As enterprises around the world pour more money into research and invention to stay competitive, the need for analyzing the worthiness of R&D expenses also grows. One company serving that function is PatSnap. When co-founder Jeffrey Tiong was working in the medical devices industry more than a decade ago, he realized how critical intellectual property […]
Having worked at tech companies like LinkedIn and eBay, I’ve observed firsthand the evolution from Data 1.0 to Data 3.0. In Data 1.0, data is seen as a reactive function providing ad-hoc manual services or firefighting in urgent situations.
Squarespace has raised $300 million in a round of funding that values the company at a staggering $10 billion valuation. New backers include Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Spruce House. Existing backers Accel and General Atlantic also participated. […]
Wise, the London-headquartered company that made its name offering international money transfers and is reportedly planning an IPO, has accused its former banking partner in Brazil of a “smear campaign” after allegations of fraud — claims that Wise says are “false and unfounded.” The war of words between Brazil’s MS Bank and Wise appears to […]
Multi-asset investing and trading platform and Robinhood competitor eToro announced Tuesday it will go public via a merger with SPAC FinTech Acquisition Corp. V in a massive $10.4 billion deal. Once the transaction closes sometime in the third quarter, the combined company will operate as eToro Group Ltd. and is expected to be listed on […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in a way that no one could have ever anticipated, and as more people conduct more services online and via mobile devices, businesses have had to work even harder to validate users and security. One company working to serve that need, Socure — which uses AI and machine […]
Dutchie, a nearly four-year-old, Bend, Oregon company that charges cannabis dispensaries a monthly fee to create and run their websites, process their orders and track what needs to be prepped for pick up, has raised $200 million in Series C funding at a $1.7 billion valuation. That’s roughly eight times the valuation the company was […]
Occasionally, it’s easy for startups to achieve so-called product-market fit, but more often, it’s a struggle. Perhaps no one knows this as well as Sean Lane, co-founder and CEO of Olive, a company whose software completes so many tedious administrative healthcare tasks for hospitals that it is currently valued by investors at $1.5 billion. Somewhat […]
While there are plenty of companies selling data about physical locations, SafeGraph CEO Auren Hoffman said his startup is “one of the few companies to sell this data to data science teams.” For the most part, location data has traditionally been sold to marketers, and Hoffman said, “In the marketing world, if your data is […]
The importance of the pitch deck can’t be underestimated. It is often the first point of contact between a company and venture investors… but how investors consume a pitch deck (and what they really think) is also a bit of a black box. Are they speed-flipping through the slides or taking their time? Do they prefer […]
Another online grocery delivery and “dark store” operator breaks cover today: London-based Jiffy, which aims to deliver fresh groceries and household essentials in around 15 minutes, has raised £2.6 million in seed funding as it readies for launch. Backing the upstart, which already faces a plethora of better-funded competitors, is venture capital fund LVL1 Group, […]
Google will lower its Play commissions globally for developers that sell in-app digital goods and services on its marquee store, the company said, following a similar move by rival Apple late last year. The Android-maker said on Tuesday that starting July 1, it is reducing the service fee for Google Play to 15% — down […]
It was easy to wonder what would become of Docker after it sold its enterprise business in 2019, but it regrouped last year as a cloud native container company focused on developers, and the new approach appears to be bearing fruit. Today, the company announced a $23 million Series B investment. Tribe Capital led the […]
Ford Motor Company will be embedding 100 of its researchers and engineers in a new $75 million robotics and mobility facility on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. This is not the first collaboration between the automaker and the university. Ford is UM’s single largest corporate donor and the two entities have previously teamed […]
As NASA is quick to remind people, the investments it funnels toward space exploration often wind up improving life on Earth — and it’s now in the business of speeding up some of that work through startups. SMART, a startup founded in 2020, has a partnership with NASA through the Space Act Agreement and is […]
I am surprised that more VCs aren't investing in Africa. It smells like investing arbitrage. The pandemic has ripped the Band-Aid off investing via Zoom, making Africa is precisely as close to your in-house office as Europe, North America, Latin America or anywhere else.
Roblox, the gaming company that went public this month with a strong debut, changed the game (so to speak) for the role that creative input can play in making a game more loved, more engaging, and even more enterprising. Today, a startup that is taking a version of that model — focused on in-game apps […]
Google is making changes to its parental control system, Family Link, that aims to better reflect parents’ changing views on children’s screen time. In the pre-pandemic world, parents were more likely to see screen time as something in need of restriction — they’d rather their kids get offline or go outside to play with friends, […]
A security breach at cryptocurrency platform Roll allowed a hacker to obtain the private key to its hot wallet and steal its contents — worth about $5.7 million. In a statement, the company said it was investigating the breach, which happened early Sunday. “As of this writing, it seems like a compromise of the private […]
