ColorTV is an SDK for marketers and developers to analyze the shows you watch and provide content recommendations within the same vein. Raising $1.5 million in seed funding from Foxconn earlier this year in July, ColorTV is set to support Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Chromecast today. It might be surprising to some, but broadcast advertisers more or less guess which ads to… Read More
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is set to deliver a keynote address at the 67th annual International Astronautical Congress tomorrow, where he’ll outline his plan for interplanetary colonization beginning with Mars. As a bit of a teaser, Musk posted a couple of images from the inaugural firing of the Raptor interplanetary engine, which is designed for use with Space’s Mars Colonial… Read More
Canvas Ventures, a Portola Valley, Ca.-based early-stage venture firm, is this morning announcing that it has closed a second fund with $300 million. That’s a meaningful step up from the $175 million debut effort of the firm, which was cofounded in 2013 by former Morgenthaler Ventures partners Gary Little, Rebecca Lynn and Gary Morgenthaler. One likely reason is Ben Nasarin, a… Read More
FreshDirect, a popular online grocery service on the East Coast, is arming itself with $189 million in additional funding. The round was led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with W Capital and AARP Innovation Fund investing as well. The new capital will be used to help FreshDirect build up its “manufacturing capacity” and “open up some new geographies,” according… Read More
Google has been focusing for years on finding better ways to track and measure ads as we switch from one device to another to consume media like TV, music or written articles like this one. And now, to coincide with Ad Week in New York this week, Google is revealing its latest moves in that effort: over the next few months the company will expand Brand Lift from measuring online video… Read More
Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing company, may be about to get into bicycles. Bike sharing, to be precise. The company, which is in the process of finalizing its acquisition of Uber’s business unit in China, today revealed that it has invested in bike-sharing startup Ofo. Read More
Procrastination is easy, but it can cost you. And if you wait until this weekend to purchase tickets to Disrupt London 2016, it will definitely cost you some hard-earned pounds — 400 of them, to be exact. Friday, September 30 is the final day to score tickets to Disrupt at the extra early bird price point of just £800 each (or £700 each when you buy two) and you can get your Disrupt… Read More
The company behind iconic music magazine Rolling Stone has sold a 49 percent share in the business to a startup from Singapore in a bid to grow its international reach. Read More
Let’s settle this, once and for all: Clickbaiting is the intentional act of over-promising or otherwise misrepresenting — in a headline, on social media, in an image, or some combination — what you’re going to find when you read a story on the web. Currently, clickbait is often characterized by wording like, “You won’t believe” or “What… Read More
Having read the European Commission’s original ruling, some prior rulings, the Treasury’s white paper about the European Commission’s actions and a lot of analysis in the tax community, in my opinion, the EC is over-reaching in their decision on Apple. Read More
Fresh from raising $275 million this August at around a $1 billion valuation, Deliveroo is now taking the next step in its bid to corner the market in Europe and other markets for high-end, high-concept restaurant food delivery; and turn the Deliveroo business profitable in the process. The startup is launching a new service catering specifically for the corporate market, Deliveroo for… Read More
The coffee wars of San Francisco are back on! We’re now hearing from sources that Blue Bottle is raising a big round of financing a little more than a year after it raised a whopping $75 million. We don’t know the exact amount, but given the immense (and at times odd) interest in coffee from investors in Silicon Valley, it wouldn’t be surprising if it would be approaching… Read More
Unless you plan on bumping into stuff, don’t expect to record after-dark concerts and parties on your Snap Inc Spectacles. The company formerly known as Snapchat (they really should have just changed it to the emoji, Prince-style) confirms to me its new camera glasses are not currently built to be worn at night. Their lenses are like normal sunglasses, so it’d be too shady to… Read More
Work/life balance in startup culture is total BS. And you are probably part of the problem. Until you say “enough” — and fight back, stand up and resist — you’re perpetuating a culture of burnout in which no one wins. Read More
The Twittersphere was just a little bit quieter this morning after Marc Andreessen, father of the Tweetstorm, vacated the platform last night. While there’s no clear answer from him or others as to why he decided to take a break, Andreessen is not the first popular Silicon Valley figure to abruptly leave the service. Earlier this summer, Sam Altman, President of the Y Combinator… Read More
As of June 22, 2016, there were 492 published patent families directed to the theme of blockchain and 192 relating to bitcoin. Patent applications filed over the last 18 months are not in these statistics, and it is expected that significant numbers of new applications connected to these themes have been filed in that period. The numbers we are seeing likely represent the tip of the iceberg. Read More
I happened to spend much of this week in Abu Dhabi, from whence came, conveniently, the most important news of this week, month, year, and arguably decade. Yes, bigger than the American election; yes, bigger than the long-awaited rise of machine learning; yes, bigger than Elon Musk’s one-two punch of space travel and electric cars — although it’s related to that. Read More
It’s difficult to predict how artificial intelligence technology will change over the next 10 to 20 years, but there are plenty of gains to be made. By 2018, robots will supervise more than 3 million human workers; by 2020, smart machines will be a top investment priority for more than 30 percent of CIOs. Read More
As TechCrunch has previously reported, there’s been an exodus of talent from the Rothenberg “ecosystem,” amid claims of a significant breach of fiduciary responsibilities and other unconventional behavior by the venture firm’s founder, Mike Rothenberg. This week, we have learned more details about alleged employee abuses within Rothenberg Ventures, recently re-branded… Read More
