Forget about Yahoo for a minute. Verizon just announced it has acquired Skyward, a drone operations and management company based out of Portland, Oregon for an undisclosed amount. Verizon says Skyward will help developers and businesses better create and manage drones that also happen to utilize Verizon’s mobile network services and infrastructure.
Skyward had raised $8.15M since its… Read More
Elon Musk really is starting a tunnel digging company, and it really is called The Boring Company – TBC for short, which he says could also mean “to be continued.” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO detailed his tunnel ambitions, which he shared first via Twitter, with Bloomberg, and showed off his first dig, which is located in the SpaceX parking lot both for convenience and… Read More
The fashion industry isn’t necessarily racing into the future, but some startups and even some big brands are taking steps toward technology that not only help end-users but also help the brands and retailers themselves. One such startup is PS Dept, founded here in New York. PS Dept turns the idea of personal shopping into something as simple as a text conversation. When it comes to… Read More
Whether you agree or disagree with his policies, one thing is certain: making someone’s Tweets look like they were written by a third-grader is really funny. The folks at the Daily Show proved this with their Chrome/Firefox plugin MakeTrumpTweetsEightAgain.
The extension is pretty simple: any Trump Tweet is automatically turned from a measured, well-crafted response to a pressing… Read More
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, has set a valuation range of $16.2 billion to $18.5 billion for its upcoming IPO. That’s according to an updated filing which revealed that Snap shares will be priced between $14-$16, meaning it could bring up to $3.2 billion in capital. Snap’s pricing is below its initial range of $20 billion-$25 billion — and below what it raised at… Read More
You may have seen the startup Brightwheel scoring an investment from Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca on Sharktank last year. Or you may know Brightwheel if you have kids in preschool, daycare, or other early education programs these days. Brightwheel’s mobile app helps pre-K teachers and care providers to manage their business, while sending parents updates about their kids throughout… Read More
Aston Martin CEO Dr. Andy Palmer was on stage at the Canadian International Auto Show on Thursday in Toronto, kicking off the event with the North American unveil of the AM-RB 001, Aston Martin’s new hypercar. The fancy car is pretty cool, if that’s your bag (it presumably goes fast and is good-looking, as you can see below), but Palmer’s comments on autonomous driving led… Read More
Some of the biggest financial services firms in the world are coming together to back a small New York-based technology company called OpenFin with aspirations to become the “operating system” for financial services applications. Read More
Dating app Tinder is looking to get into video. The company announced today it’s acquiring an L.A.-based startup called Wheel, which had developed a social network for sharing “video stories” that were said to closely resemble Snapchat’s Stories. Deal terms were not revealed, but Tinder says that it will integrate video features into its app in the future.
Wheel was… Read More
The Shell Oil-sponsored Ocean Discovery XPrize moves to the semi-finalist stage this week with 21 teams from 25 countries, including Canada, China, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Aimed at exploring and detecting chemical and biological systems at the depths of the ocean, the teams will be… Read More
Mike Hirshland has been a Boston-based investor for 17 years, first with the venture firm Polaris Partners and, for the last five years, at the firm he co-founded, Resolute Ventures, which has offices in both Boston and San Francisco.
Hirshland doesn’t say so outright, but presumably he has a certain degree of “pattern recognition” at this point, so over coffee in San… Read More
YC-backed Verbling, a language learning business that’s been active for around five years, has finally launched native Android and iOS apps, along with a refreshed brand and look for its web platform. Read More
Apple just announced that its Worldwide Developers Conference is going to move back to San Jose after a long run at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It’s going to happen on June 5-9, 2017 and registrations will open on March 27.
Why is Apple leaving San Francisco for the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose? San Francisco and Apple have changed quite a lot for the past decade. Read More
3Doodler’s getting out ahead of Toy Fair with the release of a whole bunch of new products, including a handful of kits and a pair of pens that mark some big licensing deals for the New York-based startup. The new devices don’t represent new entirely products, so much as spinoffs of its existing lines, the flagship Create and the Start, a larger and safer version targeted at… Read More
Over the summer, smart lock maker August announced its first integration with Amazon’s smart home assistant Alexa. It was pretty basic – letting users check whether unit was locked or not. Naturally, people wanted to know, for better or worse, when they’d actually be able to unlock their front door with the sound of their voice, for when you’re chopping onions like the… Read More
IBM is today taking the wraps off its new Internet of Things headquarters in Munich — a $200 million project at over one year in the making. And to underscore its IoT push, IBM is announcing a series of related deals and partnerships with companies including Indiegogo, Visa, Bosch and French railway SNCF, among others. More on the deals below, but first, some context: IoT is part… Read More
What if our photographs and social media updates could be turned into memories we – or our children – could later access just by asking a virtual assistant, like Amazon’s Alexa? That’s the premise behind a new startup called Mylestone, which is experimenting with turning our digital footprints into narratives that help us recall highlights from our lives, as well… Read More
TechCrunch is partnering with Matrix Partners for February’s Include Office Hours Program. Partners Anoushka Vaswani and Ilya Sukhar will be meeting with underserved and underrepresented founders in San Francisco. Submit your application here.
Recognizing the gaps in the tech community, TechCrunch launch the Include program in 2014. Aimed at underserved and underrepresented founders… Read More
There’s a new venture fund in Michigan and it aims to have deep pockets. Grand Ventures is the result of longtime Michigan businessman McKeel Hagerty teaming up with Huron River Venture co-founder Tim Streit. The two came together to found Grand Ventures and an SEC filing reveals the venture firm is looking to raise up to $50M for its first fund.
The firm is based out of Grand Rapids, Mich. Read More
Truebil, a marketplace for selling used cars in India, has closed a $3 million post-Series A funding round from China’s Shunwei Capital. Its $5.5 million Series A was raised in January 2016. Unlike more traditional rivals like CarTrade, which just raised $55 million led by Singapore’s Temasek, its sister site CarWhale and Cardekho, Truebil dis-intermediates the professional… Read More
