Ingrid Lunden
Writer
The Latest from Ingrid Lunden
Viber users can now get local numbers in the US, UK and Canada for inbound voice and SMS
Viber, the messaging app owned by Rakuten that a year ago said it had 1 billion registered users, has added another feature in its longer-term efforts to add more stickiness to its service, while also
Kabbage raises a record $700 million in debt for its SMB loans platform
Loan platform Kabbage — which offers quick assessment and approvals for small business loans using machine learning algorithms that pull data from dozens of sources — has closed another la
Pinterest sets IPO range at $15-17, valuing it at $10.6B vs previous valuation of $12.3B
After dropping its IPO filing two weeks ago, today Pinterest, the social media platform where people can discover and share ideas and content through grids of “pinned” images, filed an up
Boomplay, a Spotify-style music and video streaming service for African music and Africa, raises $20M
While Spotify dukes it out with Apple and other big tech names to target high-end users in mostly developed markets, a startup out of China has raised some money to expand its music streaming business
GrubMarket raises $25M more for its farm-to-table food delivery service
Farmers markets have become a staple presence in many US cities, where there is a steady supply of smaller, often organic farmers and other food producers wanting a more direct channel to sell their g
Onfido, which verifies IDs using AI, nabs $50M from SBI, Salesforce, Microsoft and more
Security breaches, where malicious hackers obtain snippets of information that then get used to impersonate individuals in order to gain access to individuals’ and businesses’ sensitive fi
EBay to shut down the eBay Commerce Network, its third-party ad network, on May 1
As eBay continues to restructure its business, it’s shuttering one of the efforts it had made to expand its commercial footprint outside its own marketplace and walled garden. The company announ
TradingView acquires TradeIt to add instant trading APIs to its investor toolkit
After raising $37 million to bring its on-the-spot stock market analytics tools to a wider range of publishers and other internet partners, TradingView today has announced its first acquisition to sup
Microsoft teams up with BMW for the IoT-focused Open Manufacturing Platform
Car companies are making big investments in technology to help ensure that they are not cut out of the next generation of transportation and automotive manufacturing, and today came the latest develop
German LinkedIn rival Xing is rebranding as ‘New Work,’ acquires recruitment platform Honeypot for up to $64M
Xing, the business networking platform that has been described as Germany’s answer to LinkedIn, has made an acquisition to beef up its recruitment business ahead of a rebrand of the business as
Android security: 0.04% of downloads on Google Play in 2018 were ‘potentially harmful apps’
Google’s Android, now 10 years old, has not been a stranger to security issues over the years. But with the mobile operating system now installed on over 2 billion devices globally, Google has
Toast, the restaurant management platform, has raised $250M at a $2.7B valuation
Restaurant sales hit $825 billion last year in the U.S., but with margins averaging at only three to five percent per business, they’re always looking for an edge on efficiency and just generall
Lyft pops 21% on its first day of trading on Nasdaq after raising $2.2B in its IPO at a $24B valuation
Ride-hailing startup Lyft may bear the distinction of having highest net loss of any maiden public company ever going public, but despite that, it made its debut in a high gear this morning. Trading
Alibaba has acquired Teambition, a China-based Trello and Asana rival, in its enterprise push
Alibaba has made an acquisition as it continues to square up to the opportunity in enterprise services in China and beyond, akin to what its U.S. counterpart Amazon has done with AWS. TechCrunch has c
BBC wants to add 3rd parties to its Sounds app to balance Apple and Spotify dominance in podcasts and music
Earlier this week, the BBC pulled its podcasts from Google’s Podcast app and Assistant platform after determining that it wasn’t getting enough out of the relationship, specifically notin
PayIt, a payments platform designed for public services, raises $100M+ from Insight Partners
Government services, for many, epitomize the worst of bureaucracy: they are, at their low point, large, lumbering organizations working under strained budgets, staffed by lifer employees who don’
Before breaking up with Shopify, Mailchimp quietly acqui-hired LemonStand, a Shopify competitor
Here’s an interesting twist on the story from last week about the break-up between Shopify and Mailchimp, after the two said they were at odds over how customer data was shared between the two c
Report: Grindr’s Chinese owner Kunlun is selling the dating app after CFIUS raised personal data concerns
Grindr, the popular dating app for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, looks like it might be changing hands again, a year after it was acquired at a valuation of $245 million. According to a
Lola.com raises $37M to take on SAP and others in the world of business travel
Business customers continue to be a huge target for the travel industry, and today a startup has raised a tidy sum to help it double down on the $1.7 trillion opportunity. Lola.com — a platform
Spotify acquires true crime studio Parcast to expand its original podcast content
Spotify, the music streaming platform with 207 million users, is making good on its commitment to invest up to $500 million more into its new podcasting business — a promise it made in February