Walmart is further investing in technology that will enable shopping via voice and chat with its latest acquisition. The retail giant announced it’s acquiring “select technology assets” from a startup called Botmock, which had developed a set of tools for designing, prototyping, testing, and deploying conversational applications across platforms. Founded in 2016, Botmock got off
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Everyone’s set of teeth are different enough that orthodontics has traditionally been part artistry, part medical witchcraft. In the late 1990s, Invisalign changed the industry with customizable aligners, but it turns out that aligners only serve 30% of orthodontics patients. For the rest, there hasn’t been much in the way of innovation — until LightForce
More of the world’s economy is moving online, and that is underscored by the long list of recent fundings and acquisitions in the digital ID authentication and anti-money laundering (AML) space, including Okta’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Auth0. Today, another startup announced it has raised capital: end-to-end due diligence platform First AML. Blackbird Ventures (which
WhatsApp will today begin beta testing a new, cloud-based version of its WhatsApp Business API, hosted on parent company Facebook’s infrastructure. With the shift to the cloud, the setup time for integrating with the API will drop from weeks to only minutes, the company claims, so businesses can more quickly transition to WhatsApp’s API platform
Electric vehicle startup BasiGo has today announced the launch of its operations in Nairobi, bringing clean energy options to Kenya’s public transport industry, currently dominated by fossil-fuel buses. The startup plans to sell locally assembled electric buses using parts from China’s EV maker BYD Automotive, the company said while announcing it had raised $1 million
Moka, a six-year-old Chinese startup that wants to make human resources management easier with software, said today it has closed a $100 million Series C round. The startup aims to automate the entire process of talent management, from hiring to retaining existing staff. For example, it can automatically collect post-interview feedback from candidates and store
Catherine D. Henry Contributor There is a heated debate on the state of the race between the United States and China to dominate in AI. But perhaps the more strategic question is whether China is building the metaverse. Built upon infrastructural technologies like AI, the metaverse refers to the vast array of digital experiences and
Opibus, the first company in Kenya to commercially future-proof diesel and gasoline vehicles by converting them to electric, is set to embark on an ambitious plan to mass produce electric buses and motorcycles after unlocking $7.5 million in pre series A round. The Swedish-Kenyan company raised $5 million in equity and $2.5 million in grants
Hello and welcome back to Max Q. It feels odd to be living in a time when companies are announcing their plans to develop commercial space stations and yet, here we are! Read on for news from Sierra Space, Blue Origin, Boeing and others on their plans for a station, called Orbital Reef. Plus this
ShopBack, the Rakuten-backed e-commerce loyalty platform, announced today it will acquire buy now, pay later startup Hoolah. Both companies are based in Singapore and operate in Southeast Asian markets. The deal was done in stock and cash, and terms were undisclosed. After the merger closes, ShopBack will own all of Hoolah, but the BNPL service’s
Instagram announced today that it’s introducing a new “Add Yours” sticker that creates public threads in Stories. The new feature essentially allows users to respond to other users’ Stories with their own following a prompt or a certain topic. The global launch comes as Instagram initially tested the feature in Indonesia and Japan last month.
When Zendesk announced it was acquiring Momentive Global Inc. (the organization behind SurveyMonkey) for $4.13 billion last week, it might have felt like a steep price to pay, but it seems that companies are willing to pay a high price to understand what users and customers are thinking — and that’s what SurveyMonkey gives Zendesk.
