of moves to bolster its IoT platform, which is already one of its fastest-growing business units. To accelerate this push, the company today announced that it quietly acquired IoT platform Electric […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Elon Musk said on Twitter this week that Neuralink, the company he founded in 2016 to develop computer-brain interfaces for the explicit purpose of helping humans keep pace with advanced artificial intelligence, will provide an update on its progress on August 28. The last major update from Neuralink came roughly a year ago, when it […]
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Jul 09, 2020
LA-based bio science startup Kernel has raised $53 million from investors including General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Eldridge, Manta Ray Ventures, Tiny Blue Dot and more. The funding is the first outside money that Kernel has taken in, though it's a Series C round, because founder and CEO Bryan Johnson has provided $54 million in investment […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Earlier this year, TikTok's parent company ByteDance joined the raft of American tech giants that publish the number of government demands for user data and takedown requests by releasing its own numbers. The move was met with heavy skepticism, amid concerns about the app maker's links to China, and accusations that it poses a threat […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Perhaps more significantly, I had a particular task in mind for it. In the current COVID-19 pandemic much has been made of cities being transformed into proverbial deserts, as traffic and pedestrians disappeared. Now, with many cities coming out of lockdown, governments have advised their citizens to go back to work, desperate to get their […]
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Jul 09, 2020
The UK has created 63 tech unicorns in the past decade (according to Dealroom), and it almost goes without saying that the vast majority of those companies were based out of London, the country's largest tech hub. Famously, London's DeepMind, an AI startup, was acquired by Google in 2014 for $500 million, but it has […]
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Jul 09, 2020
The global COVID-19 health pandemic has raised the stakes for businesses when it comes to using digital channels to connect with customers, and today WhatsApp unveiled its latest tools to help businesses use its platform to do just that. The Facebook-owned messaging behemoth is expanding the reach and use of QR codes to let customers easily connect […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Flipkart, which competes with Amazon in India, is doubling down on an area where it has established a clear lead: Fashion. On Thursday, the Flipkart Group announced it had invested $35 million in Arvind Fashions for a significant minority stake in one the decades-old Indian firm's subsidiaries as the Walmart -owned firm looks to tighten […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Flipkart on Thursday announced it has invested $35 million in Arvind Fashions for a significant minority stake in one the decades-old Indian firm's subsidiaries as the Walmart-owned firm looks to widen its hold on fashion e-commerce in the world's second largest internet market. The e-commerce firm, which operates market-leading fashion e-commerce firm Myntra, said it […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Radix, a U.K. startup that's building a decentralised finance protocol on which new financial apps can connect and be built on top of, has raised $4.1 million in new funding. Backing the company, which counts the Ethereum network and a number of other "DeFi" projects as competitors, is London-based seed-stage VC LocalGlobe and TransferWise co-founder […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Yamo, a self-described "foodtech" startup that produces and sells healthier food for babies and young children, has raised €10.1 million in Series A funding. Backing comes from European food and agriculture tech investor Five Seasons Ventures, Swiss Entrepreneurs Fund, Ringier Digital Ventures, Müller Ventures, btov Partners, Polytech Ventures, BackBone Ventures, and Fundament. It brings total […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Nuggs, the alternative-meat company founded by serial entrepreneur Ben Pasternak (who previously co-founded the social media app Monkey), has raised $4.1 million and gotten itself a new name and a new CTO as it looks to move beyond chicken nuggets. Now called Simulate, Pasternak's startup is readying the launch of new products including spicy nuggets, […]
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Jul 09, 2020
Gone — or at least on hold for a long while — are the days of hanging around a coffee shop, poking around the Internet on the free WiFi while sipping the same coffee for three hours. The entire idea feels kind of alien right now. A little anxiety-inducing, even. But coffee shops still want […]
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Jul 09, 2020
After reportedly spending a year and a half working on a cloud service meant for China and other countries, Google cancelled the project, called "Isolated Region," in May due partly to geopolitical and pandemic-related concerns. Bloomberg reports that Isolated Region, shut down in May, would have enabled it to offer cloud services in countries that […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Ashmeet Sidana, a longtime VC who struck out on his own in 2015 to form Engineering Capital, just closed his third and newest fund with $60 million in capital commitments from a university endowment, a fund of funds, and three foundations. Sidana — who previously spent nearly nine years with Foundation Capital and received one […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Ashmeet Sidana, a longtime VC who struck out on his own in 2015 to form Engineering Capital, just closed his third and newest fund with $60 million in capital commitments from a university endowment, a fund of funds, and three foundations. Sidana — who previously spent nearly nine years with Foundation Capital and received one […]
