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The top 7 startups from Y Combinator S’17 Demo Day 2
Day two of YC S’17 brought us autonomous store checkout, cannabis genomics and at home fertility testing. We whittled down the strong day of pitches to just seven hot companies. These are the startups our writers and the investors we spoke with were most excited about. If you want to check out the full list of startups from day 2 you can read about them here. Additional reporting by… Read More
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English teaching service VIPKID raises $200M and reportedly hits a $1.5B valuation
VIPKID, an online English teaching tool, announced today that it has raised $200 million in financing. That financing round values the company at $1.5 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg. That wouldn’t just give VIPKID unicorn status — it also exposes a huge amount of demand there is in China and other countries as a tool to learn English from English speakers. VIPKID… Read More
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I was hacked
At about 9pm on Tuesday, August 22 a hacker swapped his or her own SIM card with mine, presumably by calling T-Mobile. This, in turn, shut off network services to my phone and, moments later, allowed the hacker to change most of my Gmail passwords, my Facebook password, and text on my behalf. All of the two-factor notifications went, by default, to my phone number so I received none of them and… Read More
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GraphPath’s “Knowledge Graph as a Service” could insert AI into global corporates
There is no shortage of AI and machine learning startups being born today. But one of the biggest opportunities remains in turning AI into some kind of platform that others can leverage, especially businesses. In recent years a new area has been developed in relation what’s know in the tech industry as knowledge graphs, a concept which been around for quite some time, especially in… Read More
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Lumity raises $19M to simplify employee health care choices
As companies get bigger and bigger, their needs are going to change — including, probably most importantly, their options for health care as their employee base expands and the costs of those plans start to balloon. But the end result is that employees could be presented with a confusing set of plans to pick from without a whole lot of guidance. There’s where Lumity comes in. Read More
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Match Group tried to acquire Bumble for $450 million
Match Group, the parent company of a variety of dating apps, offered to acquire Bumble for $450 million over the summer, according to sources close to the deal. A source close to the company suggests that Bumble is valued at over $1 billion. The sources independently confirm reporting from Forbes about the deal earlier this summer. Bumble reportedly has 18 million registered users, and has… Read More
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Urban farming incubator Square Roots raises $5.4M
Square Roots isn’t your normal startup incubator. Sure, the people who participate are entrepreneurs — but instead of sitting at desks building new gadgets or smartphone apps, they’re growing food in hydroponic farms housed inside long, metal containers. Founded by executive chairman Kimbal Musk (brother of Elon Musk, and board member at SpaceX, Tesla and Chipotle) and CEO… Read More
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Art19 gets $7.5 million in funding to build out its podcasting platform
Even in many podcasting circles, Art19 isn’t exactly a household name. The startup has largely operated behind the scenes, without much in the way of active promotion. Even so, the companies that have enlisted its hosting and ad technologies are among some of media’s largest. The New York Times, Vox and iHeartMedia all take advantage of its services, which are akin to something… Read More
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Microsatellite radar imaging startup raises $13M to launch new constellation
Finland-based ICEYE is launching a constellation of microsatellites with the aim of helping provide a view from space where traditional imaging cannot, with images delivered within a few hours using a technology that is typically very expensive and difficult to deploy. The startup uses something called synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) to observe Earth even through clouds and in darkness, and… Read More
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Here is Uber’s first pitch deck
On the ninth anniversary of the founding of Uber, its co-founder Garrett Camp shared the company’s initial pitch deck via a personal Medium post. The deck, and the short post, comes off quite sentimental because of how much has happened to the company since it was created. But company growth and drama aside, there’s a lot to be learned from Uber’s 25 slide deck. Enjoy… Read More
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New wearable tracker can transmit vital signs from a soft, tiny package
Body sensors have long been bulky, hard to wear, and obtrusive. Now they can be as thin as a Band-Aid and about as big as a coin. The new sensors, created by Kyung-In Jang, professor of robotics engineering at South Korea’s Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology, and John A. Rogers, Northwestern University, consists of a silicone case that contains “50 components… Read More
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Lilium, a German company building an electric ‘air taxi,’ makes key hires from Gett, Airbus and Tesla
Lilium is almost as ambitious as European startups come. The Munich-based company is developing an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet, which it hopes will one day power an on-demand “air taxi” service, arguably making flying cars a reality. Read More
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Google Maps suggests BlaBlaCar for long-distance rides
Google Maps on Android and iOS now has a new transportation option. If you live in a country where French startup BlaBlaCar operates, you can now open the BlaBlaCar app and book a ride straight from Google Maps. Google isn’t adding a new tab just for BlaBlaCar. Instead, BlaBlaCar appears as a new option in the public transportation tab. Read More
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The top 7 startups from Y Combinator S’17 Demo Day 1
A stem cell cryobank, self-flying personal planes and an augmented reality data platform were amongst the highlights of the Y Combinator Summer 2017 Demo Day part 1. Based on investor buzz and what caught the eye of TechCrunch’s writers, click or scroll through to see our picks for day 1’s top 7 startups. Read More
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Latch adds HomeKit-approved smart lock to its enterprise suite
Enterprise-grade smart lock startup Latch has added a third product to its portfolio. The ‘Latch C’ is notable as its first smart lock to be certified to work with Apple’s HomeKit. Read More
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Dubset makes Sony the first major label legalized for remixing
Spotify and Apple Music could soon get the legal grey area of music like remixes and DJ sets that today live unofficially on SoundCloud. Sony Music Entertainment today became the first major record label to allow its music to be monetized through unofficial mixes thanks to a deal with rights clearance startup Dubset. That means Sony’s master recordings will be indexed by Dubset, and… Read More
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Berlin-based Home is an app to help landlords manage properties and improve the rental experience
Home, a Berlin-based startup that offers an app to help landlords manage their properties, has raised €3 million in seed funding. EQT Ventures led the round, along with the company’s existing investor, Redalpine. Read More
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Pre-owned jewelry marketplace TrueFacet now sells brand-new bling
Since launching in 2014, TrueFacet has emerged as the go-to place for fans of high-end jewelry and watches to find quality pre-owned merchandise for sale online. Now, after establishing itself as a trusted source for some of the most popular jewelry brands, those companies have turned to TrueFacet to help sell their goods directly to consumers. Read More
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Acasa is building a platform for ‘Generation Rent’ to manage their homes
London-based startup Acasa has come a long way since late 2015. The company, then called Splittable, offered a way to manage and share household expenses with multiple house members. However, the bigger vision was to build a platform for ‘Generation Rent’ that makes moving from one houseshare to another as easy as logging in and out of the Acasa app. Read More
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