Twilio isn’t the only company that is banking on API-based services as the way forward for enterprises. Today, Cisco announced it plans to pay $293 million in a mix of cash and equity to acquire CloudLock, a cloud-based security provider that uses APIs to let enterprises apply and monitor security on documents and other content that they share and store in cloud-based… Read More
Smacc, which uses AI to automate accounting, has secured a 3.5 million Series A round from Cherry Ventures, Rocket Internet, Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures, Grazia Equity and business angels. Smacc offers small and medium-sized enterprises a platform to digitize and automate accounting and financial processes. The founding trio Uli Erxleben, Janosch Novak and Stefan Korsch came up with the… Read More
Yet more changes afoot for LendingClub — a peer-to-peer loans marketplace whose stock tanked May after its founder, CEO and chairman Renauld Laplanche resigned amid an accounting scandal. Ahead of an annual meeting being held later today, the company announced Scott Sanborn as its permanent CEO and Hans Morris as independent chairman of the board as it seeks to repair its image… Read More
A few months ago, many people learned about San Francisco-based startup Cruise Automation for the first time. After raising around $19 million and quietly building sensors for self-driving cars, the company got acquired by General Motors. So the startup must know a thing or two about the future of cars. That’s why Cruise founder and CEO Kyle Vogt will join us on stage at Disrupt SF 2016. Read More
Backblaze is still best known for its backup service, but the company has also set its sights on the fast-growing cloud storage market. While the company can’t compete with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Google when it comes to the overall feature set of its nascent cloud platform, Backblaze decided to significantly undercut its competitors pricing when it first announced its B2… Read More
Last week, we welcomed the much-anticipated Part 107 drone regulations, which will supersede the current exemption process and is estimated by the FAA to eliminate 85 percent of the present exemptions to drone piloting. Notably, the new regulations standardize visual line of sight (VLOS) flights of unmanned aircraft that weigh less than 55 lbs. (25 kg). And, in a move that’s most… Read More
Virtual reality can be used for a lot of things — and if Pygmal Technologies gets its way, you’ll be spending your office hours with a VR headset strapped to your face. It’s almost like Minority Report, except with Excel spreadsheets and TPS reports on six virtual monitors hovering in thin air in front of you. Read More
Remember when we found out billionaire investor Peter Thiel is in support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump? At TechCrunch Shanghai 2016, Flexport CEO Ryan Peterson, who has received significant funding from Thiel, candidly spoke about his discomfort around Thiel’s backing of Trump. “I don’t know what’s going on there,” Peterson told me on stage… Read More
You might remember that I covered a $240 million growth fund from Paris-based VC firm Partech Ventures back in January 2015. As I noted at the time, it was just the first closing and other limited partners kept investing in this fund. The very same growth fund is now bigger at $440 million (€400 million). Read More
It’s no news that China’s startup scene is huge and Chinese investors and founders are keen to learn more about the Silicon Valley. And of course American investors and entrepreneurs have been working hard in China for many years. It seemed like a natural to make TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF (Sept. 12-14) more accessible to visitors from China. So we’re announcing a few… Read More
Ever wanted to design a city from scratch? All those years tinkering with SimCity and Legos are going to finally start paying dividends for a lucky few. YCombinator is looking for urban mavericks to address everything from the creation of affordable housing to the design of public spaces in its new research undertaking. The buzz-word smart-city is rapidly becoming platitudinous but YC will… Read More
Calling startups in Asia and across the world — apply for our Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco this September! Startups are at the core of what we do here at TechCrunch. Beyond writing about them every day on TechCrunch, they are a hugely important focus of our events whether it’s TechCrunch Shanghai, where our team is right now or Disrupt SF… Read More
The future is always being shaped by the past. Long before the 3D printer, origami was the original genius at creating lifelike forms out of a flat surface. Folding brings with it the ability to collapse, flex and unfurl structures at will, which has huge potential for a variety of engineering applications. From digestible origami pills that could provide alternatives to invasive surgery to… Read More
The short-term rental company filed suit today over a new law that requires Airbnb to verify that its hosts have registered with the city before showing ads for their homes online. The suit aims to block the law from going into effect as scheduled on August 1.
San Francisco legislators passed the law earlier this month in an effort to combat the housing crisis in the city, but Airbnb and… Read More
New mobile games and robot butlers are all well and good, but there are also many applications for the latest technology in poverty-stricken school districts and in the service of the disabled. A Carnegie Mellon project that targets both of those things is described by its leaders as an exercise in what they call “compassionate engineering.” Read More
Buy organic groceries online, at an affordable price. That’s the mantra of Los Angeles-based Thrive Market, which has raised a significant $111 million Series B funding round, led by Invus. Thrive, which competes with similar online grocery services like Vitacost, believes there is a significant market opportunity to make natural foods more accessible to consumers and they’ve… Read More
Twitter is in trouble. In a move out of a middle school flag football game, Microsoft selected LinkedIn to join its team. The sheer size of the transaction has reignited conversations about who will be picked next to join the super special circle of public mega-cap tech companies. Vultures have been circling Twitter for well over a year, but the company has defied all experts who have… Read More
The Pocket Tripod is repeating its crowdfunding success from a few years ago, creating an updated, universal version of its incredibly popular credit-card-sized tripod that fits in your wallet. Now available for pre-order for Android users and people who like to stick cases on their phones, it’s a tremendously useful piece of kit for smartphone photographers on the move. Read More
There has been much talk of late about the end of easy venture capital and what will happen to startup economics when everyone is forced to spend more wisely.
Spending wisely should always be an objective regardless of the economic conditions. But this is especially true for marketers who control a large share of the budget at many companies — and who are the most at risk for wasting money. Read More
It’s been a long time since Marty Hellman and his collaborator Whitfield Diffie ushered in a new era of private communication with their invention of public key cryptography — but better late than never when it comes to winning the Turing Award, referred to by some as the Nobel Prize for technology.. I talked with Hellman about tech, global politics, and keeping relationships alive. Read More
