When companies are considering buying a particular software service, they typically want to test it in their own environments, a process that can be surprisingly challenging. TestBox, a new startup, wants to change that by providing a fully working package with pre-populated data to give the team a way to test and collaborate on the
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You may have heard of payments startup Paddle which has raised $93.3m or perhaps Heroes which raised $65M to become the “Thrasio of Europe” but you might not have heard so much about a backer of these startups, Fuel Ventures, at least not yet. That’s about to change as Fuel Ventures comes out of the
Microsoft will soon launch a dedicated device for game streaming, the company announced today. It’s also working with a number of TV manufacturers to build the Xbox experience right into their internet-connected screens and Microsoft plans to bring build cloud gaming to the PC Xbox app later this year, too, with a focus on play-before-you-buy
This spring, Facebook confirmed it was testing Venmo-like QR codes for person-to-person payments inside its app in the U.S. Today, the company announced those codes are now launching publicly to all U.S. users, allowing anyone to send or request money through Facebook Pay — even if they’re not Facebook friends. The QR codes work similarly
A bat-shaped organic photovoltaic module from Dracula Technologies Internet of Things devices are proliferating, making daily tasks more convenient for many people—but that comes at cost. The United Nations expects the amount of e-waste created globally to reach 52.2 million metric tons this year, and a sizable portion of that are dead batteries. Dracula Technologies,
Tata Digital, the subsidiary of Tata Sons, said on Thursday it is acquiring a majority stake in digital health startup 1mg, the latest in a series of investments as the salt-to-steel Indian conglomerate enters the digital consumer space. The firms didn’t share the financial details of the deal, but a person familiar with the matter
President Joe Biden is reducing some uncertainty faced by Chinese tech companies in the United States, erasing parts of the Trump-era legacy. The president signed an executive order revoking actions targeting TikTok and WeChat put forward by former President Donald Trump, according to a statement released by the White House on Wednesday. Instead, President Biden
Last year, Seattle-based network security startup ExtraHop was riding high, quickly approaching $100 million in ARR and even making noises about a possible IPO in 2021. But there will be no IPO, at least for now, as the company announced this morning it has been acquired by a pair of private equity firms for $900
French startup Yousign has raised a $36.6 million Series A funding round (€30 million). Lead Edge Capital is leading the round and eFounders is investing once again in the company. Yousign, as the name suggests, is an e-signature provider that complies with European regulation on digital signatures. While the company was originally founded in 2013,
Google today launched the second beta of Android 12. The first beta, which launched at Google’s I/O conference in May, introduced us to the first glimpses of Google’s new ‘Material You’ design system, though many of the promised new features and design tweaks weren’t part of this first beta yet. With this new beta, Google
Community has never felt louder in startupland. Bringing people together over a shared interest is innate to human nature. And, coming out of a lonely, draining pandemic, every startup wants to find a way to cultivate community, conversation and camaraderie as part of its value proposition. Last week, though, the outside world got a look
Many of the highest-profile English tutoring platforms focus on children, including VIPKID and Magic Ears. Ringle created a niche for itself by focusing on adults first, with courses like business English and interview preparation. The South Korea-based startup announced today it has raised an $18 million Series A led by returning investor Must Asset Management,
As Apple hosts their annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Instagram and Facebook chose this moment to pilot their first-ever Creator Week. This three-day event is geared toward aspiring and emerging digital creators, complete with 9:45 AM virtual DJ sets and panels on “Algorithm Mythbusting” and raising “zillions for a nonprofit you care about.” During the first
Human resources is generally a salient cornerstone of any organization, but digitization has democratized a lot of the work that goes into HR, and that’s meant more people in businesses interested in, and using, the kind of data that HR people build and typically manage. Today, a startup called ChartHop that’s built a platform to
End-to-end encrypted email service ProtonMail has refreshed its design, updating with a cleaner look and a more customizable user interface — including the ability to pick from a bunch of themes (dark and contrasting versions are both in the mix). Last month the Swiss company officially announced passing 50M users globally, as it turned seven
