You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. After a fittingly fleeting time in the wild, Twitter is banishing its ephemeral stories feature known as Fleets, which debuted in November 2020. Twitter began testing Fleets back in March of last year. The company thought that it might be able to lure people who were […]
Advanced Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with more than $1.8 billion in assets under its management, was hit by a ransomware attack in July that saw cybercriminals steal personal information on the company’s private investors, or limited partners (LPs). In a letter to the Maine attorney general’s office, ATV said it became […]
In May of this year, Snap suspended two Snapchat-integrated apps that allowed users to send anonymous messages, Yolo and LMK, following a lawsuit filed on behalf of a mother whose son died by suicide after being bullied through messages on the apps for many months. In the wake of the suspensions, another anonymous messaging app […]
Google Maps announced today three feature updates to its iOS app. With live location sharing in the iMessage app, a traffic widget for the home screen and dark mode, Google Maps is positioning itself as a stronger competitor against iOS’ native Apple Maps. Live location sharing was already possible in Google Maps — by tapping […]
Last year, movie ticketing and discovery business Fandango, a division of NBCUniversal, bought the on-demand video streaming service Vudu from Walmart, after the retailer had failed to capitalize on the service it had first acquired in 2010 for $100 million. Today, Fandango is taking the next steps with Vudu by merging the service with its […]
With the pandemic wreaking havoc amongst early years education amid school lockdowns, it’s no wonder edtech startups have piled into the space. But it has also served to highlight the abysmal nature of early years teaching: Some 40 million teachers across the globe are leaving the sector, according to the World Bank. Of the 1.5 […]
Startup Alley is the place to be at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23. The sold-out expo area is the virtual home to hundreds of innovative startups ready to demo their tech and talent. While exhibiting offers plenty of opportunity for all, a VIP experience kicked off in July for 50 startup exhibitors the TechCrunch […]
Nikola, the electric truck startup that went public via a SPAC merger, warned Tuesday that supply chain constraints are causing numerous delays forcing it to slash its vehicle delivery projections in half. The company, which is still in pre-production, said in its second-quarter earnings call that its plans to produce 50 to 100 electric semi […]
Inspiration4 is getting its own documentary. Netflix said Tuesday it would be releasing a five-part series on the mission, its first documentary to cover an event “in near real-time,” in five parts in September. “Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space” will follow the first all-civilian Inspiration4 crew as they prepare for and undergo a three-day flight […]
Rani Therapeutics, a San Jose-based company developing a pill to replace medical injections, went public on Friday. According to S-1 filings, shares were estimated to price between $14 and $16 last week. On Friday, shares debuted slightly lower, around $11. Rani raised about $73 million in its debut. Rani’s debut comes amidst a flurry of […]
YouTube earlier this year announced its plans to significantly invest in original creator content for its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, with the introduction of a $100 million YouTube Shorts Fund. The fund will reward creators for their most engaging and most viewed short-form videos over the course of 2021 to 2022, with the goal of quickly […]
Substack announced last week that it acquired Letter, a platform that encourages written dialogue and debate. The financials of the deal weren’t disclosed, but this acquisition follows Substack’s recent $65 million raise. Newsletters are all the rage — Facebook launched its exclusive, celeb-studded Bulletin platform last month, and Twitter acquired the newsletter startup Revue earlier […]
Thoma Bravo-owned Sophos has announced its second takeover in as many weeks with the acquisition of Seattle-based DevSecOps startup Refactr. Refactr was founded in 2017 and offers an automation platform that helps cybersecurity and DevOps teams to collaboratively operate. The platform, which is used by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security and the U.S. Air […]
Marvell announced this morning it intends to acquire Innovium for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal. The startup, which raised over $400 million according to Crunchbase data, makes networking ethernet switches optimized for the cloud. Marvell president and CEO Matt Murphy sees Innovium as a complementary piece to the $10 billion Inphi acquisition last year, […]
Boeing is all set to make a second attempt at flying its Starliner CST-100 commercial crew spacecraft to the International Space Station, performing a key demonstration ahead of actually putting astronauts on board for the final big launch before it can claim the spacecraft is certified for regular flight by NASA. Today’s ‘Orbital Flight Test […]
Three-and-half months after launching the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, Apple is finally breaking it out from its iMac bundle. The accessory is now available as a standalone, through Apple Stores and the company’s site. There are two versions: the standard and a longer model with a numeric keypad (pretty much what the company offers […]
After months of testing with upwards of 100,000 beta testers, Citizen today is launching its premium Protect offering for all users. The subscription service runs $20 a month and opens up a number of features on the app. Chief among the new paid features is a “Get Agent” button, which offers access to a Citizen […]
Founded in 2017, Arizona-based Aira didn’t waste any time proving out its technology. We’ve written about the company’s wireless charging a few times over the years, including the “FreePower” technology it has baked into Nomad’s charging pads, which brings a more streamlined version of the Apple’s abandoned AirPower. The tech allows for users to charge […]