Google has responded to allegations contained in a recently unsealed US antitrust lawsuit that it worked covertly to stall European Union privacy legislation that could have blasted a huge hole in its behaviorial advertising business. Per the US states’ suit, a couple of years after a European Commission proposal to update the EU’s ePrivacy Directive
Switzerland-based Mictic has created a pair of wearables that turns thin air into your concert hall. Imagine a theremin without the theremin, hooked up to a clever loop station, and you’ve got the right idea. Just from the demos and descriptions, it’s the kind of startup you’d scratch your head over and talk about in
Ilia Kukharev Contributor Ilia Kukharev is the head of ASO at AppFollow and has been engaged in the localization of websites, mobile applications and ASO optimization for over a decade. The final version of iOS 15.0 was released on September 20. While there are no major changes in the OS itself, Apple touts this new
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You
As the neobanking boom has matured into a collection of large digital banks, we’re slowly getting a better picture of the economics of such business efforts. Chime was early in telling the market that it was EBTIDA positive, for example, unlike less profitable European neobanks. The upcoming Nubank IPO — technically the public offering of
As access to unique sounds is becoming a competitive advantage for social apps, Snapchat announced today it’s inked a deal with NBCUniversal to give users access to licensed audio clips from various NBCU movies and TV shows. With this latest launch, users can add audio clips from fan favorites such as “Saturday Night Live” and
OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that helps enterprises optimize and deploy their machine learning models, today announced that it has raised a $85 million Series C round led by Tiger Global Management. Previous investors Addition, Madrona Venture Group and Amplify Partners also participated in this round, which brings the company’s total funding to $132 million, including
According to Facebook AI Research, the next generation of robots should be much better at feeling — not emotions, of course, but using the sense of touch. And to advance the ball in this relatively new area of AI and robotics research, the company and its partners have built a new kind of electronic skin
John S. Kim Contributor John S. Kim is the CEO of Sendbird, the leading API provider to embed chat, voice and video experiences inside of mobile apps. More posts by this contributor Social+ payments: Why fintechs need social features Netflix sees gaming as a big part of its future in the battle for consumer attention.
Years ago, Americans spent most of their disposable income on food but consistent investment in retail infrastructure has changed that. Now, they only spend 6% of their household income on food and beverages. Africa still battles with this and it is not hard to see why. The continent’s retail markets are highly fragmented and mostly made up
When online shopping, you’ve probably come across photos that spin around so you can see a product from all angles. This is typically done by taking a number of photos of a product from all angles, and then playing them like an animation. Luma — founded by engineers who left Apple’s AR and computer vision
The on-demand transport space in Africa has evolved since San Francisco-based ride-hailing firm Uber first set up operations in South Africa in 2013, setting the stage for its foray across the continent while radically transforming the entire taxi industry. Almost a decade later, Africa’s taxi industry is now dominated by tens of local and international
African e-commerce fulfilment startups backed by Y Combinator seem to be piquing investors’ interest this year for their niche e-commerce play. Summer batch graduate ShipBlu is the latest on that list and confirmed to TechCrunch that it has raised $2.4 million in seed funding. The company, founded by Ali Nasser, Ahmed ElKawass, Abdelrahman Hosny in
Kathryn Kosmides Contributor Kathryn Kosmides is a survivor of gender-based violence and the founder of nonprofit background check Garbo. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s message about Instagram’s impact on teenage girls was unequivocal: Facebook’s studies found that 13% of British teens said Instagram prompted thoughts of suicide, and 17% of teen girls say Instagram makes eating
Jim Mann Contributor Jim Mann is director of acquisitions at Thrasio, a consumer goods company reimagining omnichannel commerce and consumer products. The toughest questions most entrepreneurs face will involve international expansion. Whether to, when to, where to and how to expand all involve a wealth of complex considerations. The stakes are high: Success could mean
During its big VR and AR-focused event Thursday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a major new title headed to its VR platform that should turn a few heads. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is on the way to the Oculus Quest 2. San Andreas is Rockstar’s well-loved 2004 entry into the hit GTA
David Karandish Contributor David Karandish is founder and CEO of Capacity, an enterprise artificial intelligence SaaS company headquartered in St. Louis, MO. The global help desk automation industry is expected to grow to $11 billion by 2023 as support automation empowers companies to serve their customers more effectively. By automating repetitive tasks and FAQs, companies
Salted, a Los Angeles-based startup creating digitally native quick-service restaurant brands, brought in a new round of $16 million in Series A funding to continue its nationwide expansion. The company was founded seven years ago by CEO Jeff Applebaum, but a focus on providing healthy QSR brands and going after the $325 billion food delivery