posted yesterday

Unface.me Is A Gossip Girl-Style Social Service For Anonymously Trolling Your Friends

Unface.me

Russian startup Unface.me has created a new social network inspired by the Gossip Girl TV series which lets users create an alter ego to — let’s face it — troll their friends, or even post even worst types of gossip entirely anonymously. The site connects with Facebook and Russian social network VKontakte so it can pull in users’ genuine friend networks, then let them dish salacious gossip. → Read More

May 23rd, 2013

Cubic Telecom Secures $5.2M To Create Devices That Roam Mobile Networks Cheaply

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We’re all familiar with the bill shock associated with roaming abroad with our cellphones. There are plenty of players that allow you to swap out your SIM card and use cheaper traffic, including Cubic Telecom. However, that process is tedious. So Cubic has secured new funding to enable a range of tablets and notebooks to have their technology built into partner devices. To do this they’ve raised a… → Read More

May 23rd, 2013

Imonomy Raises $400K Seed For Its Visual Semantic Software That Adds Relevant Photos To Publishers’ Websites, Monetised With Ads

Imonomy logo

Imonomy, an Israeli startup which makes software that analyses webpages and automatically inserts relevant, copyright-free images to accompany the content, has closed a $400,000 seed round from a group of angel investors. Investors include Inon Axel, former CEO of Kasamba, Liron Rose, cofounder of AfterDownload, and Itai Levitan and Tal Shaked, partners at AfterDownload. → Read More

May 23rd, 2013

JustFab Goes Up A Size In Europe, Acquires Fab Shoes To Take Its Fashion Subscription Service To France And Spain

the fab shoes

JustFab, the subscription-based fashion commerce site, is putting the $109 million that it has raised so far to use: today it is announcing the acquisition of The Fab Shoes, a European e-commerce shoe club in France and Spain, to build out its global operations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. → Read More

May 23rd, 2013

Blip Blup Is A Minimalist Mobile Puzzle Game That Lets You Play With Pulses Of Light

Blip Blup

After the aesthetic elegance of Dots, prepare for another injection of minimalist puzzle game beauty. Blip Blup is the new game from London-based design house and app studio ustwo — maker of Whale Trail, a mobile game that snagged an e-book deal, plus a raft of other interesting apps including most recently Rando (random photo-sharing) and Honk (visual messaging). → Read More

May 23rd, 2013

Amazon Takes Kindle Fire HD Tablets To 170 Countries As It Ramps Up Its Appstore To Nearly 200 Markets

kindle fire hd

No, we still don’t have any word from Amazon on where it stands with a smartphone, but it’s definitely making its mobile ambitions clear anyway. Today, the e-commerce giant took two more steps in its strategy to scale up its Kindle Fire tablet business. It announced that it will now sell the two higher-end versions of the device, the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″, in 170 countries. And it… → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Collaborative Gastronomy? Cookening Lets Tourists Dine In A Local’s Own Home

Cookening

Launching today is Cookening, a new French startup co-founded by Cédric Giorgi (previously co-editor of TechCrunch France) that combines elements of both Airbnb and Housebites. Starting with France first, a country known for its gastronomy, it enables locals to be matched with tourists so they can invite them into their homes to experience an authentic home dining experience. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Truecaller Opens Paid API To Select Developers To Monetise Its Global Phone Directory

truecaller api

Truecaller, the Sweden-based creater of a crowdsourced phone directory app and online white pages service, has opened its API to a select group of “handpicked” developers. Truecaller said its directory now contains some 600 million phone numbers, either contributed by individuals or harvested through partnerships with other directory services. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Urturn Raises $13.4M Series A, Led By Balderton, For Its Social Expressions Platform That Lets Teens Create Memes & Movements

urturn

Urturn, the social expressions platform that soft-launched as stealthily as possible last year by intentionally hiding under a really boring name, is getting ready to turn the volume up to 11 to start seriously recruiting teens and trend-setters to its meme-stuffed, fashion-friendly, music-loving platform. Today it has announced a $13.4 million Series A funding round, led by Balderton Capital with… → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

SumUp, One Of Europe’s Many Mobile Payments Startups, Launches In Russia — Now Operating In 11 Markets

sumup russia

SumUp, one of the myriad European Square-style mobile card reader startups, has expanded its coverage footprint by rolling into an 11th European market: Russia. SumUp is now operational in the U.K., Germany, Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Belgium and Russia, giving it a larger geographical footprint than other European rivals including iZettle and Payleven. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Aiming To Be The Mobile Banking App To Rule Them All, Numbrs Stashes $7.7M Of Fresh Funding

