Workvivo, an employee communications platform founded only three years ago, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding, in a round led by Tiger Global which is best know for large growth-oriented rounds. Also participating is Frontline Ventures and Enterprise Ireland, previous investors. The Series A round follows on from a seed round late
Spotify is expanding the capabilities of its parental controls on its Spotify Kids app, aimed at children ages 3 and up on a parent’s Spotify Premium Family plan. Before, parents could only select whether the child was directed to the experience for younger or older children. Now, they’ll be able to specifically block content from
So, an eight-year product veteran from Facebook and an internationally renowned barista walk into a coffee bar… It’s not a joke. It’s the origin story for Taika, a new startup that’s aiming to bring natural stimulants to the masses through its juiced-up coffee beverages. The two co-founders, Michael Sharon, an eight-year veteran of Facebook’s mobile
Anyfin, the Stockholm-based startup that enables consumers to refinance their existing loans, has raised $30 million in funding. Leading the Series B round is EQT Ventures, with participation from existing investors Accel, Northzone and Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital (GFC). Anyfin says it will use the investment to “drive product innovation”, launch additional offerings and
Facebook’s Avatars feature, which lets you customize a virtual lookalike of yourself for use as stickers in comments and Messenger chats, is today launching in the U.S. Essentially Facebook’s version of Snap’s Bitmoji, Avatars were first introduced last year and have been since made available in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Canada. Based on early feedback,
VMware announced today that it intends to buy early-stage Kubernetes security startup, Octarine and fold it into Carbon Black, a security company it bought last year for $2.1 billion. The company did not reveal the price of today’s acquisition. According to a blog post announcing the deal from Patrick Morley, general manager and senior vice
Small and medium businesses and sole-traders account for the vast majority of businesses globally, 99.9% of all enterprises in the UK alone. And while the existence millions of separate companies, with their individual demands, speaks of a fragmented market, together they still represent a lot of opportunity. Today, a UK fintech startup looking to capitalise
Your life probably involves a lot more videoconferencing now than it did a few weeks ago – even if it already did involve a lot. That’s not likely going to change anytime soon, so why not make the most of it? The average MacBook webcam can technically get the job done, but it’s far from
It seems like only yesterday that we were all complaining about the boring uniformity of smartphone designs. In the last couple of years, companies have worked to offer some alternative through dual-screen devices, foldables and a slew of concept form factors — few of which have really gained much traction. Even so, the LG Wing
Jonathan Greechan Contributor Jonathan Greechan is co-founder of the world’s largest pre-seed accelerator, Founder Institute, has run over 100 webinars including 100,000+ live attendees, and is one of Meetup’s most active organizers. Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting calendars — along with travel budgets and marketing plans — by canceling events ranging to
Over the last few weeks all eyes in the crypto world have been glued to the halvening, a nigh-religious moment in the blockchain realm. Every once in a while, the amount of new bitcoin mined — distributed to miners, the folks with fleets of computers powering bitcoin’s database, or blockchain — is cut in half.
Facebook strikes a deal to compensate content moderators with PTSD, Tesla might reopen its factory next week and Twitter says some employees can work from home indefinitely. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 13, 2020. 1. Facebook to pay $52M to content moderators suffering from PTSD Facebook employs thousands of content moderators to sift through
‘The idea that we go back to normal the moment we lift restrictions is unlikely, fanciful, even’ Scott Bade 8 hours Scott Bade Contributor Scott Bade is a former speechwriter for Mike Bloomberg and co-author of “More Human: Designing a World Where People Come First.” More posts by this contributor Let’s give tech philanthropists the
Eugene Kaspersky made a name for himself in cybersecurity as CEO of Kaspersky Labs, but the Russian security expert has a new passion project: he’s funding an online accelerator that aims to support entrepreneurs who are building travel and tourism startups. Businesses that apply must have a focus on Russia, though the accelerator is open
Apr.29 — Tasha Keeney, Ark Investment analyst, discusses Tesla Motors Inc. earnings on “Bloomberg Technology.”
