Circle has lit up two more European markets as it works to rapidly build out its presence in the region. Users of the P2P payments app in Spain and Ireland can now connect any Spanish or Irish bank account to the app to send and receive money within their own countries and across borders. Read More
While Twitter continues to struggle with rampant bullying and abuse, Instagram is instead stepping up its game when it comes to keeping users safe from harm. The Facebook-owned photo-sharing network this week began rolling out a new reporting tool that lets its users anonymously flag friends’ posts about self-harm. This, in turn, will prompt a message from Instagram to the user in… Read More
Ritual, a Disrupt Battlefield startup with a focus on women’s nutrition, officially launched today. We first told you about the company aiming to make a better vitamin for women last spring when Ritual’s founder Kat Schneider came onstage to present her business model. She made it to the final rounds for the idea, ultimately losing out to an interactive gaming network that was… Read More
Tesla is announcing some news today, and now we have a better idea of what it will be: Elon Musk has revealed that the news will go live around 5 PM PT today, and that it’ll be about “Model 3 part 2,” the follow-up to the original Model 3 unveiling back in March. Musk said there would be a “part 2” unveiling event nearer to the beginning of production on the Model… Read More
LeEco is not a household name in the States. You don’t see their products in Walmart or Best Buy. Chances are you don’t know anyone that uses LeEco’s movie streaming service or a LeEco smartphone. LeEco hopes to change that. Today at an odd and overblown event, the company burst into the North American market with a bevy of services and products that’s set to take on… Read More
The idea of ownership in the American economy has changed so much in recent years that it’s easy to forget the once high level of importance placed on it. If we think back, most of us can remember at-least one conversation with our parents about Uber or Airbnb that resulted in a lecture about the dangers of using other people’s things. Ajith Mohan Karimpana, the founder and CEO… Read More
Google has arrived at a deal with CBS to carry its broadcast content on its upcoming web TV offering, according to the Wall Street Journal. Locking in CBS will go a long way to making a compelling “skinny” TV bundle for people who aren’t interested in signing up for cable, and Google is also nearing a deal with Fox and Walt Disney (which owns ABC). Google’s rumored… Read More
Finrise, a year-old, Burlingame, Ca.-based startup with a new approach to online lending, has raised $5.4 million in debt and seed equity funding, including from Mayfield, NFX Guild, WTI, and numerous angel investors, including Funding Circle cofounder Sam Hodges and LendingHome CEO Matt Humphrey. The company calls itself a healthcare marketplace because the idea is to serve as a one-stop… Read More
Leanplum started out as a mobile A/B testing platform but has since built on this foundation to become a fully-fledged mobile marketing platform. The company has now raised a $29 million Series C round led by Canaan Partners with participation from existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Shasta Ventures. This brings Leanplum’s total funding to $46.4 million to… Read More
Go big or go home, right? LeEco threw a heck of a lot at the proverbial walls today during its big event in San Francisco designed to introduce the so-called “Netflix of China” to the US. It’s a lot to take in, particularly for those who had never heard of the company until now, but at least the its mobile devices are reasonably straightforward. The company showed off two… Read More
Why do some companies scale to millions of users while others wallow in obscurity? What explains the runaway success of a company like Facebook while a startup like Viddy, a mobile app for video, attracted millions of users and millions of dollars in financing, only to lose both? When it comes to startup success, there’s never a magic bullet. Read More
After much pomp and circumstance around ecosystems and philosophy, LeEco finally debuted something new at today’s massive press conference in San Francisco. Perhaps predictably, one of the first US-based offerings from the company often referred to as “the Netflix of China” will be a content platform. And, as with just about everything else at today’s event,… Read More
Today has been a frustrating day. It’s time to book my flights for CES in Las Vegas in January, already. I’m currently struggling with Concur’s awful flight search engine to find a flight that won’t cost a good chunk of TechCrunch’s 2017 travel budget on January 2. It turns out it’s quite expensive to travel from Paris to Las Vegas right after New… Read More
A startup aiming to offer a better email experience by prioritizing the messages that are most important to you, Notion, is today publicly launching its service, which is available as a mobile app for iPhone and Android, and soon, a voice-activated skill for Alexa. The company is also today announcing $9.5 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Drive Capital and Accel, and… Read More
Google’s G Suite, the new name for what was previously called Google Apps for Work, is getting a couple of small but nifty updates today. There isn’t necessarily a common theme here, but for the most part, the new features focus on supporting more of the existing workflows in larger companies and bringing more of Google’s smarts to these apps. If you work in the kind of… Read More
Space isn’t the friendliest place in the Marvel universe, but at least Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord) and Drax have each other. The two share a moment in Marvel’s first video teaser for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which is set to hit theaters on May 5, 2017. The trailer also provides brief glimpses at the rest of the crew, including Yondu, and Nebula, as well as Gamora, Rocket… Read More
Stripe, the startup that lets websites and mobile apps implement payment services through its API and a few lines of code, is today adding in another new feature as it continues to build out its platform with more tools. It is now going to help prevent fraud on Stripe transactions, through a new service called Radar. Radar is being rolled out globally as part of Stripe’s primary… Read More
Motivation is hard to come by. If you’re lucky, you have friends that will go to the gym with you to keep you in line. If you’re wealthy, you can hire a personal trainer. But if your friends have long since given up and your bank account is screaming mercy, your options are few and far between. The entire premise behind Moov is that wearables can be used to provide real-time… Read More
Peter Thiel is supporting Donald Trump, and it’s time to for Silicon Valley to take sides. Is it for Peter Thiel or against him? Furthermore, should Y Combinator president Sam Altman resign if he can’t bring himself to fire Thiel as a part-time partner? These were actual questions posed publicly yesterday, I’m sorry to note. It’s clear that Trump is about as popular… Read More
With new legislation that would inflict heavy fines on Airbnb hosts sitting on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s desk, Airbnb is proposing last-minute concessions to address the concerns over affordable housing that are driving the legislation. Among the company’s proposals is a new “one host, one home” rule that would allow New York users to only list one space for rent… Read More
