The current messaging hype is overstated. There are certainly some interesting and unique opportunities for messaging as an interface, but I contend the number of practical use cases is a fraction of what the current hype cycle suggests. Read More
There are scores of startups making fertility tracker and family planning apps today, but a Consumer Reports investigation has singled out Glow Inc. for serious security and privacy flaws. First, Consumer Reports’ team was able to access very personal information including data and comments about users’ sex lives, history of miscarriages, abortions and more, through a privacy… Read More
As the tech industry has heated up in recent years, athletes with an interest in startups have been jumping on deals. Most have stuck to what they know and supported sports-tech companies like CoachUp and The Players’ Tribune. But for some athletes, even that wasn’t enough. Here’s 10 of the most unlikely startup investments made by NBA legends. Read More
Yesterday, a little birdie told me about Nextt, an accelerator (probably more accurately referred to as an incubator) for early-idea-stage startups. The idea is to take a napkin-stage idea and turn it into an MVP of sorts in six weeks. Not a shabby idea, but the insidious thing here is that Nextt charges $100 per idea. Not to participate, mind you — to apply. Read More
A startup that helps businesses determine when drones are flying unwantedly or otherwise into their airspace, Dedrone, has partnered with the electronics division of civil aircraft manufacturers Airbus to bring drone detection to wide open spaces and remote locations. Through their partnership, Dedrone will integrate Airbus’s long range radar technology into its systems which are… Read More
The festivities have wrapped for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup, a global competition among students and young people to create new software and devices. The winner this year was ENTy, a polished and highly practical hardware solution for tracking posture, helping with diagnosis and possibly treatment of diseases that affect balance. Read More
Lobster, the platform that lets brands and publishers license user-generated content from social sites like Instagram and Youtube, has today announced integration with Dropbox. Plus, the platform has builtout tools that will make it easier for brands and publishers to find the perfect picture. Lobster, in short, does all the heavy lifting when it comes to licensing user-generated content.… Read More
Meet Krawd, a French startup that wants to rethink the way advertising agencies work. Like in other industries, Krawd thinks that it’s more efficient to build a marketplace than build a centralized, traditional company. Krawd is all about connecting the right freelancers with the right clients in this specific industry. Read More
Despite recent positive news and a renewed interest of international investors in the country, the reality is that Brazil is suffering. The country has endured a profound financial crisis for several years. As the mess untangles and we go up from what many experts consider the bottom, the consequences for the region’s overall economy are now very real. For investors, it’s a… Read More
Telehealth and telemedicine companies have the power to help patients get the care they need from home, and often more quickly and at a lower cost than what they’d pay out of pocket at a clinic or office in person. Investors have backed scores of these companies, including the now publicly traded Teladoc and MDLIVE, as well as Doctor on Demand, Talkspace, Joyable, Curology and myriad… Read More
Data-driven investor community TradingView has hit one million monthly active users and is expanding globally to under-served markets. TechCrunch last covered TradingView in 2012 when the site was seeing 2,000 visitors per day. The site differs from other investor communities like Seeking Alpha because of its emphasis on visuals. TradingView takes a chart based approach to supporting investing. Read More
Step by step, Sketchfab is turning into the best platform to view 3D models using a virtual reality headset. First, the company added a VR button on every browsing page, then it released apps to support all VR headsets and showcase a few models. Now, the New York-based startup is making it easier to move around 3D models. Read More
Peek.com has raised $10 million in equity funding to become what it calls an “OpenTable for the $100 billion activities market,” according to CEO and co-founder Ruzwana Bashir. Based in San Francisco, with additional offices in Salt Lake City, Utah, Peek.com lets travelers, and locals, find and book activities such as tours, tastings and lessons, online or via mobile. The Peek.com… Read More
Garrett Camp, Uber cofounder and CEO of Expa Studios, is today unveiling Expa’s latest project, Haus. Haus is the studio’s first real estate play and focuses entirely on the buying and selling of residential property, digitizing and organizing offers from buyers so that all parties (the buyer, seller, and agents) have more transparency and immediacy through the negotiation… Read More
For all the hype around fintech, not least in London, Monese is a startup that has pragmatism at its heart. It’s not trying to be an actual bank — in the technical, banking license sense — but does enable immigrants and expats, who might otherwise find it hard to open a bank account outside of their home country, to access core banking services. Read More
LeadGenius announced today that it has raised $10 million in Series B funding. Formerly known as MobileWorks, LeadGenius helps customers find likely sales leads and reach out to them with automated emails. The company says revenue increased 6x in the past 20 months, with customers including eBay, Box and Weebly. LeadGenius has now raised more than $21 million in funding. The new round was… Read More
Hyperloop One is today announcing the opening of its first manufacturing plant. Called Hyperloop One Metalworks, the 105,000 square-foot building in North Las Vegas will be the new professional home of many of the company’s 170 employees, including engineers, machinists and welders. These folks will build and test a number of components for the DevLoop, a full-system prototype of the… Read More
A San Francisco startup that many people assumed was toast, Good Eggs, has raised $15 million in a new round of venture funding led by Index Ventures to expand its online, organic grocery business across the U.S. In recent years, Good Eggs tried to ramp up its eco- and farm-friendly grocery business only to face logistics problems, high costs and lagging customer satisfaction in some markets.… Read More
As the world of DNA sequencing becomes more efficient and less expensive, a number of companies are sprouting up within the space. The latest, Phosphorus, has just raised a $10 million Series A led by FirstMark. Phosphorus is actually a spin-out from a previous genomics company called Recombine, which sold to CooperSurgical last year in a transaction valued at $85 million. Recombine, led by… Read More
Awair, the IoT product that sits in the home and measures the quality of your air, has today announced integrations with a number of other platforms to improve the experience. The company behind Aawir, Bitfinder, has teamed up with Nest, the Amazon Echo, and IFTTT to offer users new ways to interact with the data gathered from air quality monitor and more seamlessly automate their other… Read More
The Department of Motor Vehicles is one of the most notorious ways to waste your life away. Density could help ease this pain. Today, Density is launching its people-counting sensor for measuring how many people are inside a space at any given time. The company is also announcing a $4 million Series A round led by Upfront Ventures Managing Partner Mark Suster with participation from Ludlow… Read More
Today Big Health, which is already backed by Index Ventures, is disclosing that it has raised $12 million (£9.15m) in new funding led by Octopus Ventures. Also participating are Kaiser Permanente Ventures, Index, Sean Duffy (CEO, Omada Health), and JamJar Investments (the UK-based investment fund of the innocent drinks founders). Noteworthy is that Esther Dyson, and Peter Read are also… Read More
Israeli startup Zeek, whose app lets you buy and sell unwanted store gift vouchers, has closed $9.5 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Scale-Up Venture Capital, with participation from long list of additional investors, some of which contributed to the company’s Series A early last year. They include Blumberg Capital, Qualcomm Incorporated (via its venture investment… Read More
High-tech homes are about to revolutionize the way we live. While interior design once relied on color schemes and playful accents, new tech trends are completely revamping how we design, build and live in our spaces. 
PSA Group — the carmaker behind brands Peugeot, Citroën and DS — has acquired a majority stake in European auto-repair marketplace Autobutler. 