Having a holistic picture of your health might not mean just wearing a device like an Apple Watch that can monitor your biometrics – researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have developed a new system that can figure out when and where in-home appliances like hair dryers, stoves, microwaves and washing
Key Pixel team members Marc Levoy and Mario Queiroz are out at Google. The departures, first reported by The Information, have been confirmed on the pages of the former Distinguished Engineer and Pixel General Manager, respectively. Both members were key players on Google’s smartphone hardware team before exiting earlier this year. Levoy was a key
London-based femtech hardware startup Astinno has picked up an Innovate UK grant worth £360k ($450k) to fund further testing of a wearable it’s developing for women experiencing a perimenopause symptom known as hot flushes. The sensor-packed device, which it’s calling Grace, is being designed to detect the onset of a hot flush and apply cooling
Rakuten, often referred to as the “Amazon of Japan” with extensive holdings in e-commerce and streaming media, has made an acquisition that will help it build up and flex a newer arm of its business: communications services. Today, the company announced that it is buying Innoeye, an engineering company based out of Herndon, VA, with
As part of its anti-bullying efforts, Instagram today announced a series of new features aimed at helping users better manage negative comments as well as highlight positive ones. It’s also adding new controls to manage who can tag or mention you on Instagram, which can be another source of online bullying. The first of the
SirionLabs, a startup that provides vendor management software to enterprises, has raised $44 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand and handle surge in demand from clients. Tiger Global and Avatar Growth Capital led the Seattle-headquartered startup’s Series C round. The eight-year-old startup, which was founded in India, has raised $66
Berlin -based recruitment startup, Zenjob, which operates a digital platform connecting students with highly flexible temp jobs in sectors such as retail, logistics and hospitality, has closed a €27 million ($30M) Series C led by Forestay Capital. Also participating in the funding round: Redalpine, Acton Capital, Axa Venture Partners and Atlantic Labs. Prior to this
Smartphone shipments are reportedly beginning to see signs of life in China, after a sizable dip from the COVID-19 pandemic. New numbers from China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (a government-connected agency) point to a 17% rise in shipments for April, pointing to some recovery for the market. The figure, from the China state-supported
When you think of voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, the words “emotional” and “expressive” probably don’t come to mind. Instead, there’s that recognizably flat and polite voice, devoid of all affect — which is fine for an assistant, but isn’t going to work if you want to use synthetic voices in games,
Construyo, a Berlin-based startup that offers a “holistic” project management service that connects the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, has raised €2 million in seed funding. The round is led by Talis Capital, and follows €300,000 of previous backing from Florian Swoboda, founder of Liberty Ventures; Florian Leibert, founder of D2iQ, and Jan Kanieß,
Facebook has agreed in principle to pay $52 million to compensate current and former content moderators who developed mental health issues on the job. The Verge reported Tuesday that the settlement will cover more than 11,000 content moderators who developed depression, addictions and other mental health issues while they worked moderating content on the social
With a large part of the working world doing jobs from home when possible these days, the focus right now is on how best to recreate the atmosphere of an office virtually, and how to replicate online essential work that used to be done in person. Today, LinkedIn announced a couple of big new feature
VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike startup which launched in 2009, is now officially a “scale-up” after attracting a €12.5M / $13.5M investment from London VC Balderton Capital and SINBON Electronics, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer which is its bike assembly partner. The funds will be used for international expansion, following the launch of the new electric VanMoof
Global investment firm KKR is betting on the pizza business — it just led a $43 million Series C investment in Slice. Formerly known as MyPizza, Slice has has created a mobile app and website where diners can order a custom pizza delivery from their local, independent pizzeria. And for those pizzerias, CEO Ilir Sela
As the world looks to reopen after weeks of lockdown, governments are turning to contact tracing to understand the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Most nations are leaning toward privacy-focused apps that use Bluetooth signals to create an anonymous profile of where a person has been and when. Some, like Israel, are bucking the trend