Lonsdale declined to comment on 8VC’s fundraising last year. But last week, we spoke with him about the new fund and, to a much lesser extent, about Formation 8 Partners, which Lonsdale famously cofounded in 2011 with Stanford classmate Brian Koo and longtime venture investor Jim Kim before the three abruptly disbanded in 2015. One oft-cited reason for the firm’s demise:… Read More
While President-elect Donald Trump built a campaign around making America great again, his public statements don’t seem to reflect a similar focus. Because Twitter seems to be the primary source of communication, it’s worth taking a look to see what Mr. Trump prioritizes for the public. Read More
Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day! In celebration of Dr. King’s birthday and his major contributions to the civil rights movement, Twitter, Asana, Etsy, Google, Box, Slack, GitHub and several other tech companies have closed their offices in honor of MLK Day, according to their employees. Some tech employees are taking that time to march in MLK Day parades. At Salesforce, the… Read More
When we reviewed Bragi’s fully wireless earbuds back in November, we wrote, “using them feels a little like you’ve finally arrived” – turns out it was a bit of unintentionally ironic foreshadowing, as the headphones encountered a few snags along the way. Just ahead of the holidays, the startup sent a note to customers with the unfortunate news that the simply… Read More
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday our daily guided tour of the biggest tech stories from the past 24 hours will appear here on TechCrunch.com. To get The Daily Crunch in your inbox every day of the week, sign up here. SpaceX shows us a thing or two, Facebook fights fraudulent facts in German and drones are fulfilling their long-told prophecy. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for… Read More
London-based startup RentersUnion has created what it’s hoping will be a socially useful chatbot, pitching their web-based bot as a robot replacement for (expensive) housing lawyers. Read More
If you’re familiar with the watch company Romain Jerome you’d know that they do the best kind of pandering. The brand, which was once known for its odd watches made of moon rocks and metal from the Titanic, his created a series of nostalgic video game watches that are wildly overpriced but also wildly desirable. Their latest? A Donkey Kong watch that features the monkey and the… Read More
Earlier this month, The Wall St. Journal reported how Apple is working to bring in veteran producers to help create original content, including TV series and movies for an expanded Apple Music service. Now, Apple Music head Jimmy Iovine has offered additional insight about Apple’s plans in this space, as well as how it hopes to differentiate itself from existing streaming competitors,… Read More
French startup Qonto has some ambitious goals and wants to become the best bank account you can get when you start a company in France. Just like N26 wants to be a more modern bank for everyone, Qonto wants to do the same thing, but for business accounts. The company recently raised $1.7 million (€1.6 million) from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures and Alven Capital. Valar Ventures is also… Read More
The way children watch TV is changing – shifting away from the big screen in the living room to tablets and other mobile devices. In order to better cater to the needs of this more digital audience, PBS has now launched a new 24/7 TV channel, PBS KIDS, which is available on television through PBS member stations, but also as a streaming service via the web and the PBS KIDS app.… Read More
As Amazon, Apple and others tee up smart home strategies with apps, hubs and new devices, Google is also turning up the temperature, so to speak, on its own ambitions. Today, Nest — the smart home business that Google acquired for $3.2 billion a few years ago — announced at DLD in Munich that it would be expanding sales of its thermostat, camera and smoke alarm products in four… Read More
Tesla has begun deploying the Autopilot update for HW2 vehicles (those with updated sensor and computing hardware designed to eventually provide full self-driving capabilities). All Tesla cars with the HW2 kit, including Model S and Model X vehicles, are now receiving the over-the-air software update that includes the updated Autopilot features, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk notes that it’ll… Read More
The $199 device (or $299 for a larger version with a built-in 500GB hard drive) has big ambitions: Nvidia wants Shield TV to be not only the only streaming TV box you need, but also a gaming console, a smart home device and a personal digital assistant all in one. Yet it’s also virtually unchanged in terms of internal hardware from what Nvidia first released in 2015. Software makes it… Read More
Airbus is not kidding around about flying cars – the maker of airborne transportation vehicles plans to test out a prototype self-flying small urban transport made for single-passenger travel by the end of this year, according to Airbus CEO Tom Enders (via Reuters). Airbus has been developing its autonomous vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) concept through Project Vahana, an… Read More
Facebook is expanding its trial of measures to combat fake news beyond the U.S. for the first time — and will shortly be rolling out the updates in Germany. In a blog post yesterday the company said it will be introducing the updates to the market “in the coming weeks”. Read More
Budget airline AirAsia is the latest corporate to get into hackathons. The company just revealed plans to host its first-ever hack event on March 18 at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Read More
Fraugster, a German and Israeli startup that has developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to help eliminate payment fraud, has raised $5 million in funding. Read More
Just weeks after revealing its first court case against counterfeiters, Alibaba has again pledged to increase its focus on fake goods after it announced a partnership with 20 global consumer brands. Read More
Samsung is still getting over the Galaxy Note 7, but already an investigation into alleged bribery in its native South Korea is threatening to plunge it into yet another crisis. Read More
Well, 2016 is officially in the past. Between the election drama, the stock markets tossing and turning, celebrities moving on and Harambe, it was a doozy. Read More