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Chalk this up as one to watch closely in the world of consumer fintech. Numbrs, a mobile-first banking app founded out of Swiss company builder Centralway, has raised 7.5 million Swiss francs (~$7.7 million) from its parent, capital it will use to build on its pending German launch, with the UK and Swiss markets up next, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Rando’s 5M Anti-Social Photo Shares Could Be The Canary In The Social Networking Coalmine

rando_youhavenofriends

Rando only launched in March but the anti-social photo-sharing app that deliberately eschews the standard social network clutter of likes and comments and connections — simply letting users share random photos with random strangers and get random snaps in return — has blasted past 5M photo shares after a little over two months in the wild. It is now averaging around 200,000 shares per day. → Read More

May 22nd, 2013

Zalora, Rocket Internet’s SE Asian Zappos Clone, Raises $100M More From Summit, Kinnevik And More

Zalora logo

Zalora, a Zappos-style fashion e-commerce site in South East Asia backed by the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet incubator in Germany, is today announcing its latest investment — $100 million, led by Rocket Internet itself, along with regular Samwer investing partners Summit Partners, Investment AB Kinnevik, Verlinvest and Tengelmann Group. The is the largest investment in Zalora to date, and one… → Read More

May 21st, 2013

Brow.si Is An Add-On And Platform That Wants To Put The Engagement Fight Back Into The Mobile Web

TC-1

Brow.si, a new product from MySiteApp, is launching in open beta today as an add-on for mobile websites that promises to bring a number of features to rival the engagement of native apps. These include social sharing, a read it later button, subscriptions, and push notifications (sort of). Developers can also create additional extensions for the Brow.si platform to add further desktop web/app-like… → Read More

May 21st, 2013

3 Mind-Bending Ways Apple Dodged $13.8B In Taxes

irish leprechaun

Kudos to Apple’s finance lawyers, who are the Cirque Du Soleil of legal contortionism. On the eve of live testimony from CEO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Phillip Bullock, head of Apple’s tax operations, a scathing congressional investigation of Apple’s tax dodging strategy reveals how the computer giant avoided $13.8 billion in taxes through a clever labyrinth of offshore tax havens, shell… → Read More

May 21st, 2013

New U.K. Edtech Entity To Spend Up To $77M Acquiring European E-Learning Firms Over Next 18 Months To Build Regional Giant

Edxus Group

Expect a swathe of consolidation in the European e-learning sector in the coming months. Edxus Group, a new London-based corporate operating edtech company, is planning to plough in €50-60 million ($64-$77m) over the next 18 months to develop and acquire European e-learning businesses and build out a single regional player with the scale to compete against U.S. edtech giants, it said today. → Read More

May 21st, 2013

Brightpearl Raises $8 Million Series B For Its Cloud Software To Help Retailers Manage Sales Across Multiple Channels

brightpearl-logo

In what is effectively a follow-on round, Brightpearl, the cloud software provider for multichannel retailers, has raised $8 million in Series B funding from previous backers Eden Ventures and Notion Capital. Both Eden and Notion seed-backed the UK company, before adding a further $5 million Series A in May 2011. This brings the total raised by Brightpearl to $14.5 million. → Read More

May 21st, 2013

Can We Say Crowdfunding Bubble? U.K. Charity Launches Directory To Help Navigate Nation’s 30+ Local Platforms

Nesta crowdfunding directory

How many crowdfunding platforms is evidence of a crowdfunding bubble? Well, when an organisation feels the need to launch a directory to list and detail all of the options in a single market it’s perhaps a sign that exuberance for crowdsourced financing is running a little high. Nesta, a U.K. innovation charity, has launched just such a directory, detailing 31 local crowdfunding platforms. → Read More

May 21st, 2013

Opera’s WebKit-Based Android Browser Exits Beta To Battle Apps For Users’ Attention

opera android browser

Browser maker Opera’s first WebKit browser has exited beta. The full launch for the browser previously code-named Ice adds a few additional minor updates to the meaty feature-set demoed at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow back in February. The Android browser represents a huge shift for Opera as it moves away from its own Presto framework to the de facto standard WebKit engine, plus Chromium. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Jolla’s Software Chief Says Co-Creation Is What Makes The MeeGo Startup’s Phone Hardware So Special

