Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment have been put into commerce startups in the fast-growing market of India, from marketplaces like Flipkart and Snapdeal through to payment startups like PayTM. Now one of the more interesting of these has been acquired. PayU, an online payments company with a focus on developing markets that is owned by South Africa’s Naspers, has… Read More
Cloud-based collaboration tool Frame.io has raised $10M in Series A funding led by Accel, with participation from SignalFire, FirstMark Capital, and Shasta Ventures. Actor Jared Leto, who was a seed investor in the company, has also invested in the Series A as well as actor Kevin Spacey. Frame.io is a collaboration tool for video creators and compares themselves to a InVision or Github… Read More
In its press material, LeEco refers to as a “global internet company,” a phrase that doesn’t really mean that much on the face of it – but when you’re LeEco, it’s probably best to be purposely vague. The Chinese technology firm’s ultimate goal appears to be an everything company. The brand, formerly known as LeTV, is probably best known for its… Read More
The final day of Disrupt is upon us. Which means that I don’t have the energy for enthusiasm. That said, today’s lineup is absolutely killer. Alongside some amazing speakers, including Twitch’s Emmett Shear, Facebook’s Adam Mosseri, and Instacart’s Apoorva Mehta, we’re also heading into the Finals of the Battlefield. Finalists include BlazingDB, Carbon… Read More
Luma, an Atlanta-based company that makes a sleek router with a wide variety of bells and whistles, has added $7 million to a previously closed Series A round. The capital comes from Andreessen Horowitz and GV and adds to an initial, $12.5 million in Series A funding co-led by Accel Partners and Amazon, with participation from Felicis Ventures. Seemingly, investors are trying to get a… Read More
Uber is now dispatching self-driving cars to a select group of users in Pittsburgh, and invited us along for the ride. I hailed a car from Uber’s Advanced Technologies Campus Tuesday and took a 45-minute ride through the city’s downtown, eastern and northern neighborhoods. I watched as the wheel turned itself, carefully maneuvering us through crowded streets and around other cars… Read More
Canva, a design platform for web and mobile that gives anyone the ability to make professional graphics, without needing an advanced skill set, today announced a new infusion of $15 million in funding and a doubling of its valuation in 12 months. Previously valued at $165 million, the added capital brings Canva’s valuation up to $345 million, the company says. Canva closed on its Series… Read More
There’s probably a law against launching a new headphone line without the proper celebrity endorsement. Right out of the gate, Muzik’s got ‘em in spades. The hardware startup is launching its first pair – the fittingly titled One – and has already lined up a ton of endorsements, including athletes like Chris Paul and Elena Delle Donne. In fact, here’s a… Read More
Activists and lawyers from a host of human rights organizations launched a campaign today asking President Obama to issue a pardon to whistleblower Edward Snowden before Obama leaves office in January. The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other groups. Snowden is charged with espionage for leaking internal National… Read More
Thanks to its vast repository of beautiful photos, home remodeling platform Houzz can easily give you a major case of home envy. But if you want to bring your home up to the standard of those homes, Houzz has long allowed you to buy products you see in those photos. Now the company is making it even easier to buy even more products. The service now uses a new deep learning-based system that… Read More
We already knew it was coming – thanks to an accidental tweet Amazon posted earlier this week – but now it’s official: Amazon’s connected speaker Echo Dot is back in stock and at a lower price point of $49.99. The Alexa-powered device offers many of the same features that you’ll find in its larger counterpart, the Amazon Echo, including access to… Read More
Twitter needs to figure out a way to continue to grow — and it certainly seems open to looking into a lot of new places outside your phone to figure out how to do that. Today, the company said it is launching an app on the Apple TV, Xbox One and Amazon Fire TV, which will allow users to view Twitter content through the apps on their televisions. That includes live streams of 10 NFL… Read More
We suspected it was happening and now Amazon has confirmed that the Amazon Echo and smaller Echo Dot is coming to the UK (and Germany), the first release outside of the U.S. for the e-commerce giant’s voice-controlled speaker and smart home hub. Read More
Google is announcing a couple of upgrades to its ad capabilities today as part of the DMEXCO digital media conference in Germany. First up are its Universal App Campaigns, where developers can promote their apps across search, display, Google Play and YouTube advertising. Google says these campaigns have resulted in more than 3 billion app downloads, but earlier this year, it also said… Read More
The Apple Watch Series 2 is the first real Apple Watch. It delivers on the promise of a mostly passive device that can accomplish simple tasks in 1-3 seconds. There is now built-in GPS which allows for exercising without having to lug along a comparatively heavy iPhone just to get accurate tracking. And it’s completely waterproof, as any decent sport watch should be. Read More
Beginning today, a select group of Pittsburgh Uber users will get a surprise the next time they request a pickup: the option to ride in a self driving car. The announcement comes 1.5 years after Uber hired dozens of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics center to develop the technology. Read More
Applications are now open for the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt London this December 5-6th. Apply now! The Battlefield is TechCrunch’s premiere startup competition. Three times a year, the Battlefield takes place at TechCrunch Disrupt, where 20-something new companies will have the opportunity to present their product live onstage. They then face questions from our expert judging panel.… Read More
Just Eat’s new range of branded illuminated scooters feature backlit boxes carrying the new Just Eat logo and will soon be lighting up the streets of London. Read More
Wait for others to take the first steps, let things mature a bit, then swoop in with a simpler, more unified solution. It’s the first entry on the first page of the Apple playbook. And it tends to work like a charm. If you’re reading this, odds are pretty good that you’re in possession of some small piece of the connected home puzzle, a smart lightbulb or thermostat or maybe… Read More
Over the last two days, over 5,000 attendees (along with hundreds of thousands of people tuning in online) have watched 25 companies duke it out for the right to call themselves the Startup Battlefield Winner at Disrupt SF 2016. These are the six companies that remain: BlazingDB BlazingDB lets you run SQL queries on a database, using GPUs to do the heavy lifting for incredible efficiency.… Read More
