Facebook announced Thursday that it’s running a test to give users a sliver more control over what they see on the platform. Image Credits: Facebook The test will go live on Facebook’s app for English-speaking users. It adds three sub-menus into Facebook’s menu for managing what shows up in the News Feed: friends and family,
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For most of the world’s industries, sustainability is an exercise in correcting the mistakes of the past — from changing mindsets to the very machinery used. But for the fledgling cannabis industry, there is still hope. A slew of startups and industry bodies are trying to make sure that for once, an industry starts off
Workday announced this afternoon that it intends to acquire VNDLY, a Mason, OH startup that helps companies manage external workforce personnel for $510 million. Workday helps companies manage finance and human resources tasks, and VNDLY fits nicely into the latter category providing them with software to manage contractors, a service that should come in handy
The battle between the appetites of European Union Member States’ governments to retain their citizens’ data — for fuzzy, catch-all ‘security’ purposes — and the region’s top court, the CJEU, which continues to defend fundamental rights by reiterating that indiscriminate mass surveillance is incompatible with general principles of EU law (such as proportionality and respect
If you had “my shower head needs a small turbine, a Bluetooth connection, an app and a fine-spray mist” on your 2021 bingo card, congratulations, you win the prize. The prize is knowing that Hai exists — and this fine news story, which will tell you all about how the company raised $6 million to
Aron Solomon Contributor Aron Solomon, J.D., is the head of Strategy for Esquire Digital and the editor of Today’s Esquire. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was the founder of LegalX, a legal technology accelerator. More posts by this contributor Introducing the Open Cap Table Coalition If you
Party Round is building software that it hopes will make the process of raising early-stage corporate capital far simpler than it is today. And the company just used its own service to raise $7 million. A host of names took part in the, well, party round, including Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six fund, Anish Acharya from
Clubhouse announced yesterday that closed captioning is now rolling out for iOS. This essential accessibility feature has been long missed from the live audio app. Without these live transcriptions, which were already the norm for competitors like Twitter Spaces, Clubhouse had rendered itself unusable to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. Now, Clubhouse
The idea for Sono Motors, the company that wants to power every electric vehicle using solar power, started nine years ago in a Munich basement when two entrepreneurial 18-year-olds starting spitballing solutions to society’s dependence on fossil fuels. Jona Christians and Laurin Hahn, Sono Motors’ co-founders, weren’t that into cars, but they recognized how much
Ashish Kakran Contributor Ashish Kakran, principal at Thomvest Ventures, is a product manager/engineer turned investor who enjoys supporting founders with a balance of technical know-how, customer insights, empathy with challenges and market knowledge. In the early 2000s, most business-critical software was hosted on privately run data centers. But with time, enterprises overcame their skepticism and
An electric vehicle is, essentially, just ‘software on wheels’, and requires lots of moving parts, not physical but, of course, virtual. That software needs to continually optimize the performance, efficiency, and safety of the EV it’s running. But a problem has arisen: Not enough auto-makers unpack their software for others to help improve it. So,
Belkin has a new 3-in-1 wireless charger that’s tailor made for iPhone and Apple Watch owners, and that also provides MagSafe 15W charging speeds for iPhone 12 and 13, along with fast charging for the latest Apple Watch 7 series. Belikin also introduce a new standalone portable fast charger for Apple Watch that includes an
Short-form video apps have seen major successes, like TikTok, as well as dramatic failures, like Quibi. Now, a new app called Snax wants to offer a twist on the popular vertical video format by giving users a way to not just watch mini-movies on their mobile devices, but also interact with them. The subscription streaming
Kandji, the startup building an Apple device management business, has been doing pretty well for itself with rapdily growing revenue, a fat valuation and lots of investment capital rolling in. Today, the company announced a $100 million Series C on an $800 million valuation, up 10x in the last year when the company did its
Brands are always looking for new ways to get in front of potential customers, but though influencer marketing has grown, it’s still not so easy for brands to find the right person. That’s where Carro comes in. David Perry and Jason Goldberg co-founded the company in 2015 and built a cross-store selling and influencer commerce
One of the most popular streaming software makers is in hot water after being called out by top Twitch personalities and the open source project that served as a backbone for the company’s success. Streamlabs, formerly Streamlabs OBS, changed its name Wednesday after backlash spread on Twitter against the company over alleged sketchy business practices.
Noissue, a New Zealand-based global packaging platform, wants to make sustainable packaging accessible to businesses of all sizes. Everything the company offers, from custom tissue paper and cards to totes, stickers and tape, is 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable, and with low order minimums, it’s not just the big players who can afford to buy
Mom-and-pop corner store owners in Latin America manage relationships with over 100 different suppliers, on average, often traveling long distances to pick up inventory, so they aren’t able to regularly restock. Most of these relationships are largely managed manually and on paper, but Chiper developed an e-commerce ecosystem for corner stores that is shifting that
The UK government has named five projects that have scored public funding under a ‘tech safety’ challenged announced in September — when the Home Office said it wanted to encourage the tech industry and academia to develop novel AI/scanning technologies that could be implemented on end-to-end encrypted (e2ee) services to detect child sexual abuse material
After years of ignoring consumer demand for in-app lyrics, particularly in the U.S., Spotify announced today it will make a new Lyrics feature available to all global users, both Free and Premium, across platforms. The feature is powered by lyrics provider Musixmatch, and expands on a prior deal Spotify had with the company to offer
Sapphire Partners’ Cathy Gao talks to Emily Chang about how the Great Resignation is affecting the tech industry, and how can companies use technology to have a recruiting edge in this tight market and to retain talent.
A team of Google executives, many of whom worked with one another for years, left the company earlier this year to launch a startup. The fintech firm, Arbo Works, has raised a financing round led by Sequoia Capital India, the two said Thursday. Arbo Works, spearheaded by Caesar Sengupta, said on Thursday 120 angel investors,
A decade ago, Vijay Shekhar Sharma flew to Hong Kong to attend an All Things D conference. At the event, he watched Silicon Valley executives Jack Dorsey and Brian Chesky talk about the firms they were building. But the conversation that would change the trajectory of his firm, One97 Communications, was an interview of Alibaba
Snapchat announced earlier this year that it would add Layers to Snap Map, making the social product more interactive. Today, the app is launching its first two layers: Memories and Explore. The Snap Map has been used to show people where their friends are currently located (if they opt-in to location sharing), interesting places to
Plastics are bad, m’kay, and a lot of the world is pretty god-awful at reducing, re-using and recycling. Single-use plastics are among the worst environmental evils out there, and Zume is leaping to the rescue. The company is working to create a sustainable, viable and economic alternative to a lot of the plastics we currently
E-commerce and other online businesses are becoming increasingly global in their operations and customer bases, and a startup called Airwallex — which has built a banking solution that addresses the opportunity to provide cross-border financial services — has been seeing a massive surge of activity. To capitalize further on that opportunity, today the company is
The UK’s data protection watchdog has written to Apple and Google seeking details of how they assess apps to determine the age ratings they apply following concerns raised by an online child safety charity. The move follows the coming into force of the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code this September — which puts requirements on
Following a Covid-driven boost, the popular AllTrails resource for hikers, bikers, climbers, and anyone else who enjoys the outdoors, announced today it’s raised $150 million from the growth fund of global private equity firm Permira to further accelerate its business. Prior investor Spectrum Equity will continue to be the company’s largest shareholder, following this transaction.
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: Can our employee travel
Few companies had as good a pandemic run as Instacart. The company’s service saw huge demand gains, leading to waves of venture capital interest. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. From a late 2018 funding cycle that valued the U.S. grocery