Here’s a sentence you might not have expected to read: a service built around crowdfunding is building in a one-to-one payments option in what might be one of the most increasingly crowded spaces in the U.S. That’s what Tilt, an app geared toward crowdfunding events like parties or travel plans, is hoping will make its service even more sticky and a one-stop destination for… Read More
A startup called Farmers Business Network has raised $20 million in new venture funding to support the growth of its professional social network and data-sharing platform for agronomists. FBN co-founder and Vice President of Product Charles Baron said the company’s platform helps farmers do what they’ve always done offline at community meetings, old-fashioned barn raisings or in… Read More
Qualcomm’s busy year in China continues with news that it has agreed to patent licensing deals with two of the world’s fastest-growing smartphone companies: Oppo and Vivo. Read More
UK robotics startup and TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 battlefield alum Emotech has closed more than $10 million in Series A funding to continue working on its prototype robot assistant. It’s building a personality adapting AI-powered robot called Olly. Read More
If you’ve seen the Condé Nast’s website recently, you’ve seen the Socius platform in action. The startup just raised $400k from 500 Startups’ Nordic Fund and Raa Invest to pour fuel on its social storytelling and curation tool, helping brands leverage the crowd to tell stories from all angles. By using its technology, the idea is that brands will be able to maximize… Read More
Yet one more significant piece of M&A in the online recruitment industry. Today Randstad Holdings, an Amsterdam-based human resources and recruitment specialist, announced that it would acquire job hunting portal Monster Worldwide, for $429 million in cash. The deal works out to $3.40 per share in cash and is a premium on Monster’s share price at closing on Monday of $262 million.… Read More
A new tracking system rolled out to Pokemon Go players tonight, but most people outside of San Francisco don’t have it yet. Here’s what it looks like in action. Read More
There was once a time when Uber’s big advantage over the competition was being integrated into Google Maps. That’s long passed now, however. Earlier this year, Google added a slew of non-Uber options to Maps — and that now includes Grab and Go-Jek in Southeast Asia. Read More
Walmart buys Jet.com for $3 billion, the Wilson X Connected Football is a $200 Internet of things football, new rules for vaping are in effect today, Pokemon Go crosses $200 million revenue in one month, Bitfinex is going to distribute its losses from getting hacked among all users. All this on Crunch Report Read More
It’s an open secret that the Internet of Things (if we must call it so) is pretty terrible, whether in standards, interoperability or security. Good security, though, you don’t really expect in a smart light bulb or coffee maker. A smart front door lock, however, really shouldn’t be quite this easy to hack. Read More
Sorry purists: New players of classic NES games on the upcoming micro NES Classic Edition system from Nintendo won’t have to rely on barbaric codes that recall progress, or single session playthroughs to beat games. Speaking with French language radio show La Terrasse ÉNERGIE (via IGN), Nintendo of Canada comms person Julie Gagnon told listeners that the console will provide players… Read More
To say there are a lot of molecules out there is kind of an understatement. So searching for one or two in particular is like looking for a needle in a galaxy-spanning haystack. Fortunately, the science of machine learning and the irrepressible need for humans to swipe left and right on things make the search a lot easier, as Harvard and MIT researchers have found. Read More
Rumors have been flying for over a week that Rackspace was for sale, but today instead of the whole kit and kaboodle, the company announced it was selling its Cloud Sites web hosting unit to Liquid Web. The fact that Liquid Web is itself a cloud web hosting company would seem to make the two a perfect match, allowing the company to expand its business through acquisition. The two… Read More
A year ago, startup valuations hit a 12-year peak as the numbers of companies joining the billion-dollar-plus club soared.
Today, those numbers are looking far more run of the mill. So suggests a new survey published by law firm Fenwick & West, which analyzed the venture financings of 195 Silicon Valley-based companies over the second quarter to draw its conclusions.
Among the… Read More
Rumors have been flying for over a week that Rackspace was for sale, but today instead of the whole kit and kaboodle, the company announced it was selling its Cloud Sites web hosting unit to Liquid Web. The fact that Liquid Web is itself a cloud web hosting company would seem to make the two a perfect match, allowing the company to expand its business through acquisition. The two… Read More
Ever since the acquisition of the first “Ag Unicorn,” a flood of new digital agriculture startups has been trying to turn investor interest into market traction. Bayer’s recent $62 billion bid to buy Monsanto to create a global agrochemical giant and China National Chemical’s proposed $43 billion acquisition of Syngenta show that the big ag players are hungry for growth… Read More
The White House (led by United States Chief Information Officer Tony Scott) has been pretty vocal about using technology to improve how government operates. They want to make sure code helps, not hurts, government agencies, and that the U.S. government can use technology just as effectively as a private company can. In March the White House issued a blog post detailing their intentions to… Read More
Nonprofit groups and NGOs are now invited to apply for exhibit space in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt SF on Monday, September 12 or Tuesday, September 13. TechCrunch’s diversity program Include serves as a platform to provide startup and tech access for underrepresented groups. This year, we are formalizing the inclusion of Nonprofits and NGOs in line with the Include mission… Read More
GM is putting its Cruise acquisition to good use in Arizona: The self-driving car startup acquired by the automaker in March is trialling its tech on public roads in Scottsdale. Cruise tweeted about the autonomous testing expansion, which uses Chevrolet Bolt all-electric vehicles, and which adds to the core fleet of testing vehicles already operating in San Francisco. We’re testing… Read More
