Every day companies are uploading fresh code to the cloud. The pace is startling and that tends to lead to errors. We have seen security software in the past that will check that code for problems and security holes and recommend fixes before launching, but what happens when your programming team doesn’t have time or money to make those fixes (or simply ignores them)? ShiftLeft, a… Read More
Much like healthcare years ago, financial wellness is evolving into an essential employee benefit. Valuable to both employers and employees, this trend offers ripe opportunity for innovation. Read More
A YouTube channel that had been implicated in Russia disinformation operations to target the U.S. 2016 election has been taken down by Google. Read More
Withlocals, the the Netherlands-based startup that operates a marketplace for personalised travel experiences, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Inkef Capital, the Amsterdam-headquartered VC firm. Read More
Ometria, a customer marketing platform which says it’s “AI-powered” has raised $6m in Series A funding. US-based Summit Action led the round, along with an investment syndicate backed by individuals with roles inside some key retailers. Ometria has now raised a total of $11m to accelerate the development of its customer marketing platform, which, it claims, enables retailers… Read More
Jumia, the dominant e-commerce company in sub-Saharan Africa, is expanding the small business loan program it launched earlier this year into every country where the company operates. Working with the San Francisco-based lender Branch, Jumia began offering start-up loan for small businesses in May. The loans were pegged to vendors sales history with Jumia and projections for the future… Read More
Here we are in Nairobi, Kenya. For the first time, TechCrunch is hosting a conference in Africa. We have an amazing lineup of speakers who all share a ton of knowledge and expertise about technology in Kenya and Africa in general. But the real star of the show is going to be the Startup Battlefield.
15 startups are going to compete to win the Startup Battlefield competition and earn best of show. Read More
Alibaba Group announced today that it plans to invest more than $15 billion over the next three years into a global research and development initiative called Alibaba DAMO Academy. The Chinese tech giant said the program, which it is currently recruiting 100 researchers, will help it reach its goal of serving two billion customers and creating 100 million jobs by 2036, while also… Read More
It’s been a long while coming but Uber’s chief rival in India is finally raising a big round, and joining the billion-dollar round club at the same time. Ola today announced that it has closed $1.1 billion in fresh financing. That’s the largest funding round in the company’s six-year history and its first major raise since November 2015 when it closed $500 million… Read More
For the second time in less than three weeks, Twitter has said it will look at its policies following controversy over tweets by a politician. On Tuesday, Twitter reversed a decision it made the day before to block a campaign video from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican representative from Tennessee, for breaking its ad policies. In a media statement, a Twitter spokesperson said “While… Read More
Unicorns are like buses for Hong Kong. After living in the shadow of other cities and waiting around for its first, it now has (almost) two billion-dollar companies within months… and in the same space. GoGoVan became the country’s first unicorn in September following a merger deal with China-based 58 Suyun, and now Lalamove — another Hong Kong company specializing in… Read More
Star Wars “The Last Jedi” trailer is released, more than 5,000 Wells Fargo ATMs now NFC enabled and North Korea hacked and stole U.S. and South Korea war plans. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Your Facebook profile used to be the online version of “you”. But over the past year, Bitmoji has usurped Facebook to become the preferred way to share your identity over the web. The Facebook profile assembles a collection of text and real-world photos into a fixed set of poses, making it more of a snapshot of the offline you ported into the digital realm rather than a vision of… Read More
Sheel Tyle used to co-lead the seed-investing practice at New Enterprise Associates. Now he’s raising his own, $100 million fund, reports Forbes. Tyle has an interesting story. After graduating from Stanford at age 19 with a double major in biology and public policy, he went on to nab a law degree from Harvard while working first for the venture firm Bessemer Venture Partners and, by age… Read More
Houzz is expanding its presence in India by partnering with Times Bridge, the investment arm of The Times Group.
As a result of the deal, Houzz said its content will be integrated into The Times Group’s online properties, including the Times of India. A Houzz spokesperson said this will be “the authentic Houzz experience” with the full functionality of the platform, which… Read More
The idea of inviting an always-on recording device into our bedrooms would have once seemed beyond creepy, but now most consumers hardly give it a second thought. As Android Police reports, a small number of Google Home Mini review units given to tech reviewers malfunctioned, persistently recording audio in the background without being activated by a hotword. Read More
The latest news from the enormous Equifax hack is that the stolen records included 10.9 million driver’s licenses from U.S. citizens, according to the Wall Street Journal’s sources. This isn’t much of a surprise given how poorly all the other information was secured, but it’s nice to put a number on just how many of various personal documents Equifax’s poor… Read More
HelloFresh, the Berlin-based cooking kit delivery company, revealed that it’s planning to raise up to $353 million in an IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The move would value HelloFresh at up to 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in the public markets. This is below the last private market valuation of 2 billion euros.
The IPO may come as a surprise to some, following the lackluster… Read More
Short-form podcast app 60dB will be shutting down next month and its team will be joining Google in an apparent acqui-hire. Google confirmed the deal to TechCrunch, with a spokesperson noting that it was not a formal acquisition, rather the company had “purchased some assets” and that members of the team would be joining Google. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Read More
If you’ve had bad luck so far in trying to nab an SNES Classic Edition, you’ll have a fresh chance tomorrow. Two major retailers have announced they have stock in hand and will be selling it starting October 11. Read More
