At some point, everyone has an ‘Aha!’ moment when it comes to the importance of high-quality bed linens. For Brooklinen founders, Rich and Vicki Fulop, that moment came on vacation at a hotel, where the sheets were too good to be true but unfortunately not for sale. As the couple searched for some nice sheets, everywhere from Bed Bath & Beyond to ABC Home, they realized that… Read More
SpaceX launched an EchoStar communications satellite into orbit on Wednesday, completing a mission for its client on a second try, after the original launch on Tuesday was scrubbed due to weather conditions on the ground. The SpaceX mission put EchoStar’s XXIII satellite into orbit 22,000 miles up, after launching 2 AM ET on Thursday.
The EchoStar XXIII payload was a remarkably heavy… Read More
Additive manufacturing startup Carbon is on a mission to help manufacturers and designers cut their costs, waste less energy and materials while speeding up the time it takes to get from concept to product on the market. The company, which has raised $221 million in venture capital, is firing up a new service aimed at contract manufacturers, and other high volume manufacturing businesses,… Read More
Nvidia’s new partner in bringing AI-powered self-driving tech to the masses definitely has the experience needed to go truly mass-market – it’s Bosch, leading tier one auto industry supplier. Bosch will build an AI supercomputer designed for use in vehicles using Nvidia tech, which means Nvidia now has a partner that works as a tier one supplier to all major car makers in… Read More
Medtech startup AliveCor announced this morning it has pulled in $30 million from Omron Healthcare and the Mayo Clinic and is launching an artificially intelligent stroke prevention platform for doctors called KardiaPro. AliveCor already has an FDA-cleared mobile app called Kardia to accompany its $99 standalone EKG reader device. However, a partnership last year with the Mayo Clinic… Read More
Tesla is looking to raise a total of around $1.15 billion from stock and convertible senior notes as a way to help “further reduce any risks” that it’ll incur as it scales its business to handle its aggressive Model 3 production schedule, the company said on Wednesday. Tesla’s decision to pad out its balance sheet with more capital was anticipated by many analysts, and… Read More
A forecast showing a market that’s complex and cratering would dissuade most entrepreneurs from entering, but for Jenna Brown and Fabian Blaicher, the two founders of Shipamax, the bulk shipping industry’s pains could be their gain. Read More
Apple Pay and Android Pay may be best known as Apple and Google’s mobile wallets, designed to expand their businesses in making payments with smartphones. But today comes an advance that underscores how both are also vying to be consumers’ virtual wallets for all e-commerce transactions. WePay, the payments company that competes against the likes of incumbents like FirstData… Read More
Glen Tullman doesn’t like it when someone tells him he’s sick when he’s feeling fine. It’s something he thinks his customers probably don’t want to hear, either. Tullman runs a startup called Livongo Health, which offers a blood glucose monitor accompanied with a service designed to intervene and help coach people through managing diabetes. Livongo Health helps… Read More
China has blocked one of the few Western social media sites that had remained accessible to its population: Pinterest. The site has followed the example of Facebook, Twitter and many others after the photo sharing site was blocked in China, according to data from censorship monitoring organization GreatFire. GreatFire checks a range of the internet’s top websites for accessibility… Read More
Dubble is officially (re)launching today, in v2, after a year-long hiatus off the app store while the team re-engineered the backend and applied some gloss and community-requested features on the front. We ask co-founder Adam Scott how and why the team has put in so much effort to give a niche photo-blending app a second chance at turning into a self-sustaining community. Read More
Helpling, the Rocket Internet-founded company that lets you book a range of home services online, is disclosing €10 million in new funding. The round was led by Asia Pacific Internet Group (APACIG), the joint venture between Rocket Internet and Ooredoo, and also includes a number of other existing investors. Read More
Starling Bank, one of a number of digital-only or so-called “challenger” banks in the U.K., is launching a beta of the app that powers its current account, the first time it has been available beyond a very small group of private testers close to the company. Read More
Remember when kids could simply play with their toys? They still can. But parents are increasingly spending on toys that are chockablock with tech components, and that promise to turn their kids into software developers or robotics engineers. The Toy Industry Association, which held its International Toy Fair in New York last month, has even identified robotics-education as a major trend… Read More
After launching its first car last year, Alibaba is digging deeper into the automobile industry. The Chinese Internet and e-commerce behemoth is the lead investor in smart car tech developer WayRay’s $18 million Series B round, the startup announced. Read More
SeedPlus, the early stage investment firm launched by Singapore-based VC firm Jungle Ventures last year, has snagged a strategic investment from IFC, the investment and asset management firm within the World Bank Group. IFC confirmed today that it has invested $2 million in the SeedPlus fund, the size of which has not been disclosed. The firm is also an LP with Jungle Ventures, which… Read More
DOJ accuses four people of a 2014 Yahoo hack, Reid Hoffman joins Microsoft’s board of directors, a new process for visualizing chips and solving Uber’s navigation problem. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Google has just one-upped Apple on mobile in a significant way: today the company today announced the launch of Family Link, an application for parents that lets them establish a child’s first Google account, as well as utilize a series of parental controls to manage and track screen time, daily limits, device “bedtimes,” and which apps kids can use. While all the… Read More
Seattle-based OceanGate Inc. this week announced plans for a manned expedition to study the R.M.S. Titanic, the world’s most famous shipwreck. Fewer than 200 people have ever visited the Titanic since it sank in April 1912 according to historians’ estimates. To put that in perspective, more people have scaled the summit of Mt. Everest, or flown in space. The new expedition,… Read More
More tough news for GoPro as it pre-announced its first-quarter earnings earlier today. While the company announced that revenue for the first part of 2017 will hit toward the high end of guidance, the positivity was tempered by its plans to cut 270 more jobs. That number that comes in addition to the 100 it announced in January 2016 and 200 back in November, amounting to seven- and 15-percent… Read More
