Small and medium businesses and sole-traders account for the vast majority of businesses globally, 99.9% of all enterprises in the U.K. alone. And while the existence of millions of separate companies, with their individual demands, speaks of a fragmented market, together they still represent a lot of opportunity. Today, a U.K. fintech startup looking to […]
Anyfin, the Stockholm-based startup that enables consumers to refinance their existing loans, has raised $30 million in funding. Leading the Series B round is EQT Ventures, with participation from existing investors Accel, Northzone and Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital (GFC). Anyfin says it will use the investment to “drive product innovation,” launch additional offerings and […]
Furloughed Tesla employees who are called back to work could lose unemployment benefits if they choose to stay at home due to COVID-19 concerns, the company’s head of human resources Valerie Workman wrote in an email sent to workers Wednesday. The internal email, which was viewed by TechCrunch, suggested that the loss of benefits was […]
Houseparty, the video chat app that’s seen a surge of growth during quarantine, is preparing to expand its service in a new direction: co-watching live video with friends. The company on Friday will launch its first experiential event series called In the House, which will feature more than 40 celebrities who will dance, talk, cook, […]
Your life probably involves a lot more videoconferencing now than it did a few weeks ago – even if it already did involve a lot. That’s not likely going to change anytime soon, so why not make the most of it? The average MacBook webcam can technically get the job done, but it’s far from […]
Uber is rolling out a series of changes to its ride-hailing and on-demand food delivery apps, beginning Monday, as cities and states lift stay-at-home orders prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes, which includes an online checklist for all users, limits on the number of passengers in vehicles and a face mask verification feature for […]
Senators have narrowly rejected a bipartisan amendment that would have required the government first obtain a warrant before accessing Americans’ web browsing data. The amendment brought by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT) — just seven lines in length — would have forced the government to first establish probable cause — or reasonable suspicion […]
Amazon has received a fair amount of criticism for perceived inaction against seller price gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the retail giant has made efforts to rein in the opportunist activity (pulling some half a million offending listings), critics have pointed to the company’s slow response, along with continued problems with a number of […]
So, an eight-year product veteran from Facebook and an internationally renowned barista walk into a coffee bar… It’s not a joke. It’s the origin story for Taika, a new startup that’s aiming to bring natural stimulants to the masses through its juiced-up coffee beverages. The two co-founders, Michael Sharon, an eight-year veteran of Facebook’s mobile […]
Key Pixel team members Marc Levoy and Mario Queiroz are out at Google. The departures, first reported by The Information, have been confirmed on the pages of the former Distinguished Engineer and Pixel General Manager, respectively. Both members were key players on Google’s smartphone hardware team before exiting earlier this year. Levoy was a key […]
In week one of a16z’s Crypto Startup School, the firm addresses “Crypto Networks and Why They Matter” and “Blockchain Primitives: Cryptography and Consensus.”
Jessica Jackley, co-founder of nonprofit microlending platform Kiva, has become a general partner at SparkLabs Global Ventures. Jackley was previously a venture partner at the firm, which focuses on seed-stage investments in the United States, Asia and Europe. Jackley is also the chief impact officer at Aspiration, an online financial services firm that lets customers […]
Eugene Kaspersky made a name for himself in cybersecurity as CEO of Kaspersky Labs, but the Russian security expert has a new passion project: he’s funding an online accelerator that aims to support entrepreneurs who are building travel and tourism startups. Businesses that apply must have a focus on Russia, though the accelerator is open […]
As with just about any big gathering, the traditional approach to Demo Day — in which a startup incubator debuts all of its latest companies to a huge room full of investors — has been put on hold until further notice. Instead, more and more accelerators are taking Demo Day fully digital. The latest to […]
Google Chrome is rolling out a new feature to help you better manage all your open tabs. The company announced today the launch of “tab groups” for the beta version of its web browser, which will allow you to organize, label and even color-code your tabs for easy access. The feature will make its way […]
French research institute Inria has released a small portion of the source code that is going to power France’s contact-tracing app, StopCovid. It is available on several GitLab repositories under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. While the French government announced that everything would be open source, it’s going to be bit a more complicated than […]
Uber says it has committed $50 million to procure and provide safety supplies to drivers. Those supplies will include things like face masks, sanitizer, gloves and disinfectant, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced on a press call today. Uber says it has secured more than 23 million masks for drivers and delivery people throughout the world. […]
Now here’s an interesting GDPR complaint: Is Google illegally tracking Android users in Europe via a unique, device-assigned advertising ID? First, what is the Android advertising ID? Per Google’s description to developers building apps for its smartphone platform it’s — [emphasis added by us] The advertising ID is a unique, user-resettable ID for advertising, provided by […]
Space bus company Momentus has signed a new contract that will see it provide in-space transportation and deployment for Sen, the U.K. company that’s building a 4K real-time video streaming service providing live, high-quality views of Earth, both free for individuals and via an open source data platform for developers and service creators. Santa Clara-based […]
