Samsara banks $100M at a $3.6B valuation for its internet-connected sensors

Sensor data platform Samsara confirmed this morning that it had closed a new round of funding from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst that values the startup at $3.6 billion. The news was first reported by Cheddar, which spotted a filing with the state of Delaware on December 21 disclosing Samsara’s intent to raise a $100 million round at more than double the valuation it garnered upon its $50 million Series D this March. “Our growth comes from bringing transformational new technologies to solve the problems of operational...

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Private equity buyouts have become viable exit options — even for early-stage startups

Ajay Chopra Contributor Ajay Chopra co-founded Pinnacle Systems in his living room and grew it to a multi-billion dollar public company before becoming a venture capitalist with Trinity Ventures. More posts by this contributor Full autonomy is years away, but here’s what’s next on autonomy’s wild ride From the distributed workforce to the partnered economy About 13 years ago I faced an excruciating decision: whether to sell my company, Pinnacle Systems, to a private equity firm or to another large public company. I felt that both suitors...

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911 emergency services go down across the US after CenturyLink outage

{rss:content:encoded} 911 emergency services go down across the US after CenturyLink outage https://tcrn.ch/2LFlQ9k http://bit.ly/2So594R December 28, 2018 at 05:19PM 911 emergency services in several states across the U.S. remain down after a massive outage at a CenturyLink datacenter. The outage began after 12pm ET on Thursday, according to CenturyLink’s status page, and continues to cause disruption across 911 call centers. Some states have seen their services restored. CenturyLink has not said what caused the outage beyond an issue with...

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Indonesia unblocks Tumblr following its ban on adult content

Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country by population, has unblocked Tumblr nine months after it blocked the social networking site over pornographic content. Tumblr — which, disclaimer, is owned by Oath Verizon Media Group just like TechCrunch — announced earlier this month that it would remove all “adult content” from its platform. That decision, which angered many in the adult entertainment industry who valued the platform as an increasingly rare outlet that supported erotica, was a response to Apple removing Tumblr’s app from...

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Venture capital, global expansion, blockchain and drones characterize African tech in 2018

Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor IBM Africa and Hello Tractor pilot AI/blockchain agtech platform Africa Roundup: Terragon’s Asia acquisition, Twiga Foods’ $10M raise, SimbaPay’s China payment service 2018 saw Africa’s tech sector become more dynamic and international. VC firms on the continent multiplied. There were numerous investment rounds. And startups pursued acquisitions and global expansion. Here’s a snapshot of the news...

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Why your startup shouldn’t rush to $1 million in revenue

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People lost their damn minds when Instagram accidentally went horizontal

Earlier today, when Instagram suddenly transformed into a landscape oriented Tinder-esque nightmare, the app’s dedicated users extremely lost their minds and immediately took to Twitter to be vocal about it. As we reported, the company admitted that the abrupt shift from Instagram’s well-established vertical scrolling was a mistake. The mea culpa came quickly enough, but Instagram’s accidental update was already solidified as one of the last meme-able moments of 2018. That was supposed to be a very small test that went broad by accident. Should...

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TrueFacet, which sells pre-owned, authenticated watches and jewelry, is raising a $10 million round of funding

The secondary luxury goods market has been growing wildly in recent years, with more shoppers opting to both sell their lightly used luxury goods like clothing and jewelry for cold, hard cash, as well as buying the pre-owned, authenticated luxury goods of others. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the trend is The RealReal, a nearly eight-year-old shopping destination for the growing population of people who might not be willing or able to purchase a new Hermes Birkin bag but are willing to buy one in like-new condition for considerably less....

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Grove Collaborative, a subscription startup selling ‘household essentials,’ has been quietly raising a lot of moolah

Grove Collaborative, a four-year-old, San Francisco-based startup that sells household, personal care, baby, children’s and pet products, has been busy raising money in 2018, shows two new SEC filings that lists representatives from the company’s earlier investors, including Mayfield, Norwest Venture Partners and MHS Capital, as well as apparent new investor General Atlantic, represented by partner Catherine Beaudoin. One of the filings shows that Grove Collaborative, which had already raised roughly $62 million as of the start of 2018,...

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Cap table management tool Carta valued at $800M with new funding

Startups supporting startups are blazing a new trail with support from venture capitalists. Co-working spaces like The Wing and The Riveter raked in funding rounds this year, as did Brex, the provider of a corporate card built specifically for startups. Now Carta, which helps companies manage their cap tables, valuations, portfolio investments and equity plans, has announced an $80 million Series D at a valuation of $800 million. The company, formerly known as eShares, raised the capital from lead investors Meritech and Tribe Capital, with support...

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Instagram accidentally rolled out tap-to-advance feed, removes it

Instagram confirms that a bug this morning mistakenly rolled out a massive change to its feed that replaced the traditional scrolling with horizontal tap-to-advance like with Stories. In October, TechCrunch reported Instagram was testing tap-to-advance for browsing through Explore posts. But many users woke up to a shock this morning when their familiar vertical swipe stopped advancing the main feed. Many users immediately complained that the gesture felt awkward and annoying. “Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears...

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Instagram accidentally rolled out tap-to-advance feed, removes it

{rss:content:encoded} Instagram accidentally rolled out tap-to-advance feed, removes it https://tcrn.ch/2GDJ0hA http://bit.ly/2AiBC5z December 27, 2018 at 05:07PM Instagram confirms that a bug this morning mistakenly rolled out a massive change to its feed that replaced the traditional scrolling with horizontal tap-to-advance like with Stories. In October, TechCrunch reported Instagram was testing tap-to-advance for browsing through Explore posts. But many users woke up to a shock this morning when their familiar vertical swipe stopped advancing...

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Gfycat’s ‘GIFs’ can now keep the sound on

Gfycat, a home for GIF-making tools and an online community, is rolling out a new way to create GIFs — it will now let you keep the sound on. With “Gfycat Sound,” as the feature is called, GIF makers will have the option to retain the audio from the video file they’re using to create their “GIF” — something Gfycat believes will be especially popular among gamers. The company had already experimented with other types of non-traditional GIFs, like longer GIFs, AR GIFs, HD GIFs and 360 GIFs, for example, in order to evolve the concept of the GIF beyond...

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The best tech books of 2018

This year has been good for tech titles. Books like Bad Blood and Brotopia brought us some in-depth reporting on crashes and burns while Stephen Hawking brought us his last thoughts. Here are some of our favorite tech titles for 2018. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J The best tech books of 2018 https://tcrn.ch/2EOWx...

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Google & Facebook fed ad dollars to child porn discovery apps

{rss:content:encoded} Google & Facebook fed ad dollars to child porn discovery apps https://tcrn.ch/2T8FvB2 https://tcrn.ch/2Sn3M6F December 27, 2018 at 03:46PM Google has scrambled to remove third-party apps that led users to child porn sharing groups on WhatsApp in the wake of TechCrunch’s report about the problem last week. We contacted Google with the name of one these apps and evidence that it and others offered links to WhatsApp groups for sharing child exploitation imagery. Following publication of our article, Google removed that app...

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