Instacart is one of the most well-known companies in what can be an extremely difficult on-demand delivery economy. It’s known for being one of the pioneers of a new age of online grocery delivery, especially in light of the previous failure of companies like Webvan, but it’s going to have a long uphill battle to profitability and sustainability. Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta,… Read More
GitHub is hosting its Universe developer conference in San Francisco today. Unsurprisingly, the company used this event to announce a number of new features for its Git-based code hosting service. The company calls it its “biggest update to the platform yet,” though how important these changes really are probably depends on how you use GitHub. If you’re working on a team,… Read More
General Motors snapped up Silicon Valley-based Cruise Automation for more than $1 billion earlier this year with plans to plant its self-driving tech inside its own car brands. It was a fine move for GM, which has been aligning itself with several automotive ventures over the past year — including a partnership with Lyft, acquiring assets from the now defunct rideshare competitor Sidecar… Read More
Twitch’s co-founder wants the site to reach beyond gaming as it seeks to capture the market on all live-streamed online media. Onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear discussed the future of non-gaming content on the world’s most populous online e-sports arena. When Amazon bought Twitch for $1 billion back in June of 2014, no one really understood… Read More
Facebook makes value judgements about what can appear in News Feed and what’s censored, but insists its a tech company not a media editor. At TechCrunch Disrupt SF, writer Josh Constine sat down with Adam Mosseri, a VP at Facebook and head of News Feed, to hear more about how policies control what you see. The talk started with Constine asking Mosseri much content people consume daily… Read More
Cruise’s Kyle Vogt was on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, and the CEO of the self-driving car startup that GM acquired earlier this year shared some updates about the company’s progress under its new owner. Vogt said that access to GM’s considerable resources has helped it accelerate its efforts. GM previously revealed that it was testing cars on roads in San Francisco… Read More
Despite reaching its funding goal, Amadas will cancel its Kickstarter campaign on Monday. The campaign wasn’t as clear as the company hoped, the company’s CEO tells me. The challenge is that the backers and the company had some misunderstandings about the features of the product. The campaign might make a return to the platform early next year. Read More
The autonomous driving company on which both Ford and Baidu are betting $150 million has a new version of its LiDAR sensor. The new Puck Hi-Res has a name that reflects both its shape and what distinguishes it form the original puck – higher resolution LiDAR imaging that helps it offer up the “most detailed 3D views possible from LiDAR,” according to the company. Velodyne… Read More
Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment have been put into commerce startups in the fast-growing market of India, from marketplaces like Flipkart and Snapdeal through to payment startups like PayTM. Now one of the more interesting of these has been acquired. PayU, an online payments company with a focus on developing markets that is owned by South Africa’s Naspers, has… Read More
Cloud-based collaboration tool Frame.io has raised $10M in Series A funding led by Accel, with participation from SignalFire, FirstMark Capital, and Shasta Ventures. Actor Jared Leto, who was a seed investor in the company, has also invested in the Series A as well as actor Kevin Spacey. Frame.io is a collaboration tool for video creators and compares themselves to a InVision or Github… Read More
In its press material, LeEco refers to as a “global internet company,” a phrase that doesn’t really mean that much on the face of it – but when you’re LeEco, it’s probably best to be purposely vague. The Chinese technology firm’s ultimate goal appears to be an everything company. The brand, formerly known as LeTV, is probably best known for its… Read More
The final day of Disrupt is upon us. Which means that I don’t have the energy for enthusiasm. That said, today’s lineup is absolutely killer. Alongside some amazing speakers, including Twitch’s Emmett Shear, Facebook’s Adam Mosseri, and Instacart’s Apoorva Mehta, we’re also heading into the Finals of the Battlefield. Finalists include BlazingDB, Carbon… Read More
Luma, an Atlanta-based company that makes a sleek router with a wide variety of bells and whistles, has added $7 million to a previously closed Series A round. The capital comes from Andreessen Horowitz and GV and adds to an initial, $12.5 million in Series A funding co-led by Accel Partners and Amazon, with participation from Felicis Ventures. Seemingly, investors are trying to get a… Read More
Uber is now dispatching self-driving cars to a select group of users in Pittsburgh, and invited us along for the ride. I hailed a car from Uber’s Advanced Technologies Campus Tuesday and took a 45-minute ride through the city’s downtown, eastern and northern neighborhoods. I watched as the wheel turned itself, carefully maneuvering us through crowded streets and around other cars… Read More
Canva, a design platform for web and mobile that gives anyone the ability to make professional graphics, without needing an advanced skill set, today announced a new infusion of $15 million in funding and a doubling of its valuation in 12 months. Previously valued at $165 million, the added capital brings Canva’s valuation up to $345 million, the company says. Canva closed on its Series… Read More
There’s probably a law against launching a new headphone line without the proper celebrity endorsement. Right out of the gate, Muzik’s got ‘em in spades. The hardware startup is launching its first pair – the fittingly titled One – and has already lined up a ton of endorsements, including athletes like Chris Paul and Elena Delle Donne. In fact, here’s a… Read More
Activists and lawyers from a host of human rights organizations launched a campaign today asking President Obama to issue a pardon to whistleblower Edward Snowden before Obama leaves office in January. The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other groups. Snowden is charged with espionage for leaking internal National… Read More
Thanks to its vast repository of beautiful photos, home remodeling platform Houzz can easily give you a major case of home envy. But if you want to bring your home up to the standard of those homes, Houzz has long allowed you to buy products you see in those photos. Now the company is making it even easier to buy even more products. The service now uses a new deep learning-based system that… Read More
We already knew it was coming – thanks to an accidental tweet Amazon posted earlier this week – but now it’s official: Amazon’s connected speaker Echo Dot is back in stock and at a lower price point of $49.99. The Alexa-powered device offers many of the same features that you’ll find in its larger counterpart, the Amazon Echo, including access to… Read More
Twitter needs to figure out a way to continue to grow — and it certainly seems open to looking into a lot of new places outside your phone to figure out how to do that. Today, the company said it is launching an app on the Apple TV, Xbox One and Amazon Fire TV, which will allow users to view Twitter content through the apps on their televisions. That includes live streams of 10 NFL… Read More
