September 2019
Bnext raises $25 million for its mobile banking alternative
Fintech startup Bnext has raised a $25 million funding round. The Spanish company is building a banking product and has managed to attract 300,000 active users. DN Capital, Redalpine and…
Berlin-based recruitment chatbot startup Jobpal has closed a €2.5 million (~$2.7M) seed round of funding from InReach Ventures and Acadian Ventures. The company, which was founded back in 2016, has…
In the dual-class shares debate, the big exchanges should get off the sidelines
Adam Neumann’s fall from grace was astonishingly swift once his company, WeWork, filed to go public in August. Even while his spending was fairly well-documented across time (as were his…
Khatabook raises $25M to help small businesses in India record financial transactions digitally and accept online payments
Even as tens of millions of Indians have come online for the first time in recent years, most businesses in the nation remain offline. They continue to rely on long…
Monthly enlists experts and celebrities to teach 30-day online classes
You may know Max Deutsch from Month to Master, his year-long self-improvement program where he tried to master one “expert-level” skill each month — such as solving a Rubik’s Cube…
Twitter launches its anti-abuse filter for Direct Messages
Twitter is rolling out its spam and abuse filter for Direct Messages, a month and a half after the company announced it had started testing the feature. The filter will…
Upstart banking company Dave is now worth $1 billion, as Norwest puts in $50 million
Two years after the Los Angeles-based fintech startup Dave launched with a suite of money management tools to save consumers from overdraft fees, the company is now worth $1 billion…
Rocket Lab launch switcheroo shows the flexibility of the new orbital economy
New Zealand-based launch provider Rocket Lab has announced its next commercial mission, “As The Crow Flies,” taking an Astro Digital satellite to orbit in October. Interestingly, this launch originally had…
AWS IQ matches AWS customers with certified service providers
AWS has a lot going on, and it’s not always easy for customers to deal with the breadth of its service offerings on its own. Today, the company announced a…
After CEO Elon Musk shared new details about its in-development Starship spacecraft on Saturday, SpaceX has updated its website with a new section dedicated to the fully reusable cargo and…
European early-stage VC firm ‘Project A’ on Europe’s startup scene taking the next step
Project A, the Berlin-based VC, just raised a new $200 million fund (€180 million) to continue backing European startups at Seed and Series A stage. In addition, the firm —…
Microsoft OneDrive Personal Vault rolls out worldwide, launches expandable storage
Earlier this summer, Microsoft introduced an extra layer of security to its Dropbox competitor, OneDrive. The security features, called OneDrive Personal Vault, allow users to protect their files with two-step…
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Verizon picks up the assets of Disney-backed VR startup Jaunt
After raising $100 million, virtual reality content startup Jaunt has been in a precarious position for a few years now. It seems like the saga has finally come to a…
Google brings its Jacquard wearables tech to Levi’s Trucker Jacket
Back in 2015, Google’s ATAP team demoed a new kind of wearable tech at Google I/O that used functional fabrics and conductive yarns to allow you to interact with your…
‘Stranger Things 4’ takes Netflix’s hit retro sci-fi show beyond Hawkins
“Stranger Things 4” got its first teaser today, courtesy of the official Stranger Things Twitter account. The Netflix series, which is in its fourth season (although the creators, brothers Matt…
Hyundai Motor Group has launched a new air mobility division aimed at developing technology for the commercialization of flying cars, the latest company to dive into the emerging industry. The…
Instagram launches a ‘creators’ account to encourage more… creation
Instagram deployed a new tool today that should help it continue to build a more viable alternative to YouTube for individual creators looking to try a different platform. It’s a…
SmartNews’ head of product on how the news discovery app wants to free readers from filter bubbles
Since launching in the United States five years ago, SmartNews, the news aggregation app that recently hit unicorn status, has quietly built a reputation for presenting reliable information from a…
Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available
Microsoft today announced that Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), its Azure-based system for virtualizing the Windows and Office user experience it announced last September, is now generally available. Using WVD, enterprises…
The People’s Bank of China has approved PayPal’s acquisition of a 70% equity state in GoPay (Guofubao Information Technology Co. [GoPay], Ltd.), which will make PayPal the first foreign payment…
WeWork’s parent organization The We Company just announced that it’s withdrawing the S-1 filing for its IPO. The co-working company has had a turbulent month since the filing went public, around both…
Confluent adds free tier to Kafka real-time streaming data cloud service
When Confluent launched a cloud service in 2017, it was trying to reduce some of the complexity related to running a Kafka streaming data application. Today, it introduced a free…
US sanctions two Russians for cyber-related election interference
The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions against two Russian nationals accused of working for a notorious disinformation unit. In a statement, the Treasury said Igor Nesterov, 34, and Denis Kuzmin,…
YouTube TV is now available on Fire TV devices
Earlier this year, Google and Amazon reached an agreement to bring their streaming video apps to each other’s platforms, following years of anti-competitive, anti-consumer behavior on both of their parts.…
McDonald’s starts selling its Beyond Meat-based “P.L.T.” sandwich in Canada
McDonald’s first foray into the plant-based protein patty market in North America is launching today in Canada. The company’s “P.L.T.” (plant, lettuce, and tomato) sandwich, which uses patties from Beyond…
Spotify now lets you add podcasts to playlists
Spotify this morning announced a new feature that will allow users to add their podcasts to playlists. With the addition, users can create their own custom playlists of their favorite…
Tencent to take 29% stake in multiplayer games maker Funcom
Chinese social media and gaming giant Tencent is taking a 29% stake to become the largest shareholder in Oslo-based Funcom. The indie games developer is responsible for multiple adaptations involving…
Amboss, the knowledge platform for medical professionals, scores €30M Series B
Amboss, the Berlin-based “medtech” startup that originally offered a learning app for students but has since pivoted to a knowledge platform for medical professionals, has raised €30 million in Series…
Africa’s top mobile phone seller Transsion lists in Chinese IPO
Chinese mobile phone and device maker Transsion has listed in an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a Transsion spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top seller…
