Snapchat doesn’t technically have a developer platform, but that hasn’t stopped other startups from taking advantage of its new feature for attaching links to your Snaps and Stories. Sarahah was the first, allowing people to ask fellow Snappers for open-ended anonymous feedback. But the problem is that those requests could be met with cyberbullying.
Polly is a new teen sensation… Read More
On the heels of its $70 million Series C, an expansion to new markets, and a partnership with Blink Fitness, the popular workout subscription service ClassPass is now beginning to experiment with variable pricing. The test was revealed by new ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman, speaking on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF this afternoon. The idea to try out a virtual currency of sorts came about… Read More
Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup. After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down… Read More
It’s been the talk of the summer in Silicon Valley. CEOs at Uber and SoFi lost their jobs after whistleblowers came forward, alleging sexism and harassment. Powerful venture capitalists, including Dave McClure from 500 Startups lost their jobs after women, including Sarah Kunst, accused him of making inappropriate advances when seeking a job at his venture firm.
Workplace harassment… Read More
Alchemist Accelerator, known for its specialty in working with enterprise startups, held its 16th demo day at Microsoft’s offices in Mountain View, California. 18 startups pitched ideas ranging from more traditional marketplaces to frontier aerospace technology. Addressing the packed auditorium before the pitches began, Ravi Belani, managing partner at Alchemist, reasserted his core… Read More
Today at Disrupt, 21.co CEO and co-founder Balaji Srinivasan outlined his company’s unusual evolution and announced the launch of a new system for kickstarting the site’s user base by incentivizing people with tokens for doing things like signing up, getting verified and performing certain tasks. The company opted to move away from the increasingly popular ICO model because… Read More
ICOs — or initial coin offerings — are emerging as a route for startups to raise money from a wide pool of investors through cryptocurrency networks. Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Y Combinator president Sam Altman painted a mixed picture of the role of ICOs in the tech world today. It wasn’t all good. Read More
The fintech revolution continues apace, and while many startups are hoping that newer and better tech will help them take business away from traditional banks, today a company has received a large round of funding to help those incumbent institutions better compete.
10x Future Technologies is a startup that has built a ground-up platform that incorporates machine learning, cloud services… Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017 we sat down with three experts from the esports world to explain why you should start paying attention to the industry. To kick it off, Heather Garozzo, a former competitive Counter Strike player and current Director of Fan Marketing for Team Dignitas, told us what a day in the life of a professional esports player is like. And surprisingly, it’s not… Read More
Earlier today at Disrupt, Kirsten Green, founder of the early-stage, San Francisco-based venture firm Forerunner Ventures, sat down for a quick conversation about her work. Green has become one of the most sought-after e-commerce investors in the country. Read More
In a fairly epic new Vanity Fair profile, the magazine reports that Peter Thiel is the frontrunner to become the chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), a meta intelligence entity that functions independently from the nation’s spy agencies. Read More
There are tons of companies trying to solve the problem of managing, monitoring and paying musicians for the songs they make. The latest entrant into this competitive marketplace is HAAWK, which just scored $2.5 million in new financing for its technology. Read More
Uber’s first-ever chief brand officer, Bozoma Saint John, spoke today at TechCrunch Disrupt about the challenges ahead of her in her new role focused on transforming the Uber brand. The executive, who most recently led the global consumer marketing division for Apple Music and iTunes, had only been working at Uber for a matter of days before embattled CEO Travis Kalanick resigned… Read More
In a first for national grocery chains, Albertsons is buying the healthy meal kit delivery startup Plated for an undisclosed amount, brokered by Credit Suisse Group AG. Read More
Tesla is reportedly developing its own processor for artificial intelligence, intended for use with its self-driving systems, in partnership with AMD. Tesla has an existing relationship with Nvidia, whose GPUs power its Autopilot system, but this new in-house chip reported by CNBC could potentially reduce its reliance on third-party AI processing hardware.
AMD would help provide Tesla with… Read More
Delphi is planning to launch its own autonomous driving solution for car manufacturers and mobility service fleet operators in 2019, and it announced today that it will use BlackBerry QNX as the operating system for the automated drive solution. Both BlackBerry QNX and Delphi are long-time auto industry stalwarts who have been reconfiguring their businesses to focus on the opportunity… Read More
Facebook failed to foresee how turning user-written interests and employer information from profiles into ad targeting options could turn offensive. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has apologized for the situation, and announced that Facebook will now manually review all ad targeting options. Read More
Digital Ocean today announced Spaces, its object storage service. This complements the company’s block storage service. Both of these services have different use cases, of course; unlike the block storage service, Spaces, as an object store, can scale up far beyond the 16TB limit of the block storage service because it’s not volume-based and not about connecting storage to a… Read More
SpaceX has previously discussed its plans to put a satellite-based broadband Internet network into operation, as a way of supplementing its bottom line with a brand new revenue stream. Now, we know what SpaceX might call its new broadband product: Starlink.
The name comes from documents filed by SpaceX to obtain the trademark rights to “Starlink,” as reported by GeekWire. The… Read More
According to its chairman, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence intends to call Facebook to a public hearing on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. North Carolina Senator Richard Burr made remarks to reporters on Tuesday confirming the committee’s interest in speaking with Facebook, the Hill reports. Read More
