WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, has faced a lot of controversy over the role that Groups plays on the platform — both for Groups’ role in spreading spam, misinformation or worse, and for the fact that it can be very hard (actually impossible) to control when you are added, except by blocking
European startup studio eFounders recently reached a portfolio valuation of $1 billion across 23 companies. And the company doesn’t want to stop there as it is currently launching three new companies and products. While software-as-a-service companies are trendy, eFounders has been exploring this space for a few years now. The company regularly comes up with
Stealth fintech startup Digits, from the same team that built Crashlytics to scale then sold to Twitter for over $100 million, has raised a $10.5 million round of Series A funding, the company is announcing today. The round was led by Benchmark and has the backing of 72 angels, including founders and CEOs from companies
Barcelona-based on-demand delivery startup Glovo is beefing up its engineering capacity by opening a second tech hub, its first in Poland — with an initial plan to hire 40 additional engineers and have a total of 50 tech and product experts working predominantly out of its Warsaw office. Glovo says it expects the Polish engineering
Saudi Arabian officials allegedly paid at least two employees of Twitter to access personal information on users the government there was interested in, according to recently unsealed court documents. Those users were warned of the attempt in 2015, but the full picture is only now emerging. According to an AP report citing the federal complaint,
Neo4j, a popular graph database, is available as an open source product for anyone to download and use. Its enterprise product aimed at larger organizations is growing fast, but the company recognized there was a big market in between those two extremes, and today it introduced a new managed cloud service called Aura. They wanted
Following the death of five people at a Halloween party hosted at a California Airbnb rental, and a scathing Vice report outlining Airbnb’s failure to prevent nation-wide scams, the company says it will begin verifying all seven million of its listings. Airbnb properties will soon be verified for accuracy of photos, addresses, listing details, cleanliness,
eToro, the multi-asset investment platform that spans “social” stock trading to cryptocurrency, has acquired Delta, the crypto portfolio tracker app. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although one source tells me the deal was worth $5 million. It is not clear if it is stock only or cash (or a mixture of both) and if
As history tells us, the break-up of ‘Big Oil’ and ‘Big Telco’ in the past, led to more competition and innovation. What to do in the era of ‘Big Tech’? Living in 2019, we know more than ever before about how Big Tech, particularly in the shape of Facebook, Twitter and Google – as the
The $399 Mavic Mini lives in a sweet spot of core features and a low price. It packs everything critical to be a quality drone. It has a good camera, good range, and a good controller. It holds up well in the wind and is quick enough to be fun. And it’s so small that
With roughly one million customers across Brazil and a new round of financing, the mobile phone insurance provider Pitzi now finds itself with a $100 million valuation. The size of its latest round, which was led by QED Investors and included commitments from existing investors like Thrive Capital and Valiant Partners, was undisclosed. PItzi acts
Tinder’s big experiment with interactive content — the recently launched in-app series called Swipe Night — was a success. According to Tinder parent company Match during its Q3 earnings this week, “millions” of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show’s episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a
Immersive Labs, a cybersecurity skills platform, has raised $40 million in its Series B, the company’s second round of funding this year following an $8 million Series A in January. Summit Partners led the fundraise with Goldman Sachs participating, the Bristol, U.K.-based company confirmed. Immersive, led by former GCHQ cybersecurity instructor James Hadley, helps corporate
GoCardless, the London fintech that makes it easy for businesses to offer recurring bank payments, has partnered with TransferWise for its currency exchange. The move sees GoCardless utilise the TransferWise API and the money transfer company’s “TransferWise for Business” product and in turn provide TransferWise’s FX rates to its own customers. More broadly, the partnership
FirstVet, the Swedish startup which provides pet owners with on-demand video consultations with local, qualified veterinarians, has closed €18.5 million in Series B funding. The round is led by London-based Omers Ventures, the venture capital arm of Canadian pension fund Omers that recently launched a dedicated €300 million fund to invest in European tech startups.
