Can’t wait to see you all tonight in São Paulo. We’ll be meeting at Cubo tomorrow at 7pm until 10pm. There will be free booze and some finger food and I’d love to see you there. This is basically a micro-meetup – an opportunity to talk about your startup and network. No agenda, no speeches, and no onstage pitching. I’ll be there and I’m ready to hear… Read More
Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff knows a thing or two about how to put on a good show, and as usual he pulled out all the stops this week at Dreamforce, his company’s massive customer conference in San Francisco. He was boasting at the keynote that 175,000 people registered online (and another 15 million were watching online). I can tell you most people I spoke to… Read More
A self-driving car tech startup called Nauto has raised an undisclosed amount of venture funding, and entered into data-sharing partnerships with big name auto and insurance companies, BMW, Toyota and Allianz Group. Specifically, BMW iVentures, Toyota Research Institute and Allianz Ventures have invested in Nauto’s Series A round. The startup and its investors declined to disclose the… Read More
In today’s era of big data, there’s a need for organization and efficiency. That’s the premise by Nugit, a Singapore-based startup that this week announced it has raised $5.2 million in fresh funding from Sequoia Capital’s India fund. Read More
500 Startups has quietly brought its growth marketing program to Berlin in Germany. Dubbed “Distro Dojo“, the 3 month program targets post-Seed startups in need of marketing expertise as they gear up for a Series A. Read More
Disrupt hits London December 5-6 and it is our pleasure to announce that Dr. Jackie Hunter, Board Director of BenevolentAI and CEO of BenevolentBio, will be joining us as one of our featured speakers. Dr. Jackie Hunter leads Benevolent AI, a company at the intersection of bioscience and artificial intelligence working towards the powerful union between humans, technology and bioscience… Read More
Upon being guided into the inner-sanctum at the Oculus Connect developers conference, I was told to leave my phone and backpack behind. The powers that be told me I would not be allowed to take any photos or video of my demo with Oculus’s new inside-out-positional-tracking-standalone-virtual-reality-headset-prototype (more simply code-named ‘Santa Cruz’) once I was… Read More
Snap is reportedly preparing for an IPO that could value it at $25B or higher. Samsung acquires Viv, a next-gen AI assistant built by the creators of Apple’s Siri. Zuckerberg teases a prototype standalone Oculus VR headset. Netflix signs deal with theater chain to put original films on the big screen. Prisma adds art filtered video, GIFs coming next. Read More
It’s bad news for Yahoo. The company is in the midst of finalizing its sale to Verizon, but recent revelations about hacking and spying may be costing them a pretty penny. A story from the New York Post alleges that Verizon is now asking Yahoo for a hefty $1 billion discount to finalize what was supposed to be a $4.8 billion deal. (Full disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Verizon,… Read More
Uber’s self-driving cars are operating on Pittsburgh streets, so it’s only natural they’d pick up some professional athletes along the way. Defensive ends Cam Heyward and Stephon Tuitt likely max out the passenger capacity of the back of that Uber-tech equipped Ford Fusion that picks them up, but they do manage to get in and take the trip. My favorite moment here might be… Read More
SoundCloud’s big differentiator is its offering of unofficial, user-uploaded content that the major labels don’t release and that isn’t on Spotify or Apple Music. Or at least they weren’t. The first unofficial single-track remixes just went live on Spotify and Apple Music thanks to their partnerships with music rights management service Dubset. Apple struck a deal… Read More
Nearly a month after the on-demand laundry service Washio shut its doors, its assets have been starched, pressed and folded into the operations of one of its main competitors — Rinse. For a while, competition for on-demand laundering seemed to be a regional game, with both Rinse and Washio vying for territory along the West Coast and, eventually, nationally. On the East Coast, startups… Read More
Acquisitions are often celebrated in the press. But academic research suggests that 70 percent to 90 percent of mergers don’t succeed, owing to a wide variety of factors. Buyers overvalue the synergies they’ll derive, or they underestimate the impact of the associated costs, or they rely too heavily on assumptions about where a market is heading.
Of course, another reason… Read More
As the saying goes, “all politics is local.” And now, so is hacking. Cyber attacks popularized on the silver screen are now occurring in every aspect of our life. Our election system is not immune from this new reality. Read More
Kiosked, a company that dynamically inserts ads into a publisher’s content, has a new CEO — co-founder Antti Pasila. Pasila, who previously served as the company’s chief strategy officer, said his appointment is part of a broader shift: “The key thing is, we’re focusing our resources on the supply side.” In other words, while there are no plans to get rid… Read More
These are what Facebook calls “VR emoji,” and they’re the company’s vision for how we’ll convey emotion in virtual reality. We’re not talking about yellow illustrated emoticons popping up over your head. Instead, your avatar’s eyes, eye brows, mouth and other facial features will change to mimic how we exhibit body language in the real… Read More
Zenvolution doesn’t really roll off the tongue. But hey, you come for the gadgets – the clever word play is really just a bonus, at best. And the company certainly has a lot to showcase on that front, covering all of the requisite bases with a new laptop, phone, tablet and watch. Let’s start with the notebook and go from there, shall we? The company’s got a new version… Read More
There are subscription services for clothes, shoes, accessories, makeup, and even tampons, so why not one for handbags? That’s the premise, at least, behind a new startup called Ivory Clasp, which is promising to offer quality, stylish handbags that retail for over $100 for just $45 per month. The service sends name-brand bags, not knock-offs, and allows you to keep the purses you… Read More
RYOT, the Culver City California-based virtual reality outfit snapped up by the Huffington Post last year, works on the cutting edge of the news business, bringing audiences straight to the scene. That’s an unusual use of the new medium – most VR startups focus on sports and gaming empires. But RYOT took its VR team to the Rio 2016 Olympics, was there for the Democrat and… Read More
Coupa was off to the races when it went public on Thursday. The “spend management” software company priced its IPO at $18 and saw its shares almost double during its first day of trading. With clients like Nike and Toyota, Coupa helps companies keep tabs on everyday expenditures and competes with divisions of Oracle and SAP. Founded a decade ago, they claim they’ve saved… Read More
