Data visualization has been done — we have publicly traded, interactive, real-time and heck even artificially intelligent companies promising data visualization. But despite all the noise, Portland-based Reflect is making a go of it in the space, opening up its public beta today. By putting developers first and letting them integrate and customize visualizations in their own… Read More
In what is clearly a marketing ploy from workspace rental service Breather, the company is launching a Chrome plug-in called the “Nope Button.” The idea here, according to the company, is to help people avoid distractions in the office, even if they can’t reserve a private Breather to get some alone time. With open work spaces becoming the standard in startup offices (and… Read More
Lux Capital’s portfolio companies sound like they ripped their product concepts from the pages of science fiction. Among these are self-driving car startup Zoox, a company gathering oceanographic data from fleets of autonomously operating boats called Saildrone, Desktop Metal whose 3-D printers that can make objects out of alloys on the spot, and 3Scan, a startup that makes detailed… Read More
Pypestream is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding. When the startup launched more than a year ago, founder and CEO Richard Smullen was pitching text messaging as the best way for customers to communicate with businesses — specifically, through the Pypestream app, where businesses can create their own accounts with a variety of different “pypes”… Read More
Meet Verst, a brand new product from the company that brought you DWNLD. It’s a blogging platform like WordPress or Squarespace, but will all the optimization and analytics tools you need to optimize your traffic and revenue. “It's really difficult to consistently monetize on the web,” CEO AJ Frank told me. “Overall it's a web publishing product that has a… Read More
Dubuc Motors, makers of the Tomahawk all-electric supercar prototype, recently announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved its filing for equity crowdfunding under the US JOBS Act Regulation A+. The company began a Testing the Waters campaign in 2016, when it revealed the Tomahawk prototype, and raised $6.1 million in initial funding reservations. Now that the… Read More
PebblePost is betting that there’s a big marketing opportunity in printed postcards and catalogs. The startup is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding. The round was led by RRE Ventures, with participation from Greycroft Partners and Tribeca Ventures. RRE’s Jim Robinson is joining the PebblePost board of directors. PebblePost describes its offering as… Read More
Record labels refuse to allow streaming of remixes and hour-long DJ sets unless copyright owners get paid for every little sample. Dubset just raised $4 million to handle that legal mess so Spotify and Apple Music can offer these types of music which used to live illegally on SoundCloud. “This year will be huge in opening up this ecosystem” Dubset CEO Stephen White tells me.… Read More
Not a fan of Trump? Can’t stand country music? Think selfie culture is the worst? Wouldn’t go camping if someone paid you? Bonding over the things you hate can be more powerful than bonding over what you like, studies have shown. Now, a new dating app called Hater can help you find better matches by focusing on those things you and others mutually detest. Yes, an app that connects… Read More
More than two years ago we wrote about what we learned from the 20 campaigns our startups had run. Fast-forward to 2017: The B2C startups HAX has invested in now count more than 75 successful campaigns (our 200-strong portfolio is about half B2C). Here’s what you need to know to succeed in 2017. Read More
Once in a while I come across a company that seems like a complete no-brainer. An idea that induces a ‘why hasn’t this been done already’ moment. That was certainly the case when I jumped on a call with Aja Guldhammer Henderson, CEO of Reshopper, a Danish startup that has built a mobile app for parents to buy and sell used items. Read More
Conversational AI is pushing deeper into enterprise with Workfit, a new startup promising to make conference call follow-ups and mid-meeting CRM updates as easy as playing a song or checking the weather on Google Home or Amazon Echo. Battery Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Salesforce Ventures and a number of angels joined together to finance a $5.5 million seed investment in the… Read More
The world of mobile development is a hairy one. You can code things yourself and hurt your brain on React Native or you can use a drag-and-drop editor and get locked into one platform forever. But now app development house Kinetise is offering the best of both worlds. Kinetise, who I’ve talked about for years as an interesting alternative to coding your own Android and iOS apps, came… Read More
