Since its launch several years ago, the deal-finding browser add-on Honey has grown its install base to 4.4 million users on Chrome, in addition to its smaller presence on Firefox and Safari. Initially conceived as an easier way to find savings by tracking sales and retailers’ promo codes, the company is now expanding its selection of online shopping tools to include an Amazon price… Read More
Cabin recently announced it had secured $3.3 million in seed financing for its sleeper-car buses. That’s right, a full-size travel bus has been outfitted with sleeping berths lining a narrow walkway, like trains used to have. There are attendants on hand and a bathroom on board, and each rider can bring two pieces of luggage for free. Read More
Twitter is continuing to grow its live streaming business, with a series of new deals announced over the past week or so, including a partnership that will bring live streams from the floor of the San Diego Comic-Con in July, as well as behind-the-scenes action and news from Wimbledon, among several other efforts.
You may recall that Wimbledon was the first live-streamed sport to pop up on… Read More
Playground Ventures — the VC fund co-founded by Android inventor and former Google exec Andy Rubin that sits alongside an eponymous incubator/startup studio and is making some big bets in areas like artificial intelligence and new generations of hardware– is raising more money. A Form D filed with the SEC notes that Playground Ventures is in the process of adding another $15… Read More
Elon Musk should have more to share about the coming Tesla Model 3 launch on Sunday, July 2. The CEO responded to a Twitter follower seeking more concrete information about the Model 3’s exact release date. Musk and Tesla have previously said that the Model 3 deliveries are set to start in July, at which time we’ll presumably also get more details on the final design and… Read More
Confluent, the commercial company behind the open source messaging tool, Apache Kafka, announced a new feature this week that should please Kafka users — the ability to send a message using Kafka “exactly once.” That may not sound like a big deal to laypeople, but to folks who use high speed messaging tools like Kafka, it is in fact a Holy Grail of sorts, something that people… Read More
Toyota recently wrapped up its first in-home trial in North America of its Human Support Robot platform. The robot, which goes by HSR for short, is one of the mobility assistance bots that the automaker is developing for use in the realm of improving quality of life for everyday people.
Toyota has a range of projects underway targeting improved mobility for users with limited or impaired… Read More
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s recurring venture capital-focused podcast that, against odds laid by its arcane subject matter, is still on the air. (Thanks!) This week was a corker. To help out our regular contingent Matthew Lynley, Katie Roof and myself — Alex Wilhelm — Charles Moldow, a general partner at Foundation Capital swung by the studio. And help… Read More
Korea’s Kakao, the country’s top mobile messenger company with some 50 million monthly users, has continued to diversify its business with a move to spin-out the unit managing its mobility services, which include a ride-hailing app that is beating Uber in Korea.
The firm announced that ‘Kakao Mobility’ has now become an independent entity in a move that sees U.S. Read More
Elon Musk’s tunnel venture The Boring Company is plugging away on its first tunnel section, and it’s not just a hole in the ground – the multi-co. CEO noted on Twitter that the car/pod elevator that will be used to bring vehicles below ground to the tunnel is likely going to be operational next week.
In case you missed Musk’s big reveal for The Boring Company’s… Read More
Imagine sportswear that not only stays dry through the most sweat-inducing workouts, but also turns perspiration into a design element. Named after the driest desert in the world, Atacama uses microfluidic technology to create textiles that can do just that. The recipient of a grant from the National Science Foundation, Atacama is also exploring how its technology can be applied in a diverse… Read More
Delivery Hero’s valuation topped $5 billion after the food delivery firm went public in a listing on the Frankfurt stock exchange. The listing, announced earlier this month, came at a €25.50 share price, at the top of its pricing range. The share price quickly rose to reach as high as €26.90 — or up 5.5 percent — on the first day of trading, according to Bloomberg.… Read More
Hike, the billion-dollar messaging app chasing WhatsApp in India, may be preparing to enter the live-streaming space following a recent acquisition. The company, which is backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent, has acquired India-based live-streaming app Pulse and at least two of its founding team, according to a report from Inc42. Hike declined to respond to our request for comment but,… Read More
Here’s a fitting Friday anecdote to illustrate the growing ubiquity of bike-sharing startups, and their rides, in China. One of the largest companies in the space is now using some of its bikes as an advertising canvas. Ofo, one of two billion-dollar startups that supplies dock-less bicycles across China, has been spotted offering a number of bikes that are customized with Minions… Read More
Today’s Stories
Blue Apron IPO off to a rough start
Microsoft confirms Cloudyn acquisition, sources say price is between $50M and $70M
Instagram implements an AI system to fight mean and harassing comments
Uber crosses the 5 billion trip milestone amid ongoing issues
A brief history of the iPhone
Credits
Written and Hosted by: Anthony Ha
Filmed by: Matthew Mauro
Edited by: Joe… Read More
As the firm looks ahead to its own future, Suster and the firm he’s helped grow remain committed to the future of Los Angeles. The two are paired and these days if an investor is #LongLA (to use the hashtag the firm coined), it looks like limited partners are saying that it pays to be long on Upfront as well. Read More
All is well in McMansion Hell, the blog doing god’s work by sassing the hideous architecture on display in our otherwise pleasant suburbs. Zillow sent a letter earlier this week threatening legal action over the blog’s use of images taken from the real estate giant’s site — but as these boneheaded corporations just can’t seem to learn, this sort of thing… Read More
Netflix, it had seemed, was the place where shows go to live again, not to die. Even though you can argue about whether those shows should have been brought back, and about whether or not fans’ fixation on complete stories is all that healthy or realistic, today’s announcement that Sense8 will get a two-hour finale feels like a very welcome gesture. Read More
The rift between Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey and the company he left earlier this year appears to be growing wider. Luckey is putting some of the money he made from Facebook buying his VR company to ensure that users of a different VR headset can play the exclusive titles that Facebook is funding. Read More
It was 10 years ago today that Steve Jobs announced the long-rumored iPhone to a crowd of tech lovers excited to a fever pitch. We’ve already looked at the history of the iPhone going back to the Newton, but 10 years of iPhone have brought us more than a dozen devices, each of which brought something new and important to the smartphone game. Let’s go through them, shall we? Read More
