QuantumScape, the solid-state battery company backed by Volkswagen Group, has agreed to merge with a special purpose acquisition company Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp. as it aims to raise the capital it needs to commercialize solid-state batteries for electric vehicles. The merger will give QuantumScape a post-deal market valuation of $3.3 billion. QuantumScape said it was […]
uMotif has an app that allows patients to monitor themselves for treatments or drug trials which then feeds into a platform allowing a much faster approach to clinical studies. It’s now raised £5 million in a Series A investment round led by existing UK investor AlbionVC, with participation from Oslo-based DNV-GL and existing angel investors. […]
Facebook’s photo and video portability tool has added support for two more third party services for users to send data via encrypted transfer — namely: cloud storage providers Dropbox and (EU-based) Koofr. The tech giant debuted the photo porting tool in December last year, initially offering users in its EU HQ location of Ireland the […]
Once known for its affordable smartphones, Xiaomi has in recent years been transforming itself into an online mall for consumer electronics by making deals and building relationships with hundreds of hardware and lifestyle startups. And some of its allies are now going after the Western market with their high-end, China-made products. Beijing-based Dreame, which produces […]
Moteefe, the e-commerce platform for on-demand production of merchandise, has raised $11 million in what, according to filings, appears to be part one of a Series B. Leading the round is BGF, with participation from existing investors including Gresham House Ventures and Force Over Mass Capital. The injection of capital will be used by Moteefe […]
Indian food delivery startup Zomato has raised $62 million from Temasek, resuming a financing round that it originally expected to close in January this year. Singapore’s state investment arm Temasek financed the capital through its unit MacRitchie Investments, a regulatory filing showed. Business intelligence firm Tofler shared the filing with TechCrunch. A Zomato spokesperson in India did […]
Lise Buyer has been advising startups on how to go public for the last 13 years through her consultancy, Class V Group. She built the business after working as an investment banker, and then as a director at Google, where she helped architect the company’s famously atypical 2004 IPO. It’s perhaps because Google’s offering was […]
Facebook has banned a politician from India’s ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party, for violating its policies against hate speech on its platform, the company said today, weeks after inaction on the politician’s posts landed the social giant in hot water in its biggest market by users. The company said it had removed profiles of T. […]
Southeast Asia’s leading property listing company PropertyGuru is making great strides across the region as it secures a fresh investment of SG$300 million ($220 million), it announced this week. The proceeds, financed by existing investors KKR and TPG, both buyout titans, will fuel PropertyGuru’s already ambitious push across its main market Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam […]
Biofourmis, which combines AI-based data analytics and biosensors to monitor the progress of medical treatments, has raised funding from one of the world’s most high-profile investors. The digital therapeutics company, which launched in Singapore and is now headquartered in Boston, announced today it closed a $100 million Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, […]
The U.S. government rolled out a new online tool Wednesday designed to give the public insight into where and who is testing automated vehicle technology throughout the country. The official name of the online tool — Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing Initiative tracking tool — is a jargony mess of a word […]
India continues to crack down on Chinese apps, Microsoft launches a deepfake detector and Google offers a personalized news podcast. This is your Daily Crunch for September 2, 2020. The big story: India bans PUBG and other Chinese apps The Indian government continues its purge of apps created by or linked to Chinese companies. It […]
Facebook’s video destination, Facebook Watch, is introducing a new feature called “Your Topics” that will allow you to tailor its feed to include more of the content you want to see. Currently, Facebook leverages its existing understanding of each viewer’s interests to personalize the Watch Feed. Topics, however, will allow users to more explicitly tell […]
Yesterday’s overflow Galaxy Unpacked event was about one thing and one thing alone: the Galaxy Z Fold 2. Honestly, it was a bit anticlimactic after its predecessor found Samsung unveiling five new devices. But the singular focus wasn’t for lack of new stuff to show off. In fact, the company just unleashed a whole slew […]
The FCC was deeply embarrassed last year when it was found that its rosy broadband deployment report was off by millions, owing to a single, extremely suspect filing that conjured 62 million customers out of thin air. The company responsible is being assessed a $163,912 fine, but the underlying problems that let it happen haven’t […]
The continual uncertainty around TikTok’s future may have provided a big boost to Snapchat in August. Or maybe it was just the Disney eyes filter that went viral. In any event, preliminary estimates from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicate that Snapchat’s mobile app across both iOS and Android saw approximately 28.5 million new […]
School district technology budgets are tight. But Kami CEO and founder Hengjie Wang wanted to make his company’s digital classroom product a go-to tool anyway. He landed on trying to disrupt the printers. Wang found that school districts spend an average of $150,000 every year on printed materials. Kami helps teachers digitize worksheets so students […]
Process automation startup Hypatos has raised a €10 million (~$11.8 million) seed round of funding from investors including Blackfin Tech, Grazia Equity, UVC Partners and Plug & Play Ventures. The Germany and Poland-based company was spun out of AI for accounting startup Smacc at the back end of 2018 to apply deep learning tech to […]
A government watchdog has criticized U.S. border authorities for failing to properly disclose the agency’s use of facial recognition at airports, which included instructions on how Americans can opt out. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), tasked with protecting the border and screening immigrants, has deployed its face-scanning technology in 27 U.S. airports as part […]