Low-Earth orbit is a prime candidate for explosive commercial growth, but it’s also a space where the risk of actual explosions resulting from debris impact is a legitimate concern for businesses focused on the opportunity. That’s the problem LeoLabs aims to address, a startup spun out of SRI International to detect, map and help avoid collisions with debris and objects floating… Read More
While Google is using MWC to show off some of its advances in native apps on mobile devices — specifically in chat apps — the world’s biggest chat app company is doing something completely different. Today, Facebook announced that it is building a 770-kilometer (500-mile) fiber backhaul network in Uganda, in partnership with India’s Airtel and wholesale provider BCS… Read More
Boston-based Drizly used to be known as the on-demand delivery app for alcohol. More recently, the company evolved into a marketplace that helps brick-and-mortar liquor stores to connect with and sell to customers nearby through web and mobile commerce. The Drizly app shows shoppers different prices on the beer, wine and liquor that they’re looking for at local shops, along with… Read More
Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti’s story of sexual harassment and HR complicity at the company has drawn a lot of attention from the outside world as many relate to her frustrations and the broader systemic culture of sexism that manifests itself across the tech industry. In the days since Rigetti published her account, decisions have been made both inside and outside of… Read More
Entrepreneurs who pitch on ABC’s Shark Tank typically make packaged goods and apparel. Occasionally, the high tech breaks through. XCraft, the company behind the PhoneDrone Ethos, scored a rare investment from all of the judges on the ABC show last spring, for example. And tonight, drones are once again flying “in the Tank” as DARTdrones seeks funding to build… Read More
Layer, the messaging platform that won TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield back in 2013, is making two big announcement today: It’s raised $15 million in Series B funding, and it’s acquiring another startup, Cola. Layer makes it easy for businesses to add messaging capabilities to their iOS, Android and web products — customers include Trunk Club, Staples and Udacity.… Read More
Food delivery startup Thistle was never been in the business of making meal kits, those boxes of pre-measured ingredients and recipes to help customers cook at home. The startup’s married cofounders, Ashwin Cheriyan and Shiri Avnery, thought that prepared meals, ready-to-heat or raw and ready-to-eat, were a better fit for their busy customers. Meal kits, they said, felt like time… Read More
Revcontent, a self-funded company powering content recommendations for publishers like Forbes and The Atlantic, has acquired Rover. That’s not Rover the pet-sitting marketplace, but rather the content discovery app formerly known as Flipora and Infoaxe. CEO John Lemp told me that RevContent is paying “north of $30 million” in cash and stock for the acquisition, which he… Read More
Like all great programmers I get most of my code from StackOverflow questions. Can’t figure out how to add authentication to Flask? Easy. Want to shut down sendmail? Boom. Now, thanks to all the code on the Internet, a robot can be as smart as a $180,000 coder. The system, called DeepCoder, basically searches a corpus of code to build a project that works to spec. It’s been used… Read More
Tonight is the night! The Miami Meetup + Pitch-off kicks off at 6pm and this is your last chance to get in on the fun! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then please let me explain: The Meetup + Pitch-off is a regional event we hold to get to know the local community. As part of the program, we’ll be joined on stage by ten startups. Each of these startups will have… Read More
Born out of technology designed to put an appropriate price on a musician or band’s live performance, based on their social media presence, SocialWall aims to be a smarter way for brands to display social media mentions at events or in venues. Like so many social media management products, it promises less noise and more signal. Read More
As pollution, extreme weather, and over-population threaten the viability of large, outdoor farms, a startup called Bowery Farming Inc. has raised $6.3 million in venture funding to grow food indoors, even in the middle of a city. The startup’s high-tech approach uses robotics, LED lighting, computer vision, sensors and data analytics to grow leafy greens with no pesticides and very… Read More
Lower airspace isn’t crowded with drones quite yet. But as drones become more pervasive, a startup called AirMap is building software and system to help drone operators fly only where it’s safe and legal to do so. The task will prove completely different than that of managing airliners as we do today, says AirMap CEO and cofounder Ben Marcus who is also serving as the co-chair for… Read More
