The Securities and Exchange Commission today has charged both a diamond and a real estate initial coin offering scheme with defrauding investors. REcoin, which promoted itself as the first cryptocurrency-backed real estate company and DRC World, a diamond company, are owned by businessman Maksim Zaslavskiy. In a statement, the SEC accuses Zaslavskiy of selling unregistered securities and… Read More
Former Uber chief Travis Kalanick has appointed two more people to the ridesharing company’s board.
One of the seats is going to Ursula Burns, former CEO and Chairwoman of Xerox. The other is going to John Thain, who has served as CEOs of CIT Group, Merrill Lynch and the New York Stock Exchange.
A spokesperson for Kalanick provided us with the following statement:
“I am happy to… Read More
StackCommerce, which sells articles sponsored by brands and published on websites, has acquired the online video marketing company Joyus in an all cash transaction to expand its advertising footprint in media targeting women and work more with online video. The media market for fashion, women’s health, and shopping is a new one for StackCommerce which has worked closely with websites… Read More
I have financed nearly 50 early-stage companies and the question of proper valuation comes up in every financing. There is the obvious tension: Generally speaking, the existing shareholders would like the highest valuation possible, while the new investors would prefer the lowest. For founders, understanding how VCs look at valuation is critical for a successful fundraising process. Read More
Digital streaming business Roku has soared in its public debut. After pricing its IPO Wednesday at $14 per share, Roku finished its first day of trading at $23.50, up nearly 68%. And by the end of Friday, Roku closed at $26.54, or up 90% in less than 48 hours. The company is now valued at about $2.6 billion. So this must be great news for the company, right? Well, sort of. Read More
Venture capitalists are in a pickle. Companies have raised more than $1.7 billion through initial coin offerings, or ICOs, this year by selling their own customized virtual currencies. For the companies, the trend is a godsend. They can raise the money and use it to fuel new projects without having to give away a piece of their company to venture capitalists. Meanwhile, both accredited and… Read More
Emilio Ferrara has been thinking about botnets for over a decade. As the first social networks climbed out of the mire, he noticed that they were very easy to game. Now, it seems, all of those early tools have finally been weaponized.
I spoke to Ferrara about his research work as well as his fascinating study that found that Twitter bots can be used for good. In this episode of Technopia we… Read More
Three female, former Oracle employees, Rong Jewett, Sophy Wang and Xian Murray, are suing Oracle for allegedly paying women less than men in similar jobs. The lawsuit, filed August 28, seeks a class-action status to represent all other women who have worked at Oracle. Read More
If you’re like me, you switched your default browser over to Chrome years ago and never looked back. Chances are, before you made the switch, you used Firefox or Internet Explorer. What made Chrome stand out back then was its speed and simplicity, especially at a time when Firefox felt like it was getting slower and heavier with every update. But times have changed. Read More
Facebook has its own version of Apple’s Face ID. If you get locked out of your Facebook account, the company is testing a way to regain access by using your face to verify your identity. That could be especially useful if you’re somewhere that you can’t receive two-factor authentication SMS, like on a plane or while traveling abroad, or if you lose access to your email… Read More
Walmart’s Jet.com is going after millennial shoppers with the launch of its own grocery brand called Uniquely J, which is expected to arrive in a couple of months. The goal with the brand — beyond an obvious desire for increased margins — is to attract a younger shopper. Read More
French startup Heetch has been around for quite a few years. Although things were running smoothly, the company had to start over mostly from scratch. In March 2017, a court in Paris ruled that Heetch had been illegally operating a transportation company. The startup is now rising from the ashes and raising $12 million to fund its new service. Read More
Podcasts are a growing area of interest even for media companies that typically work in TV and other formats, and AMC/Sundance is extending its bet on making something of streaming audio. The show is called “Deadly Manners,” and it’s a fictional murder mystery with some big-name stars, including Kristen Bell, Anna Chlumsky, RuPaul, LeVar Burton, Denis O’Hare and Alisha Boe. Read More
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Xcode, a small Czech team called Brightify has created Reactant, a framework that makes it easy to program iOS apps. The system is a Swift-based framework that offers live-reload of code, allowing you to add elements on the fly as you program. “The Reactant architecture dictates how to structure an iOS project from start to finish. It… Read More
Amazon Studios is on a quest – a quest to bring Jeff Bezos a ‘Game of Thrones’ of his very own. But the Amazon version may be found in the stars, rather than in a mythical fantasy past. Amazon Studios is working on three new series (via Deadline) based on celebrated science-fi book properties, including Ringworld, Lazarus and Snow Crash. The series are all part of efforts… Read More
TechCrunch has learned that Apple has acquired a small French startup called Regaind, according to multiple sources. As always, Apple is very quiet when it comes to acquisitions, but it’s always interesting to learn more about Apple’s interests. We’ve reached out to Apple and the company sent us the following statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time… Read More
Walmart is placing a big bet on React Native. With Electrode, the company’s Walmart Labs division open sourced the React-based framework that powers Walmart.com’s frontend and today the same group is also launching Electrode Native, its tool for bringing React Native to existing native apps on iOS and Android. The basics idea here is that Electrode Native allows large companies… Read More
The SNES Classic Edition is out today, and is probably currently en route to those lucky enough to have scored a pre-order, and being picked up by bleary-eyed fans who set up early at game store locations around the world. Reviews have been almost universally positive for the small console, which is not surprising, so a lot of folks will probably also be in the market for accessories –… Read More
Disney’s streaming service may still be years away, but the company this week has launched a new app for streaming Disney’s series, Disney Channel movies, live TV and music all under one roof, with the release of DisneyNow. The app is designed to consolidate Disney’s existing “Watch” streaming apps into one, including Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior and… Read More
Alibaba has spent 2017 pushing its cloud computing business and now it is preparing to make its first major investment in a Western startup in the space.
The Chinese e-commerce giant has agreed to lead a €22.9 million ($27 million) investment in MariaDB, the European company behind one of the web’s most popular open source database servers, according to a source with knowledge of… Read More