Voters in San Francisco have resoundingly rejected an attempt to overturn a citywide ban on e-cigarettes by a margin of around 80:20. Reporting on the count in the Bay Area, CBS SF says at least 78 per cent of voters rejected the ballot measure, known as Proposition C. The measure had been heavily back by e-cigarette
Chinese tech giant Huawei has asked some of the world’s best phone hackers to a secret meeting in Munich later this month as the company tries to curry favor with global governments, TechCrunch has learned. Sources with knowledge of the November 16 meeting said Huawei will privately present its new bug bounty program, which would
Though the social media landscape is dominated by a few major players, consumers still seem to want something new and different. Just look at TikTok. Today, a new social app is launching called Friended, which is taking an altogether different strategy when it comes to connecting people online. Friended was started by Thumb cofounder and
Search and personalization services continue to be a major area of investment among enterprises, both to make their products and services more discoverable (and used) by customers, and to help their own workers get their jobs done, with the market estimated to be worth some $100 billion annually. Today, one of the big startups building
Companies continue to refine digital diagnostic tools for in-home healthcare at a rapid clip. The latest to launch is an at-home test for urinary tract infections from the Los Angeles-based startup Scanwell Health. The company was founded by Stephen Chen, who literally grew up in the diagnostics testing business. His family had built one of
Economist Thomas Philippon’s new book, “The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets,” went on sale this past week, highlighting the United States’ failure to block the country’s largest companies from inhibiting fair competition. Alongside my review of the book, I spoke with Philippon to dig deeper into why entrepreneurs and venture investors
Xiaomi, which competes with Apple for the top position in the wearable market, today made the competition a little more interesting. The Chinese electronics giant has launched its first smartwatch called the Mi Watch that looks strikingly similar to the Apple Watch in its home market. The Mi Watch, like the Apple Watch, has a
AT&T is being punished at last for its shady claims of plans with “unlimited data” but were in reality nothing of the kind: The company has agreed to a $60 million settlement with the FTC, which has pursued the case for years. Some 3.5 affected customers can expect partial refunds — little more than pocket
YouTube today is expanding the ways creators can make money with the global launch of a new feature, Super Stickers. The stickers are aimed at fans who want to show their support and connect with favorite creators, similar to Super Chat, which highlights a fan’s messages within a live chat. To be eligible for either,
Amperity announced today that it’s acquiring another company in the customer data business, Custora. Amperity co-founder and CEO Kabir Shahani told me that Custora’s technology complements what Amperity is already offering. To illustrate this point, he said that customer data tools fall into three big buckets: “The first is know your customer, the second is
Over the past several years, ‘fintech’ has quietly become the unsung darling of venture. A rapidly swelling pool of new startups is taking aim at the large incumbent institutions, complex processes and outdated unfriendly interfaces that mar billion dollar financial services verticals, such as insurtech, consumer lending, personal finance, or otherwise. In just the past
What if you could pay now to store something online permanently? You could preserve a website against censorship, save legal contracts, or offer an app even after your company fails. That’s the promise of Arweave‘s Permaweb. The startup has built a new type of blockchain that relies on Moore’s Law-style declining data storage costs. Users
Walmart has dropped a lawsuit that accused Tesla of breach of contract and gross negligence after rooftop solar panel systems on seven of the retailer’s stores allegedly caught fire. A settlement has been reached and stipulation of dismissal has been filed with the court, a Walmart spokesperson said in an email. It is unclear what
Setapp, the Spotify of Mac apps, is launching a new subscription plan specifically designed for teams. It is currently available as a public beta. As a reminder, Setapp lets you download and use 160 apps for a flat subscription fee. You don’t need to pay for major updates and there’s no in-app purchase. Anybody can
Microsoft’s original Xbox Elite controller was a major step-up for gamers, with customizable buttons, changeable physical controls and adjustable sensitivity for serious personalization. The new Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 has just landed, and it offers similar features, but with new and improved features that add even more customization options, along with key hardware improvements