The shortcomings of SAFE notes are coming home to roost; ironically, entrepreneurs are paying the price. Y Combinator invented the notes with a noble goal: “we intend the SAFE to remain fair to both investors and founders.” But many SAFE notes that entrepreneurs are quick to issue now have a nasty bite: much more dilution than the issuers thought when they signed those documents. Read More
If you’ve been following the drone registration saga in the United States, you may remember that in May a Federal Appeals Court struck down the FAA’s drone registration requirement. The registration requirement, which mandated hobbyists pay $5 and submit their personal information into an FAA database and attach a registration number to their drone, was relatively mild. However… Read More
Though the region known as Silicon Valley covers dozens of municipalities, a few cities get outsized attention in tech circles. Everyone knows Palo Alto, Mountain View, San Jose and San Francisco as hotbeds for startup innovation. But they’re not the only ones. Less-talked-about cities in the region are also raking in funding. Read More
Google’s Digital News Initiative has committed £622,000 ($805,000) to fund an automated news writing initiative for UK-based news agency, The Press Association. The money will help pay for the creation of Radar (Reporters And Data And Robots), snappily named software designed to generate upwards 30,000 local news stories a month. The Press Association has enlisted UK-based news startup… Read More
Station F is the world’s biggest startup campus. Thousands of entrepreneurs are currently moving into the new building here in Paris. But if you’re still wondering what it actually looks like, we visited Station F and interviewed the two persons behind it — Roxanne Varza and Xavier Niel. Station F is a massive building that has been completely renovated and now features… Read More
Comma.ai launches its new product (Panda), Roche buys mySugr app and Tesla’s making the largest battery storage facility. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
There were a few big breaks in the case between Waymo and Uber over self-driving car technology today. As a result, the scope of the case is starting to come into focus as both companies prepare for a trial set to begin in October. Read More
A new filing confirms that there were other suitors trying to buy Whole Foods, but that Amazon put pressure on Whole Foods not to talk to them. The document cites a “Company X” that expressed interest in having exploratory conversations in mid-April, but did not make a formal offer. Read More
Of all the challenges we face in 2017 and beyond, “fake news” has certainly made its way to the top of the list. Can technology solve this issue head-on? In short, my answer is no. Technology will play a role in the fake news fight, but ultimately, humans created fake news — and it it will take human intervention to stop it. Read More
While VCs and startup founders often are the earliest to know about cutting-edge technological advances bubbling from the bottom up (while public-market hedge fund and global macro investors find out about them only later), they often are the last to know about global macro forces that may impact them. Read More
Taking a break from touching pieces of sophisticated technology labeled “do not touch” in a Kennedy Center clean room, Vice President Mike Pence made a speech to NASA yesterday that further signaled the Trump administration’s apparent enthusiasm toward space exploration.
The one where Vice President Mike Pence visits the Orion clean room https://t.co/cu8TNNxygl… Read More
A new report from Nielsen out this week paints a picture of the booming on-demand audio streaming business, pointing to a significant increase in consumers’ use of streaming services and record numbers of streams being served. According to the mid-year report, which focuses only on the U.S. market, on-demand audio streams surpassed the 7 billion figure for the first time ever during March… Read More
While U.S. nuclear and energy facilities are increasingly aware of the cyberthreats to their systems, we can expect to see more hacks testing the limits of critical infrastructure systems, both in the U.S. and abroad. Read More
Ever been driving a car when both the brake and the gas pedal failed, and the dashboard go nuts? I just have, and it isn’t fun. What are we going to do when our cars are targets for hackers?
The problem with most modern cars is that to offer many more kinds of services (live traffic data for sat navs, etc.) they need to be connected. Once that happens then they are, by definition, hackable. Read More
Vidcode, a Y Combinator-backed startup focused on teaching teens how to code, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding for its curriculum. While there are a number of learn-to-code platforms out there today, Vidcode’s approach is to make coding more interesting to teens by connecting it to their existing interests – like Snapchat filters and memes – while also allowing… Read More
The tech communities in China and the U.S. are now talking to each other more than ever. Some of the most ambitious deals involve both American and Chinese founders and investors. TechCrunch has noticed this cross-pollination effect, and we feel Disrupt should reflect this trend. That’s why we’re so excited to host some of the best Chinese companies and investors at Disrupt SF… Read More
mySugr, a popular digital diabetes management platform which emerged from Austria a few years ago, has been acquired by health giant Roche. It now becomes the heart of Roche Diabetes Care’s new patient-centered digital health services. Roche plans to maintain its acquisition as an open and independent platform for health insurance companies, medical technology companies, and… Read More
Actor and startup investor Ashton Kutcher is gearing up to host a “live open dialog about gender equality in the work place and in tech in general.” He plans to host it with fellow Sound Ventures partner Effie Epstein via Facebook on either Monday or Tuesday of next week, according to his post. Read More
Time waits for no entrepreneur, and you have exactly one week left to submit your application to the Startup Battlefield taking place at Disrupt San Francisco 2017. The event takes place September 18-20 at Pier 48, and there’s no better way to launch your early-stage startup. The clock is ticking. Put down the Red Bull, take a break from coding and apply today. Read More
One of the promises of voice-based computing is the ability to make home automation simpler – something that major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Google, are now tackling with their own voice assistants and smart speakers. But their solutions are still somewhat clunky, both in terms of the software interface for configuring your smart home and the voice commands you use to… Read More
