TiVo devices are getting new voice recognition capabilities thanks to a partnership with the Atlanta-based startup Pindrop, which is now offering its voice recognition and personalization technologies for consumer devices. The new voice recognition capabilities replace TiVo’s discontinued use of the Alexa voice recognition service, which happened with little fanfare last year. TiVo made a […]
Stacker, a company that helps non-developers create software from spreadsheets, announced that it has raised $1.7 million in a seed round. Stacker fits inside the growing no-code, and low-code niche that TechCrunch has explored at length over the last year. But its approach to the topic is worth examining, as is its new funding round. […]
Meet Sidecar Health, the newest member of the tech industry’s billion dollar healthcare startup club. The valuation comes thanks to $125 million in new funding that the company will use to expand its new model for health insurance. Sidecar Health’s insurance plans give consumers the ability to pay directly for care — often at steep […]
Automating and controlling devices and energy usage in homes has potentially become a bit easier thanks to an integration between Span, the startup making a digital fusebox replacement, and Amazon’s voice recognition interface, Alexa. The integration also comes with a $20 million new cash infusion from Amazon’s Alexa Fund and the massive insurance company Munich […]
5G is the current revolution in wireless technology, and every chip company old and new is trying to burrow their way into this ultra-competitive — but extremely lucrative — market. One of the most interesting new players in the space is EdgeQ, a startup with a strong technical pedigree via Qualcomm that we covered last […]
Many people want to develop better screen-time habits, but don’t have a good set of tools to do so. A new startup, Opal, aims to help. The company, now backed by $4.3 million in seed funding, has developed a digital well-being assistant for iOS that allows you to block distracting websites and apps, set schedules […]
Rhino today announced that it has raised $95 million, an investment that values the startup at just under $500 million. Tiger Global led the round, an investment that Rhino described as “pre-IPO” to TechCrunch. Rhino provides an insurance product to real estate companies, allowing them to forgo traditional rental deposits from tenants, and offering renters […]
CrediBook, a startup that helps Indonesian retail wholesalers digitize the financial side of their operations, has raised $1.5 million in pre-Series A funding led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Alpha JWC Ventures and Insignia Ventures Partners. The capital will be used for product launches and expansion into more Indonesian cities. Founded in February 2020, […]
Twitter is getting into the newsletter business. The social media company is announcing that it has acquired Revue, a Dutch startup that allows users to publish and monetize email newsletters. While Revue hasn’t driven the same wave of “is this the future of media?” think pieces as Substack, it counts major publishers like Vox Media […]
Fleksy, an autocorrecting AI keyboard which competes with big-guns like Google’s Gboard and Microsoft’s Swiftkey, has a new way to catch users’ eyes: Art keyboards. It’s just launched FleksyArt: A marketplace for artists to sell digital works to its users so they can customize the look of their keyboards. Fleksy has had keyboard themes before. […]
Grindr, a gay, bi, trans and queer hook-up app, is on the hook for a penalty of NOK100,000,000 (aka €10M or ~$12.1M) in Europe. Norway’s data protection agency has announced it’s notified the US-based company of its intention to issue the fine in relation to consent violations under the region’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) […]
Atomico, the European venture capital fund that typically invests at Series A and Series B, has made a number of internal promotions, including making SaaS and enterprise-focussed investor Ben Blume a partner at the firm. The step up from principal to partner comes after 8 years spent at Atomico, which Blume first joined in 2013 […]
Perhaps more than most, Reilly Brennan loves cars and trucks. The native Michigander happily did grunt work for an automotive magazine as an undergrad at the University of Michigan before landing a gig as a trackside communications manager at General Motors, spending a few years as an editor and a general manager with an automotive […]
Remagine, a financing platform offering banking services to high-growth companies with an ‘impact’ twist, has raised €20 million ($24M) in a Seed funding round. The Berlin-based startup has been operating in stealth mode, but already has 20 clients under its former brand name ‘Get Conscious Growth’. Its backers include former Global Head of Google Payment […]
Klook, the Hong Kong-based travel activities platform backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, announced the closure of $200 million in funding for its Series E round, lifting the startup’s total capital raised to date to $720 million. Aspex Management, an investment fund focused on Asia Pacific led the round, alongside existing backers Sequoia Capital China, Softbank […]
During a visit to India in 2014, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos made a splashy announcement: His firm was investing $2 billion in the South Asian nation, just a year after beginning operations in the country. Amazon’s announcement underscored how far India had come to open up to foreign firms. The nation, which had largely […]
Blackberry and Chinese search engine giant Baidu have agreed to expand a partnership that aims to give automakers the tools they need to launch next-generation connected and autonomous vehicles in China. Under the deal, Baidu’s high-definition maps will be integrated into Blackberry’s QNX Neutrino Real-Time Operating System. The embedded system will be mass produced in […]
President Joe Biden said Monday the U.S. government would replace the entire federal fleet of cars, trucks and SUVs with electric vehicles manufactured in the United States, a commitment tied to a broader campaign promise to create 1 million new jobs in the American auto industry and supply chains. The commitment, if it bears out, […]
As the United Kingdom prepares to sharpen its focus on how it regulates big tech companies, Facebook is taking a big step up in the role it plays in presenting media to the U.K. public, and into how it works with the country’s media industry. Today it is launching Facebook News in the U.K., Facebook’s […]
If social networks and other platforms are to get a handle on disinformation, it’s not enough to know what it is — you have to know how people react to it. Researchers at MIT and Cornell have some surprising but subtle findings that may affect how Twitter and Facebook should go about treating this problematic […]