Jolla

Jolla has finally taken the wraps off the smartphone hardware that will be paired with its “unlike” Sailfish UI. Being a startup is challenging enough in any business sector but Jolla is seeking to compete in the fiercely competitive smartphone space against Samsung and Apple. So it’s hard not to dismiss their efforts as too late. But it’s a lot harder to accuse them of doing too little. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Yet Another TechCity Report Confuses Tech Companies With Web Agencies And Consultants

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A new report commissioned from research giant GfK claims that the growth of the high density cluster of technology companies in East London (dubbed Tech City by the UK government) is being “stunted” by a talent shortage and lack of access to capital. The ‘Tech Futures Report’ – commissioned by publishing company TechCityInsider and sponsored by accountant Grant Thornton, recruitment firm Vitamin… → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Headcast, A Mobile Broadcast Platform For Celebrities’ & Brands’ Avatars To Talk To Fans, Launches On iOS, Backed By Stephen Fry

Headcast Fry app

There’s no shortage of channels for brands and celebrities to stay in touch with their customers, followers and fans in these socially connected times. Today’s addition to the mix is the launch of broadcasting and animation platform Headcast, which lets brands and celebrities record and push out short voice messages to their audience — accompanied by an animated, virtual avatar. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Bloom.fm Is A Mobile-First Music Streaming Service That’s Playing To A Different Tune

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It’s nice to see a startup trying something different and garnering some promising traction along the way. The UK’s Bloom.fm is a mobile-first music streaming service — it currently exists as an iOS app only — that launched four months ago out of the ashes of the deadpooled music social network mflow. → Read More

May 20th, 2013

Finnish MeeGo Startup Jolla Reveals First Phone: 4.5″ Display, Customisable Shells, $513 Price-Tag, Shipping At Year’s End

Jolla

Jolla, the Finnish MeeGo startup composed of ex-Nokians building their own mobile hardware and Sailfish OS, has finally taken the wraps off its first handset, revealing what the hardware will look like on its website. The design is a clean-looking, elegant slab, with the most stand-out feature being the coloured shell on the back that wraps around half the sides of the phone to create a… → Read More

May 20th, 2013

YouLike Is A Dating Site That Thinks The Key To Finding Love Is Hate

YouLike-Home

YouLike, a startup backed by the founders of Turkish eBay clone GittiGidiyor (which in 2011 was acquired by the online auction giant for $217 million), describes itself as an interest-based social network and dating site that takes into account a user’s dislikes, as much as what they do like, when helping to find like-minded people to friend or date. → Read More

May 17th, 2013

Vevo Dostępne Po Polsku

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Vevo, popularny serwis muzycznych teledysków, ogłosił oficjalną dostępność w Polsce. Usługa, wcześniej niedostępna w tym regionie geograficznym, będzie zawierać video-clipy najpopularniejszych polskich gwiazd jak Brodka, Pezet, a może i nawet David Hasselhoff. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Telefonica Adds Samsung As A Carrier Billing OEM For Apps, Games, Music And More

Please Pay Here

Telefonica is today announcing a deal with Samsung that will see it make an even bigger move into the area of carrier billing. Samsung will integrate the carrier’s billing backend directly into its own mobile services, meaning that the Telefonica customers (it has 316 million worldwide) who use the Samsung Hub and Samsung Apps portals on Samsung smartphones will be able to buy apps, music, videos… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

With PayPal-Like Ambitions For Bitcoin, BitPay Raises $2M Led By Founders Fund

bitcoin

BitPay, the startup with ambitions to become the PayPal of the bitcoin world, is today announcing that it has raised another $2 million. And in what is a kind of poetic justice, the round is led by none other than the Founders Fund, the VC started by what’s commonly called the PayPal Mafia. → Read More

May 16th, 2013

BonitaSoft Raises $13M Series C For Its Open Source Business Process Management Solution

bonita

BonitaSoft, a provider of an open source business process management (BPM) solution, has raised a $13 million Series C round led by the FSN PME Fund, a French government initiative to invest in technology companies to help them scale globally. Also joining the round are previous investors Ventech, Auriga Partners, and Serena Capital. The new funding round brings the total raised by the company to… → Read More

May 16th, 2013

Instabeat Is Revolutionary HUD For Swimming Goggles You Can Back On Indiegogo

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While the world goes gaga for Google Glass, a small startup has come up with an intriguing new take on a device which can display information before your eyes. Instabeat is head-up display unit which attaches to swimming goggles and monitors your heart rate, calories, laps and turns during your swim. It’s been live on crowd funding platform Indiegogo for a few days and is already poised to reach… → Read More