Yesterday, three-year-old, NFX Guild, a Silicon Valley-based, invite-only accelerator program that has now worked with 80 companies, hosted its newest demo day before 200 venture investors at the Computer History Museum in unfailingly sunny Mountain View, Ca. The outfit — which is backed financially by the venture firms CRV, Shasta Ventures, Greylock Partners, and Mayfield, and that… Read More
Two years ago, at the age of 34, Tammy Sun decided to freeze her eggs. Though larger tech companies like Apple and Facebook had started offering this service as a perk to retain female talent, it was not something Evernote, whom Sun worked for at the time, provided.
So several shots, doctors visits and $30,000 out of her own pocket later she got the idea to make the process easier and more… Read More
Back in June Brent Hoberman, who famously founded and floated Lastminute.com, unveiled his new investment vehicle . The first $60m close for ‘firstminute Capital’ was announced then with Atomico being the cornerstone investor. The fund was also backed by 28 unicorns founders. In the end, it turned out to be oversubscribed and they can now announce a second close for the fund. This… Read More
Pinterest said today it now has 200 million monthly active users, up from 150 million a little under a year ago.
In April, the company said it hit 175 million monthly active users, so it seems it’s been able to grow pretty methodically in the past year or so. That’s going to be a good sign for the company, which set some very ambitious targets in early 2015 but has since had to… Read More
Essential’s first phone, the aptly named Phone, is now available in Sprint retail stores. The retail availability follows pre-orders and sales via web and Essential’s own online store, and will provide the first opportunity many potential customers have to get their hands on the device. Despite some hardware hiccups and a launch shipping delay, Essential has done an impressive job… Read More
Spotify has quietly launched its own iMessage application that let you text songs to friends with just a few taps. The new app hasn’t been officially announced, but appears to be similar in functionality to Spotify’s Messenger app, which went live earlier this spring as one of Messenger’s new chat extensions. As with the Messenger bot, the new iMessage app also lets you… Read More
Apple’s forthcoming FaceID technology will support just one face registered per device, at least initially. This has been reported by multiple people who spoke to Apple at this week’s iPhone event, and confirmed separately by TechCrunch, but it’s worth noting because it could change some user behavior regarding the device. Face ID supporting just one face makes a lot of sense… Read More
Clinch aims to create video ads personalized for each viewer, and it’s raised $3 million to bring that technology to the United States. It’s not the only personalized video ad technology on the market, but CEO Oz Etzioni argued, “Nobody is doing what we’re doing.” By that, he means that Clinch’s ostensible competitors started out in display advertising… Read More
What happens when a mad scientist’s musicbots rebel against their own precision? You get “Automatica”, the latest video from Nigel Stanford, who scored 13 million views controlling water, fire, and lightning with sound in his viral hit “Cymatics”. Stanford tells us “I’m trying to create an online version of Synethsesia – the brain disorder… Read More
Daimler’s Fuso eCanter trucks, which are fully electric and have a range of 60 miles per charge, are making their way to the U.S. for the first time (via Reuters) for customers in New York City. Daimler’s announcement of the move for its Mitsubishi Fuso trucking unit comes at the same time as Elon Musk has set the reveal of Tesla’s all-electric semi truck for October 26.… Read More
Product Hunt is hoping to make it easier for those who create products to market those products as well. Today, the platform where people vote up or down on startup products is launching a suite of tools for creators to generate demand for the products they make with a new suite of tools called Ship.
There’s already a lot of tools out there to help founders and creators market on the… Read More
Yext has been known for helping businesses get all their information (like location, business hours, and such) lined up correctly on the right apps and websites — and now it’s looking to make sure the rest of the pitch is right across the Internet. Yext, which went public earlier this year, said it is launching a feature called knowledge tags to help businesses make their websites… Read More
Metacert is a company that hunts down and kills fake news. Created by Paul Walsh, it can assess whether or not a link is trustworthy and warn you before you click. Further, he’s found great traction with ICO creators who are using the software to keep people from sending their investors to doctored websites. In this episode of Technotopia I talked to Paul about his work with fake news… Read More
Hyperloop One just announced 10 major finalists from its global competition to identify the best potential Hyperloop routes, but it’s already entering into a formal public-private partnership agreement with one of those candidates. The Colorado Department of Transportation is teaming up with the Hyperloop company to conduct a feasibility study of its proposed route linking Cheyenne… Read More
Hyperloop One wants to build a real, working Hyperloop – but it’ll need strong partners to make it a reality, across both industry and government. That’s why, in part, it held a global competition requesting proposals for routes around the world. The winners of that competition have now been announced, and the resulting routes span the U.S., the U.K, Mexico, India and… Read More
HBO isn’t leaving anything to chance when it comes to spoiler potential for its climactic Game of Thrones finale: The network will be shooting multiple endings for Season 8, the show’s next and final season (via Mashable).
The idea is simple – if no one, including the cast and crew, know which ending is the ‘real’ one, then it should make it very difficult to spoil. Read More
Commercial real estate can be a lucrative investment, but it can be hard to come up with the money to buy a stake in the first place.
That’s the idea behind RealtyShares, a platform which pools together debt and equity investments for apartments, office buildings and retail centers.
Now the San Francisco-based startup has gained enough traction to find another big investment for itself. Read More
Facebook today is announcing a new feature called Crisis Response, designed to make it easier for people to find out more about recent crises and access various to tools to support recovery, including Safety Check, Community Help and Fundraisers. This trio of tools had previously existed – the difference is that all the resources will now be located in a single place. The social network… Read More
What if you could accurately predict the resale value of a home before buying it? A startup called HouseCanary claims that its data can help you with that. Touting a system that can forecast a sale price within 2.5%, co-founder and CEO Jeremy Sicklick told TechCrunch that Eric Schmidt, Kobe Bryant and other well-known names are betting on his startup because they believe it will make… Read More
Snapchat’s World Lens feature applies filters intelligently to the world around you using augmented reality and your smartphone’s camera, and now you the app is adding support for Bitmoji to the feature. This means you can take those animated avatars of yourself and drop them into your surroundings. It’s a smart use of both Bitmoji and World Lens tech – you can do… Read More
