Jul.23 — The U.S. Department of Justice said its antitrust division will look at concerns that consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and online retail, according to a statement Tuesday. Lerer Hippeau Ventures Managing Director Eric Hippeau and Center for Democracy and Technology Vice President of Policy Chris Calabrese discuss the
So Plaid now calls itself a payments company. It was only a matter of time, really. Earlier today, the data and connectivity startup announced a new payments partner ecosystem that will extend its existing payments infrastructure and make ACH bank transfers a more attractive alternative to credit card transactions. But the big winners here are
Mahendra Ramsinghani Contributor Mahendra Ramsinghani is the founder of Secure Octane Investments, investing in cloud infrastructure and security startups. When he is not investing, he is busy writing blogs and books. His third book “The Resilient Founder” will be released in 2022. More posts by this contributor Pandemic reset leads investors to focus on resilience,
After steadily expanding access over the course of the year, Twitter announced today its audio chatroom feature known as Twitter Spaces is now open to anyone who wants to host a Space across iOS and Android. Earlier this year, the company had limited access to hosting Spaces to accounts with at least 600 followers, saying
Derek Zaba Contributor Derek Zaba is a partner at Sidley Austin’s Palo Alto office and co-chairs the firm’s Shareholder Activism practice. He counsels companies on a variety of matters, including activism defense/proxy contests, activism preparedness, takeover defenses, shareholder engagement and corporate governance. Sharon R. Flanagan Contributor Sharon R. Flanagan is the managing partner of Sidley
IBM has been in the midst of a strategy shift with a focus on hybrid cloud and AI since Arvind Krishna was promoted to CEO in last year. Red Hat, the software company it purchased for $34 billion in 2018 has been at the center of it all. With the company reporting earnings yesterday, the
Facebook has reached a multi-year agreement to pay French publishers for resharing their content on its platforms, it announced today. The social media giant said the licensing agreement with the Alliance of national and regional newspapers “means that people on Facebook will be able to continue uploading and sharing news stories freely amongst their communities,
If challenging the status quo was easy, we’d see a lot more of it. In the world of smartphones, this means daring to think outside the rectangle, a form factor that has been the default for more than a decade and a half. Slowly but surely amid stagnant smartphone sales, companies have been testing the
Running out of inventory not only means you are missing out on sales of popular items, but you may also have to wait awhile to get those items back in stock. New York-based Toolio has built cloud-based merchandising and inventory planning software to enable retailers to optimize their merchandise planning and make better and faster
Three months after announcing a $4 million seed round, Venezuelan delivery super app Yummy is back with an $18 million Series A round that will accelerate the company’s proposed expansion throughout Latin America. Anthos Capital led the latest round, with additional participation from JAM Fund, whose founder Justin Mateen was an investor in the seed
Indian hyperlocal social media platform Lokal has raised $12 million in a new round of financing led by Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent, according to a source familiar with the matter. Existing investors 3one4 Capital, Y Combinator, and India Quotient have also participated in the Bangalore-based startup’s Series A, the source said, requesting anonymity as the
Ishveen Anand grew up in England playing sports all of her life, including during her time at Oxford. She wanted to do something sporty for a career and “fell in love” with sponsorship marketing. However, what she found was that the process was inefficient — the sports world was slow-moving in terms of brands getting
A large number of UK tech ‘unicorns’ have been in complex markets where policy and regulation really matters. But regulated markets (fintech, healthtech etc), or markets where regulation is still emerging (e.g. lab-grown meat) are, well, HARD. Founders have to navigate policy-makers, regulators and even politicians. To it’s interesting that today a new VC is
Spotify has already invested around $1 billion in podcasting between its acquisitions, exclusive deals, and other partnerships. Now, it wants people to do more than just listen — it wants them to watch, too. The company announced today it’s opening up access to a new tool for creators that will allow them to begin publishing
The edtech boom has focused primarily on students, but teachers are learners, too. Doyobi, a Singapore-based professional development platform, wants to give educators new, more engaging ways of teaching STEM subjects. The startup announced today it has raised $2.8 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The round included Tresmonos Capital, Novus
If you’ve been working in the French tech ecosystem, you may remember a startup called AppGratis. The app discovery and promotion startup basically had to stop operating overnight following a long and nasty fight with Apple. From the team that brought you AppGratis, Batch is a customer engagement platform that has been operating under the
Facebook has been steadily rolling out updates to Facebook Groups aimed at giving admins better ways to manage and moderate their online communities. Recently, this has included a combination of product releases — like access to automated moderation aids and alerts about heated debates — as well as new policies aimed at keeping Groups in
Enterprise engagement company Countable raised $12 million in Series A funding so that brands can more easily engage with customers, even in a way that shows a brand’s values and stance on issues. Existing investor Canaan Partners led the round and was joined by Ulysses Management and Global Catalyst Partners. In total, the company has
360Learning has raised a $200 million funding round from Sumeru, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Silver Lake Waterman. And this time, the name of the startup describes quite well what it does. 360Learning lets you learn from your peers with an easy-to-use platform that lets you create and share courses with your peers. Existing investors
Spotify this morning announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify that will allow artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them to market their merchandise directly to fans through the Spotify app. After connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online store, artists will
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: Marriage-based green card versus
Online education company Udemy this morning set an initial IPO price range for its upcoming debut. The San Francisco-based edtech unicorn — backed by Learn Capital, Insight Partners and Norwest, among others — expects to price its IPO between $27 and $29 per share. The company could be valued at more than $4 billion at
Washington D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has added Mark Zuckerberg to a lawsuit against Facebook over consumer privacy violations related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. “Our continuing investigation revealed that he was personally involved in decisions related to Cambridge Analytica and Facebook’s failure to protect user data,” Racine said of the decision to name Zuckerberg
When Twilio bought Segment last year for a hefty $3.2 billion, you knew it was going to put it to work. Today at the company’s Signal customer conference, it announced a new omni-channel marketing tool built on top of Segment called Twilio Engage. Segment CEO Peter Reinhardt says the new tool is designed to take
Facebook — or whatever name the tech giant picks for a reportedly looming rebrand of its data-mining empire as it seeks to teleport its business into the metaverse to escape the unending cavalcade of toxic publicity its execs generate — has a new ‘bad behavior’ badge to sport: It’s just been fined nearly $70 million
Apple has unveiled some new MacBook Pro models at a virtual conference today. And the company is timing the release of the next major release of macOS with the new laptop. Mac users will be able to update to macOS Monterey on Monday, October 25. This new major release of macOS will be available for
Following moves by major tech platforms to better protect minors using their platforms, Snapchat is preparing to introduce its own set of “family engagement” tools in the coming months. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel teased the planned offering during an interview at the WSJ Tech Live conference this week, where he explained that the new product
Hash, a payment infrastructure fintech, announced today that it has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round co-led by QED Investors and Kaszek. The raise comes just six months after the Brazilian startup raised $15 million in Series B financing led by Alexandria, Virginia-based QED, and brings its total raised to nearly $59
Aging is inevitable, but Modern Age wants to help you do it in a way that is healthier. Melissa Earner, former vice president at Amazon and COO at Glossier, is behind the company, which is announcing $27 million in Series A funding led by Oak HC/FT. Longevity has a personal component for her: As she
A company from the creator of Ello and Kidrobot is announcing a new $20 million funding round to build out an imagined virtual world populated with deranged-yet-cute cartoon influencers. Superplastic‘s investors include Google Ventures, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, Craft Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Mantis VC/The Chainsmokers, Kakao, LINE Friends and individual investors like Cyan Bannister, Jared