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Jul 08, 2020
The Independence Day weekend was a big one for Quibi, it was time to see how many of their earliest subscribers would convert from free users to paid subscribers. Early reports indicate that the streaming service held onto some subscribers through that period, but perhaps at a lesser rate than recently launched rival services. Data […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Earlier today, Intel offered some key insight into Thunderbolt 4, following an initial unveil at CES back in January. The latest version of the connection standard isn't actually faster than its predecessor (still offering up the same 40 gbps as its predecessor), but there are some key improvements on-board, including some updated system requirements. Here's […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Auditors were not impressed by Facebook's civil rights work, Tinder tests video chat and a new nasal spray could reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Here's your Daily Crunch for July 8, 2020. The big story: Facebook faces blistering civil rights audit The results are out in a multi-year audit of Facebook's approach to civil […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Electric vehicle startup Fisker Inc. said Wednesday it has raised $50 million, much needed capital that will go towards funding the next phase of engineering work on the company's all-electric luxury SUV. The startup is aiming to launch the Fisker Ocean SUV in 2022. The Series C funding round was led by Moore Strategic Ventures […]
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Jul 08, 2020
NASA awards millions of dollars a year to small businesses through the SBIR program, but generally it's a lot of small awards to hundreds of companies. Breaking with precedent, today the agency announced a new multi-million-dollar funding track and its four first recipients, addressing urgent needs for the Artemis program. The Small Business Innovation Research […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Facebook released its latest report detailing disinformation campaigns operating on its massive social network Wednesday and this one came with a few surprises. In the new report, Facebook disclosed that it had removed a network accounts linked to close Trump ally and former campaign advisor Roger Stone for "inauthentic" activity and coordinated fake accounts around […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Garry Kasparov is a political activist who's written books and articles on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and online privacy, but he's best known for being the former World Chess Champion who took on the IBM computer known as Big Blue in the mid-1990s. I spoke to Kasparov before a speaking engagement at the Collision Conference last month where he […]
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Jul 08, 2020
College in the United States is expensive and, for many, comes with massive student debt. The price tag has led to the increase of coding bootcamps and alternative schooling options to help students gain employment, and a salary, without taking on millions of dollars in debt. In Europe, the picture looks vastly different: A majority […]
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Jul 08, 2020
The Colombian trucking and logistics services startup Liftit has raised $22.5 million in a new round of funding to capitalize on its newfound traction in markets across Latin America as responses to the COVID-19 epidemic bring changes to the industry across the region. "We're focusing on the five countries that we're already in," says Liftit […]
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Jul 08, 2020
The Colombian trucking and logistics services startup Liftit has raised $22.5 million in a new round of funding to capitalize on its newfound traction in markets across Latin America as responses to the COVID-19 epidemic bring changes to the industry across the region. "We're focusing on the five countries that we're already in," says Liftit […]
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Jul 08, 2020
At first glance, Colvin — which recently announced that it has raised a $15 million Series B — might look like just another flower and plant delivery company, but co-founder and CEO Andres Cester said the startup has a much grander vision. "We were born with the ambition the company that would redesign global flower trade," […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Teaser images and leaked photos of the 2021 Mercedes-Benz S-Class suggested the automaker was moving towards a more digital-centric interior. That might have been an understatement. Mercedes-Benz revealed Monday its second-generation MBUX infotainment system and it is loaded with new technology, including touchscreens, augmented reality head-up display as well as improved voice and facial recognition. […]
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Jul 08, 2020
If necessity is the mother of invention, then new business owners are getting very inventive in the ways in which they access cash. Relying on some long-tested and some new avenues to raise money, entrepreneurs are finding more ways to get public market cash faster than they would have in the past. Whether it's from […]
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Jul 08, 2020
A deep tech startup building cryptographic solutions to secure hardware, software, and communications systems for a future when quantum computers may render many current cybersecurity approaches useless is today emerging out of stealth mode with $7 million in funding and a mission to make cryptographic security something that cannot be hackable, even with the most sophisticated […]
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Jul 08, 2020
Amazon on Wednesday informed its U.S. sellers they will soon have to display their business name and address on their Amazon.com seller profile page. For individual sellers, this will include the individual's name and address. A similar system is already in place across Amazon's stores in Europe, Japan and Mexico, due to local laws. Amazon […]
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