Api.video, a “developer-first” video platform that makes it easier for websites and apps to video features, has raised $5.5 million, in a seed round led by London venture capital firm Blossom Capital. Also participating is Kima Ventures and a number of angel investors. Previous backers include Octave Klaba (founder of OVH), Eduardo Ronzano (founder of
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AWS today announced the beta launch of Amazon Honeycode, a new fully managed low-code/no-code development tool that aims to make it easy for anybody in a company to build their own applications. All of this, of course, is backed by a database in AWS and a web-based drag-and-drop interface builder. Developers can build applications for
Connect Ventures, the London-based seed-stage VC that was an early investor in Citymapper and Typeform — and more recently backed scaling startups such as Curve and TrueLayer — is announcing a new $80 million fund to continue investing in “product-led” founders. Backing the new fund is a combination of existing and new LPs including Top
Forecast, a new project from Facebook’s internal R&D group, NPE Team, is launching today to build a community around predictions. The iOS app will allow users to ask questions and then use in-app points to make predictions about what might happen in the future. Users can also create, discuss and view these crowdsourced predictions. At
Earlier today we took a look at two companies that have filed to go public, nCino and GoHealth. The pair join Lemonade in a march toward the public markets. But those three firms are hardly alone. We know that DoorDash filed privately earlier this year (it also raised a pile of cash lately, so its
At a time where IT has to help employees set up and manage devices remotely, a service that simplifies those processes could certainly come in handy. Apple recognized that, and acquired Fleetsmith today, a startup that helps companies do precisely that with Apple devices. While Apple didn’t publicize the acquisition, it has confirmed the deal
India’s antitrust watchdog has given its blessing to Facebook and Reliance Jio Platforms for their $5.7 billion deal. In a statement on Wednesday, the Competition Commission of India said it had approved Facebook’s proposed multi-billion-dollar investment in the top Indian telecom network. The announcement comes a week after the watchdog said it was accessing the
AWS today launched Amazon Honeycode, a no-code environment built around a spreadsheet-like interface that is a bit of a detour for Amazon’s cloud service. Typically, after all, AWS is all about giving developers all of the tools to build their applications — but they then have to put all of the pieces together. Honeycode, on
Hoxton Ventures, a London-based early-stage VC firm best known for backing British unicorns Babylon Health, Darktrace and Deliveroo, announced its second fund last week, coming in at just under $100 million. The firm’s self-proclaimed strategy is to seek out startups that can scale globally into “large, category-defining leaders” in nascent industries — A strategy that
For photographers and videographers spending a lot less time on location and a lot more time at the desk right now, one great use of time is going back through archives and backlogs to find hidden gems, and hone those edit skills. One recently-released device called the Loupedeck CT can make that an even more
A year after its initial release, Jumbo has two important pieces of news to announce. First, the company has released a major update of its app that protects your privacy on online services. Second, the company has raised an $8 million Series A funding round. If you’re not familiar with Jumbo, the app wants to
Apr.09 — Daniel Schreiber, chief executive officer and co-founder of Lemonade, discusses the benefits of artificial intelligence on the insurance industry and trust issues in data privacy. He speaks with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.”
After what felt like winter, investors say startup deals are back on — although the numbers suggest they never stopped. As Semil Shah of Haystack VC phrased it in a blog post, “It’s game on, pandemic or bust.” This is good news for founders and big funds, but the investment landscape becomes more complicated when
When we announced the formation of The TechCrunch List last week, we had no idea what response we would get to our proposal for founders to recommend their “first check” investors. While plenty of founders over the years had told us that they wanted such a database to rely on or to refer to other
Instagram is expanding its TikTok competitor known as “Reels” to new markets, following its launch last year in Brazil. Starting today, Instagram is rolling out further access to Reels in France and Germany, allowing users to record short, 15-second video clips set to music or other audio, then share them on the platform where they
When Dell bought EMC in 2016 for $67 billion it was one of the biggest acquisitions in tech history, and it brought with it a boatload of debt. Since then Dell has been working on ways to mitigate that debt by selling off various pieces of the corporate empire and going public again, but one
More than a year after Amazon announced that it would be lead a $575 million investment into UK food delivery startup Deliveroo, the country’s competition regulator, the CMA, has finally announced that it has provisionally cleared the deal, without any additional remedies (that is, requests to alter the terms), saying that it does not pose
For decades, the United States has had a monopoly on positioning, navigation, and timing technology with its Global Positioning System (GPS), a constellation of satellites operated by the military that today provides the backbone for location on billion of devices worldwide. As those technologies have become not just key to military maneuvers but the very
Qupital, a trade financing platform, announced today that it will partner with eBay as one of its officially recommended Hong Kong financing service providers. In today’s announcement, Qupital said it will provide offshore financing services, including working capital, to eBay sellers in China through QiaoYiDai, its main product. The agreement with eBay means Qupital will
Memo Bank wasn’t always called Memo Bank. It originally started as Margo Bank and it has been flying under the radar for a few years. The French startup is now about to launch publicly and shared more details about what it is building. As the name suggests, Memo Bank is a bank. It plans to
Snap’s latest developer offering is a tool called Verify that’s aiming to save its mobile-first developers cash on verifying user phone numbers en masse. The new tool is being integrated into its Login Kit framework, allowing devs with a “Log In with Snapchat” button to move away from tapping services like Twilio for SMS verification,
With more companies moving workers home, making sure your systems are up and running has become more important than ever. ServiceNow, which includes an IT Help Desk component in its product catalogue recognizes that help desks have been bombarded during the pandemic. To help stop configuration problems before they start, the company acquired Sweagle today,
Curve, the London fintech that is re-bundling various financial products by letting you consolidate all your bank cards into a single card and app, is partnering with Samsung in the U.K. to power its forthcoming debit card, which is scheduled to launch later this year. Dubbed “Samsung Pay Card” — and obviously a bid by
As movie theaters reopen across the United States and the world, there are lingering questions about what kinds of measures those theaters will be taking to keep staff and moviegoers safe in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These concerns were illustrated last week, when AMC CEO Adam Aron said in an interview that
AngelList, a platform that helps startup founders discover and connect to angel investors and job seekers, on Wednesday branched out to a new category in India to further serve the ecosystem. The startup platform said its new product, called EquityList, allows founders to easily manage their cap table, which as the name suggests, is a
The fintech revolution is just getting started. At least that’s the impression we got after a conversation with Plaid co-founder Zach Perret. He appeared on Extra Crunch Live last week to talk about his company’s announced exit to Visa and the larger fintech landscape. Perret and Plaid announced a deal to sell the company to Visa
Twitter took its latest action on content from President Trump Tuesday, again hiding a threat of state violence behind a warning label and appending it with a notice. Trump’s latest offending tweet declared “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be
Salesforce has a bunch of announcements coming out of the virtual Trailheadx conference taking place later this week, starting today with some new developer tools. The goal of these tools is to give developers a more modern way of creating applications on top of the Salesforce platform. Perhaps the most interesting of the three being
Zopa, the 15-year-old peer-to-peer lending company, is announcing that it has been awarded its full U.K. bank licence, as it gears up to launch a fixed-term savings account, followed by a credit card. Dubbed “Zopa Bank,” the new challenger bank will sit alongside its existing peer-to-peer lending business, under Zopa Group, creating what the veteran fintech
The App Store ecosystem today is home to nearly 2 million apps. That means finding new apps to download is now more challenging than ever. This, in turn, leads app developers to funnel more money into App Store Search ads, traditional SEO and digital advertising in an effort to acquire new users. A new feature