Each second in the U.S., an older adult takes a fall, accounting for more than 27,000 deaths from falling among older individuals, according to the CDC. A company based in Haifa, Israel, however, is working on a way to prevent those falls in the first place. B-Shoe Technologies is working on a prototype for a shoe that senses imbalance in every step and uses a mini treadmill-like system to… Read More
Nature has inspired robotics since its earliest days. In 1739, French artist Jacques de Vaucanson gave the world the Digesting Duck, a surreal automaton that appeared to eat — and, yes, poop out — grain. In the middle of the 20th century, British neuroscientist William Grey Walter invented turtle and tortoise robots, so-named for their slow movement and shell shapes.
In modern… Read More
Apple has continued to expand its retail footprint in Asia after the iPhone-maker opened its first store in Taiwan this weekend. The inaugural Apple Store is located in Taipei 101, a landmark skyscraper in Taipei, and it is staffed with an initial workforce of 130 employees, Apple said. Doors in Taiwan opened at 11am local time on Saturday, but eager fans had queued for as long as 68 hours… Read More
Microsoft is poised to layoff thousands of employees worldwide in a move to reorganize its salesforce.
A source with knowledge of the planned downsizing told TechCrunch that the U.S. firm would lay off “thousands” of staff across the world. The restructuring is set to include an organizational merger that involves its enterprise customer unit and one or more of its SME-focused… Read More
Blue Apron has finally gone public, and we’re at about the halfway point of the year. We’ve seen a lot of IPOs for the first half of 2017, which followed a huge drought last year.
All this started when Snap opened up the so-called “IPO window” when it made its debut with a bang, popping the normally-expected 20% or so on its first day of trading. But since then… Read More
What a year (life?) it’s been for white women, people of color and nonbinary people in tech. First, engineer Susan Fowler came forward about her time at Uber, where she says the company ignored her numerous reports of sexual harassment. Then, 3 female founders came forward about their experiences of sexual harassment and unwanted advances with Justin Caldbeck, co-founder of Binary Capital. Read More
Well, why not? I mean, you know, what the hell. Dave Aitel’s proposal over at The Hill for “a cyber investigatory setup funded by private industry” to react to hacks into the American government may not be a good idea, per se, but who can afford that kind of cost-benefit analysis when we’re already in the throes of de-facto high-seas Internet warfare? Let’s just… Read More
Last Wednesday TechCrunch hosted the TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-Off in Tel Aviv, and a good time was had by all! Over 700 people packed into the Trask venue to see on-stage interviews and 10 companies pitching to win tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt. The startups had only one minute to pitch their product (with no slides) to a panel of local VC judges and TechCrunch editors. The winner of the… Read More
Taking an alternative approach to Chris Sacca’s pre-publication statement on the New York Times’ story of his alleged misconduct, Dave McClure waited a day to respond to the allegations made in yesterday’s article.
In a Medium post published Saturday evening, McClure neither denies nor defends the actions that he says have cost him the executive position at the firm he founded. Read More
Sorry, Luke — but it looks like both your lightsaber and R2-D2 have new owners.
In an auction that I’d like to pretend took place in front of a Sandcrawler in the middle of a desert, someone reportedly just dropped over $2 million dollars on R2-D2. Read More
There’s a widespread belief among founders that venture capital is a precursor to success. VC is a common denominator of the most successful tech startups, but it isn’t a prerequisite. To help illustrate this, here are 35 companies that started with a few thousand dollars, or even just sweat equity, and went on to become exemplars of what I call “efficient… Read More
Gaming firm Razer has filed to go public through an IPO in Hong Kong as it looks to raise more than $600 million to go after growth opportunities. The U.S.-based company, which traces its origins back to Singapore, filed initial paperwork on Friday. Certain details — such as how much Razer is looking to raise, its valuation and the timing of the IPO — are not disclosed in the… Read More
Dr. Karim Galil was tired of losing patients to cancer. He was tired of messy medical records. And he was tired of trying to stay on top of all the clinical trials touting one solution or another. Losing patience and patients, Galil decided to create an organized and artificially intelligent system to match those under his care with the best diagnostic and treatment methods available. Read More
San Francisco Bay Area companies raise so much venture capital relative to other places that a lot of little-known cities in the region outrank major metropolises in total funding. In this two-part series, we’ll look at nine under-the-radar places in the Bay Area that punch above their weight class when it comes to attracting startup funding. For today, we’ll focus on the East Bay. Read More
“We called this building Station F, like Station France, Station Femmes [ed. note: women in French], Station Founders or Station Freyssinet because Freyssinet was a great architect and a great entrepreneur,” French billionaire and Iliad founder Xavier Niel told Macron. While Station F was originally built in the 1920s by Eugène Freyssinet, it was supposed to be destroyed in 2011.… Read More
Today’s Stories
Facebook is rolling out its ‘Find Wi-Fi’ feature worldwide
Delivery Hero’s valuation surpasses $5B following successful IPO
Chat app Kakao raises $437M for its Korean ride-hailing service
Cabin secures $3.3M for its ‘moving hotel’
Credits
Written and Hosted by: Anthony Ha
Filmed by: Matthew Mauro
Edited by: Chris Gates
Notes:
Tito… Read More
Dave McClure, the founder and public face of 500 Startups — one of the most prolific and best-known accelerator programs for early stage companies — has stepped away from managing the firm he set up and largely built in his own image. McClure is the latest venture capitalist to be ensnared in the industry’s investigations into alleged sexual misconduct by investors with… Read More
On the heels of a $20 million funding round last month, the new game publishing company GameMine has inked its first big deal with a global carrier. The company has partnered with the South Africa mobile carrier Vodacom Group to bring GameMine’s subscription-based mobile games to the South African market. Read More
Redfin, the popular real estate listings site, has filed for IPO. The Seattle-based company unveiled its filing, suggesting that it will raise $100 million, a placeholder that is subject to change. The timing of the filing implies that Redfin is likely to debut in late July or early August. Read More
Snap Map is Snapchat’s plan to tie together its online content with ways to augment your offline reality, and it’s got the patent to back it up. Augmented reality location startup Drop tells TechCrunch that Snap Inc. acquired its intellectual property in 2015, including its “Location-based messaging” patent. Read More