With the upcoming release of iOS 15 for Apple mobile devices, Apple’s built-in search feature known as Spotlight will become a lot more functional. In what may be one of its bigger updates since it introduced Siri Suggestions, the new version of Spotlight is becoming an alternative to Google for several key queries, including web
Swedish battery developer and manufacturer Northvolt AB has raised $2.75 billion in capital as it prepares to ramp up to an annual production capacity of 150 GWh in Europe by 2030. The funding round – Northvolt’s largest thus far – was co-led by existing investors Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen, and new investors including the Swedish
The startup investing market is crowded, expensive and rapid-fire today as venture capitalists work to preempt one another, hoping to deploy funds into hot companies before their competitors. The AI startup market may be even hotter than the average technology niche. This should not surprise. In the wake of the Microsoft-Nuance deal, The Exchange reported
Todd Klein Contributor Todd Klein is a partner at Revolution Growth, a VC fund that invests in growth-stage companies. During his 20-year career, Todd has been involved in financing and building over 150 venture and growth-stage companies in the media, consumer, technology, education and healthcare sectors. Ending years of debates over environmental sustainability, the United
Twilio Segment announced a tool, which is available starting today, to help marketers create fine-grained customer journeys. Up until now the company has enabled marketers to build buyer personas and broader audiences, but this enables users to have much greater control of their interactions with a customer. Company co-founder and CEO Peter Reinhardt says that
Remote work was the order of the day for the past 16 months, but as we (fingers crossed) move out of the pandemic, it’s looking like a lot of people may move into a new era of hybrid work: less focus being present in offices to feel like you are getting things done, less time
The European Union has been digging into the competition implications of AI-powered voice assistants and other Internet of Things (IoT) connected technologies for almost a year. Today it’s put out a first report discussing potential concerns that EU lawmakers say will help inform their wider digital policymaking in the coming years. A major piece of
Sinch — the Swedish company that provides a suite of services for companies to build communications and specifically “customer engagement” into their services by way of APIs — has made yet another acquisition in its global march to scale up its business and compete more squarely with Twilio. The company today announced that it has
Neobrokers — startups that are disrupting the investment industry by providing a platform for a wider range of consumers to partake in the stock market by offering them more incremental investment options and modern and easy mobile-based interfaces to manage their money — continue to see a huge amount of interest, and today comes the
“It’s not a nail polish company,” says Fenton Jagdeo of Faculty, the startup he cofounded in 2019 with Umar ElBably. Though their Toronto-based company currently sells just three shades of nail polish along with some nail stickers — that’s it — the products are a wedge to something much larger, says Jagdeo. There will be
French startup Pennylane has raised a new $18.3 million funding round (€15 million). Interestingly, this is Sequoia Capital’s first investment in France after they announced ambitious expansion plans in Europe. If you’re not familiar with Pennylane, the startup has been developing an accounting platform that improves accounting for both clients and their accountants. Focused on
Every startup is trying to fix something but Terraformation is tackling the only problem that must matter to all of us: Climate change. This is why it’s in such a big huge hurry. Its mission — as a ‘forest tech’ startup — is to accelerate tree planting by applying a startup-y operational philosophy of scalability
At its Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple announced a significant update to RealityKit, its suite of technologies that allow developers to get started building AR (augmented reality) experiences. With the launch of RealityKit 2, Apple says developers will have more visual, audio, and animation control when working on their AR experiences. But the most notable part
Toast has raised more than $900 billion and is reportedly valued at over $5 billion. But back in 2011, no one knew this startup would see such meteoric success. It had a few things going for it, of course — founder Aman Narang hailed from Endeca, where he was a software engineer and product lead
The continuing saga of Lordstown Motor’s struggles as a public company took a new turn today as the electric truck manufacturer made yet more news. Bad news. Shares of Lordstown are down sharply today after the company reported in an SEC filing that it does not have enough capital to build and launch its electric