Last week, I slipped away from Disrupt for a couple of hours to watch a Giants game at nearby AT&T park — or, more precisely, watch a Giants game through an iPad. It was a small gathering hosted by Major League Baseball that points toward a possible future for fandom that’s exciting and fascinating, all while bringing out the crotchety old tech journalist in me that’s… Read More
Synup, a startup that helps marketers monitor where their brands are mentioned online, announced that it has raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures. Existing investor Prime Venture Partners also returned for the round. Read More
Synthace, a UK startup using open source technology to make process in biotechnology move faster, has raises a £7.3m Series A round. New investors White Cloud Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners and Eleven Two Capital participated alongside existing investors that included Sofinnova Partners, SOSV and Bioeconomy Capital.
The Company’s Antha operating system replaces processes which are… Read More
Inkitt, which bills itself as “the world’s first reader-powered book publisher,” has raised $3.9 million in pre-series A funding, in a round led by Redalpine, with Frontline Ventures, Speedinvest and a number of private investors also participating. The Berlin-based startup is part writing and reading community, and part publishing house, with one aspect feeding the other. Read More
Picfair, the London-based photo marketplace founded by ex-journalist Benji Lanyado, has raised £1.5 million in new funding — capital it plans to use to market its “fair trade photography” proposition to the plethora of companies that need authentic photo content. Read More
Indian e-commerce company GlowRoad is built on a simple premise. By connecting manufacturers with resellers and using drop shipping, it keeps everyone’s overhead costs low. The Bangalore-based startup, however, doesn’t just aspire to be an online reseller network. Founded by a former physician, GlowRoad’s goal is to give housewives and stay-at-home mothers a low-risk way to… Read More
As you’ve probably gathered TechCrunch is headed to Australia to find the most disruptive early-stage startups, in partnership with ELEVACAO. As we like to say these days, ‘all roads lead to Disrupt’ and our focus now is to reach out internationally to find the best startups for our Disrupt stages, from all around the world. TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield Australia is… Read More
President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and official White House adviser, Jared Kushner, used a private email server — set up after the election — to conduct White House business, according to a new report in Politico. Kushner used the private account in tandem with his official White House email account to correspond with current and former senior White House officials,… Read More
SAP, the German enterprise software giant, today announced an acquisition to strengthen its hybris e-commerce division. It has acquired Gigya, a firm that helps online properties manage customer identities and profiles. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed officially, but our sources tell us it is for $350 million. This was the same figure that was reported yesterday when the news leaked… Read More
According to Re-Imagine group chairman and serial tech entrepreneur Peter Hirshberg, we are at a decisive moment in our innovation economy. Silicon Valley – or, at least, the “ethos of Silicon Valley” – is spreading all over America, Hirshberg insists. And Silicon Valley is reinventing what he calls “secondary” places like Youngstown, Ohio or… Read More
At TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco we always have a huge and varied array of companies presenting.
Here’s a taster of the Startup Alley from this year, featuring companies from many of the pavilions at the event. Enjoy!
Health and BioTech Pavillion
Korea Pavillion
Germany Pavilion
Hardware Pavillion
IOT Pavilion
UK and Brussels Pavilion
AR/VR Pavillion Read More
Although the Fourth Amendment protects us and our “effects” from “unreasonable searches and seizures,” Customs and Border Protection agents can take advantage of an exception to this constitutional protection and search our electronic devices at airports without first establishing reasonable suspicion or securing a warrant. It’s a problem that’s only… Read More
I want to talk about a mistake I see client after client making. (I work at a tech consultancy. We have a lot of clients. Not all of them make this mistake! …But many do.) That mistake is to obsess over analytics data, without any strategy; to assume that all that needs to be done is to gather as much data as possible, and then this data will magically become knowledge, and knowledge… Read More
Deliveroo, the London headquartered restaurant food delivery startup, has raised $385 million in new funding, giving it a valuation of “over $2 billion,” according to the company. Read More
Attracting investment is a milestone for any startup – it’s a vote of confidence from a respected outside expert in your space and a signal that your company is positioned for the future, which is important to prospective partners and customers, as well as future investors. Beyond that, new funding can also increase your visibility, attracting the attention of top talent and… Read More
Massive opportunities in urban transportation are emerging as the industry transitions from per-vehicle to per-mile economics
Growing up, I dreamed of owning cars I would be proud to wax, polish, and cruise around my neighborhood. Today, I dread the prospect of being weighed down by a rapidly depreciating hunk of plastic and metal. Now all I want is a pleasant transportation… Read More
It’s no secret that automakers have shown more interest in startups lately. Nor is it any secret what’s driving that surge, given the massive shifts the industry faces from the rise of electric cars, autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing services and other emerging technologies and transportation business models. We set out to quantify combined investment by automakers in startups… Read More
Southeast Asia-based games and e-commerce firm Sea, formerly known as Garena, has officially filed for its much-anticipated U.S. IPO. The company, which is valued at over $3.75 billion, will list on the New York Stock Exchange as ‘SE’ and is looking to raise $1 billion. Sea is best known for its Garena gaming business, which predominantly focuses on PC games but also includes… Read More
Beats had a handful of different sounds on hand to test the Studio 3 ahead of launch. The demo was designed to showcase the range of the headphones’ new adaptive noise-canceling technology — but there’s only so much you can get from a demo in that kind of controlled environment. Read More
Ask how many people have been killed in the last couple decades by police officers, and results vary widely. Local and federal authorities may track them differently, likewise activist and research groups. One project hopes to keep better tabs on police-related fatalities by having an AI system extract them from news reports nationwide. Read More
