The near-future of VR is definitely mobile, and for the time-being nobody has more control of the guts of mobile devices than Qualcomm does. It’s definitely in the company’s best interest then to foster VR development amongst ODMs (original design manufacturers) around the globe. The future isn’t just slot-in mobile phone based, in places like China, all-in-one mobile… Read More
K2 Global is announcing a $183 million venture capital fund targeted at early stage startups with global aspirations. The fund is closing significantly larger than the $58 million the firm initially raised. With a decentralized team and no Sand Hill Road office, K2 Global aims to bring Valley hustle to international technology investing. In contrast to well known VC firms like Sequoia and… Read More
Messaging app Viber is today announcing a new feature that taps into the bigger trend of messaging apps becoming multi-functional platforms, and also its ownership by e-commerce company Rakuten. Viber will start to present users with items for sale, inspired by your current chat, when you press a small shopping bag icon at the bottom of the screen and search for items. The feature is due… Read More
Printerous, an Indonesia startup that is bringing the country’s printing industry into the digital era, has raised $1.4 million. The round was led by Golden Gate Ventures with participation from U.S. firm Sovereign’s Capital and Indonesian conglomerate Gunung Sewu Kencana.
The two-year-old company is using the internet to make traditional printing more efficient and convenient. Read More
On January 25, the Trump administration injected a whole new level of uncertainty into the already-fragile EU-US data flow agreement, known as the Privacy Shield. With the stroke of a pen, President Trump signed an executive order entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” which directed agencies to “exclude persons who are not United States… Read More
Monzo, one of a number of so-called “challenger” banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, has disclosed a new funding round — confirming our scoop from earlier this week. Read More
Indonesia-based early-stage investment firm Kejora has announced the first close of a second fund which is targeted at $80 million for investments in Southeast Asia. Kejora, which is known for its Ideabox accelerator program in Jakarta, has secured one-third of its target, with investment from LPs that include Indonesia’s Barito Pacific Group, Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Family… Read More
Less than a month after Vodafone confirmed it is in talks to merge with Idea Cellular and create India’s largest mobile operator, one piece of M&A has been confirmed in that space. Bharti Airtel has gobbled up smaller player Telenor India in a deal announced today. The Airtel-Telenor deal is subject to regulatory approvals, but both sides said it should be completed within the next… Read More
Apple’s new campus will open in April, never-ending turnover at Twitter, Instagram adds a carousel feature and Snapdeal to lay off 500-600 people. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Airbnb has finalized its deal to buy social payments startup Tilt, TechCrunch has confirmed. We reported on the acquisition talks last month, but now everything has been made official. We are told that investors will be getting back about $12 million in cash, but the deal value is tens of millions of dollars higher if you include employee retention packages, which were paid for in cash… Read More
Already a hit in the limited California regions that it serves, doctor-on-demand startup Heal is planning to take its house call service to more cities across the country. Today, the company announced that it would be expanding into cities in Florida, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania by the end of the year. It has been only two years since Heal’s first doctor made the first house call… Read More
A pair of studies, one from Stanford and another from the University of Geneva, exemplify the speed with which brain-computer interfaces are advancing; and while you won’t be using one instead of a mouse and keyboard any time soon, even in its nascent form the tech may prove transformative for the disabled. Read More
For the better part of the last year, tech pundits have been writing about the demise of the app. Once thought to be the savior of consumer-facing software, apps are now ubiquitous, underused, underappreciated and underwhelming. Enter the Los Angeles-based startup Maple Media. Read More
Amobee just announced that it has agreed to acquire adtech company Turn for $310 million. Amobee used to be a mobile ad startup itself, before a 2012 acquisition by Singtel, where it remains a subsidiary. Since then, Singtel and Amobee have continued to make more acquisitions on the digital ad side, including Gradient X, Adconion and Kontera. Turn, meanwhile, operates both a data… Read More
With national immigration policies in flux, tech’s privacy advocates aren’t wasting any time rallying around common causes. This week, the Center for Democracy & Technology announced a coalition to oppose efforts by Homeland Security to collect social media passwords from individuals wishing to enter the United States. Read More
A new report by The Intercept provides some compelling specifics on collaboration between Palo Alto’s secretive big data shop Palantir and the intelligence agencies that it keeps on its client roster. While some broad strokes are known about Palantir’s relationship with spy agencies, the finer points seldom see daylight. Read More
Tesla CEO Elon Musk addressed on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday alleged efforts on behalf of employees at its Fremont factory to unionize. Read More
Headphone startup Earin announced today that it’s scored $3.5 million in funding, hot on the heels of announcing its second-generation wireless earbuds back at CES. The new round will go to fund the release of the M-2, due to be released at retail this spring. The move marks a shift for the company, which took to Kickstarter to fund its first headphones back in 2015, ahead of the recent… Read More
Tesla has begun offering customers in Asia a package that includes in the purchase price the cost of insurance and maintenance, the company noted on its earnings call today. This is how they’d like to offer vehicles across their markets in the future. Read More
SocialRank co-founder Alex Taub classifies most brand interactions on social media into two broad categories. They’re either broadcasting to all of their followers or, if they’re communicating individually, it’s usually in a reactive way, like responding to a complaint. With the just-launched SocialRank Realtime, Taub and his team are trying to enable something different. Read More
