Snapchat’s newest feature, Snap Map, is based on its latest acquisition, social mapping startup Zenly. TechCrunch has learned that Snapchat has bought Zenly for between $250 million and $350 million in mostly cash and some stock in a deal that closed in late May. Snapchat will keep Zenly running independently, similar to how Facebook lets Instagram run independently. Read More
The domestic robot that looks like an extra cut from Disney’s Wall-E is coming along nicely, after debuting at CES this year with a Holiday 2017 release window. Mayfield Robotics’ Kuri is an expressive bowling pin that will steal your heart and hopes to become a key element of your family’s home life, and its latest updates make it better at capturing cherished memories,… Read More
Omidyar Network’s Emerging Tech team has launched the second season of its podcast, Founder’s Corner, with lessons from today’s premier founders and CEOs. We will be speaking with some of the top executives in tech. Read More
Uber has been in trouble for a while. The company was built on a bro-tastic, anything goes attitude that goes way back to God View and the targeted harassment of journalists. In short, it was built on an original sin that was never washed clean. There are two takeaways circulated in the Valley this week regarding Travis Kalanick’s departure. The first is similar to this one: Travis… Read More
Navya will deploy two of its driverless multi-passenger shuttles this fall at the University of Michigan, moving students autonomously between Michigan’s North Campus Research Complex and its Lurie Engineering Center across a two-mile route. The 15-passenger vehicles are being deployed in conjunction with Mcity, the University of Michigan-led partnership with autonomous private… Read More
Investors, first and foremost, are concerned with the value of a company. So make no mistake, Uber’s investors have calculated the company’s toxic culture under Kalanick’s leadership is a risk to their long term investment… Read More
Snap just announced a brand new feature today called Snap Map, which lets you view your friends on a map in real time and browse stories around you. If this sounds familiar, it’s because French startup Zenly has been working for years on a location sharing app so that you can see what your friends have been up to. According to multiple sources, Snap approached Zenly late last year about… Read More
In attempt to woo customers away from competitors, Virgin Mobile USA today announced a deal that will see it transitioning to become an iPhone-only carrier. The company is also partnering with Apple to activate Virgin’s services in Apple’s stores. To kick off this change, Virgin introduced a limited time promotion that will see it giving away a year’s worth of unlimited… Read More
In a hole in your pants there lived a wallet. Not a nasty, dirty, wet wallet, filled with the receipts and cigarette papers and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, boring wallet that fit nothing and there nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Baggizmo wallet, and that meant lots of gadgetry. It had a perfectly flat folder design, with a programmable NFC chip installed. The wallet… Read More
A lot of chatbots have launched on Facebook in recent months, but the Ticketmaster bot launching today is among the best that I’ve been forced to work with. Normally I avoid reaching out to businesses through Facebook (it still doesn’t seem like a natural channel to me), but there’s real utility in Ticketmaster’s bot if you’re willing to give up a certain amount… Read More
At Facebook, IT isn’t called “IT.” It’s referred to as the “enterprise engineering organization,” because at a company that operates at the scale of Facebook, IT has to be about more than pushing buttons on a vendor product. To emphasize this, the company today open sourced one of its internal IT management services for giving users access to products in… Read More
Let’s step back from politics and look at some cold, hard numbers to assess the current state of cross-border investment and other transactional activity between the U.S. and China. We’ll look at one type of transaction that could be affected: venture capital investments. We’ll show the “big picture,” as well as analysis of transactions in AI and related sectors. Read More
Adobe today announced it has acquired all of Mettle’s SkyBox technologies and plug-ins for building transitions, titles and effects in VR applications and 360-degree videos. Mettle had made a name for itself over the last few years by providing these plug-ins for Adobe tools like Premiere Pro and After Effects, so the Adobe team was obviously aware of Mettle’s efforts in the area. Read More
Despite years of economic uncertainties and the lack of a proper legal framework to help promising startups obtain capital, Argentine entrepreneurs are building a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. The country is home to many of Latin America’s biggest startup success stories, and with the introduction of one new law, the pathway to success is about to get a whole lot easier. Read More
Growbots uses machine learning to provide sales teams with the right leads to kickstart their outbound sales process. The service, which argues that its product can save each member of a sales team a few days of work every month, today announced that it has raised a $2.5 million funding round from Buran VC, Lighter Capital and a number of angel investors. This brings the company’s… Read More
Y Combinator is officially adding three new team members to its roster this morning. Gustaf Alstromer, formerly product leader of Airbnb’s growth team, is joining YC as a partner. Meanwhile Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky is taking a visiting partner role and Jocelyn Robancho is coming on board to assist with organizing YC’s startup batches. Though Alstromer and Migicovsky… Read More
Periscope has a new revenue stream and a new way to attract the best live video content to its Twitter-owned app. Today Periscope launches Super Hearts — in-app purchase virtual goods that users buy for real money, send to creators as animated hearts that get them attention in the comment reel and that broadcasters can then redeem with Twitter for a monthly cash payout. Read More
Short-term rental management startup Pillow has raised $13.5 million in new funding, and is launching a new product to provide more transparency to apartment owners when renters make their apartments available on platforms like Airbnb. Read More
Snapchat’s next big feature wants to get you to meet up with friends in real life rather than just watching each other’s lives on your phones. Snap Map lets you share your current location, which appears to friends on a map and updates when you open Snapchat. It’s rolling out today to all iOS and Android users globally. Read More
Autonomous flight systems and aircraft are already in testing by the U.S. Air Force and other defense agencies, and now RE2 Robotics has been picked by the USAF to build a retrofit robot pilot that can easily take the controls of traditional, human-piloted aircraft and convert them to autonomous airplanes. RE2 will get funding from the Air Force to make this happen, and the program will… Read More
