Startups Weekly: Diamond-encrusted disruption

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about the flurry of IPO filings. Before that, I noted the differences between raising cash from angels vs. traditional venture capitalists. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that here. What’s...

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Graphcore founder Nigel Toon to talk about AI chips at Disrupt Berlin

It’s easy to forget that Silicon Valley starts with ‘silicon’, and that there would be no technology innovation without innovation at the silicon level. And Graphcore is well aware of that as the Bristol-based company is designing its own dedicated AI chipset. That’s why I’m glad to announce that Graphcore co-founder and CEO Nigel Toon is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. Graphcore has managed to attract a ton of attention from day one. Originally founded in 2016, the startup has raised more than $300 million from top investors, such as...

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Is Knotel poised to turn WeWork from a Unicorn into an Icarus?

The day of reckoning for the “flexible office space as a startup” is coming, and it’s coming up fast. WeWork’s IPO filing has fired the starting gun on the race to become the game-changer both in the future of property and real estate but also the future of how we live and work. As Churchill once said, “we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Until recently, WeWork was the ruler by which other flexible-space startups were measured, but questions are now being asked if it deserves its valuation. The profitable IWG plc, formerly...

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India exempts startups from long-standing ‘angel tax’

India today addressed a long-standing challenge that has been affecting the country’s booming startup ecosystem. As part of a raft of measures to boost overall economic growth from a five-year low, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said New Delhi is exempting startups from Section 56(2) — a provision more popularly known as an “angel tax” in the local income tax laws — that required startups to pay a certain tax if they received an investment at a rate higher than their “fair market valuation.” Local tax authority in India does not...

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Verified Expert Growth Marketing Agency: Torch

CEO Jeremy OBriant never intended to create Torch, an agile growth marketing agency based in San Francisco. He started his career as a CPA, but after leading a growth team at Sidecar and running growth projects on his own, forming Torch was the most obvious thing to do. He now leads a team that implements “agile growth,” an iterative approach that involves setting clear goals and running smaller experiments over the course of monthly sprints. Learn more about their approach to growth, their ideal client, and more. “Torch offers custom solutions...

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Samsung’s Note 10 is available today, starting at $949

{rss:content:encoded} Samsung’s Note 10 is available today, starting at $949 https://ift.tt/33Udof8 https://ift.tt/31HVaf1 August 23, 2019 at 06:20PM Samsung’s settled into a nice little twice-yearly schedule for releasing flagships. That’s allowed the company double the opportunity to introduce some nice upgrades to their high-end Android handsets. Nearly six months after the release of the S10, the company just dropped the new Note line. Here’s a whole bunch of words I wrote about the 10+, the larger of the devices, which is helping distinguish...

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Ping Identity files for $100M IPO on Nasdaq to trade as ‘PING’

Some eight months after it was reported that Ping Identity’s owners Vista Equity had hired bankers to explore a public listing, today Ping Identity took the plunge: the Colorado-based online ID management company has filed an S-1 form indicating that it plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker “Ping.” While the initial S-1 filing doesn’t have an indication of price range, Ping is said to be looking at a valuation of between $2 billion and $3 billion in this listing. The company has been around since...

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Facebook really doesn’t want you to read these emails

Oh hey y’all, it’s Friday! It’s August! Which means it’s a great day for Facebook to drop a little news it would prefer you don’t notice. News that you won’t find a link to on the homepage of Facebook’s Newsroom — which is replete with colorfully illustrated items it does want you to read (like the puffed up claim that “Now You Can See and Control the Data That Apps and Websites Share With Facebook”.) The blog post Facebook would really prefer you didn’t notice is tucked away in a News sub-section of this website — where it’s been confusingly entitled:...

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Japan’s ispace now aims for a lunar landing in 2021, and a Moon rover deployment in 2023

One of the private companies aiming to deliver a commercial lunar lander to the Moon has adjusted the timing for its planned mission, which isn’t all that surprising given the enormity of the task. Japanese startup ispace is now targeting 2021 for their first lunar landing, and 2023 for a second lunar mission that will also include deploying a rover on the Moon’s surface. The company’s ‘HAKUTO-R’ program was originally planned to to include a mission in 2020 that would involve sending a lunar orbital vehicle for demonstration purposes without any...

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The myth of “stage agnostic” investing

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we were helmed by Kate Clark, Alex Wilhelm, and yet another extra special guest. Unusual Ventures co-founder and partner John Vironis joined us to talk soil investing (yes, it’s a thing), seed investing, growth investing and all the somewhat meaningless funding stages. Vrionis was a longtime investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners and has made big bets on a number of companies, including AppDynamics,...

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Tastemakers raises $1.4M to sell Africa experiences to the world

New York based startup Tastemakers has raised a $1.4 million seed-round—led Precursor Ventures—for its business that connects Africa adventures to global consumers. Tastemakers’ platform curates, prices, and lists African travel and cultural experiences—from paragliding tours to wine-tasting to concerts. The startup generates revenues by taking a 20% commission on each transaction. Community managers in Africa screen and select experiences that go up on the site . Tastemakers will use the investment to grow the number of experiences offered from...

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Summer flash sale ends tonight: 2-for-1 Disrupt Berlin 2019 passes

Summer’s fading fast, but our 2-for-1 summer flash sale on Innovator, Founder or Investor passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019 is fading even faster. Today’s the final day you can get 2-for-1 tickets to join us in Berlin for two jam-packed days of startup goodness and opportunity. Why not do it for the lowest price? Our 2-for-1 summer flash sale ends tonight, August 23 at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Buy your 2-for-1 passes right here. There are so many reasons to attend Disrupt Berlin on 11-12 December — try these five on for size, buy...

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Silicone 3D printing startup Spectroplast spins out of ETHZ with $1.5M

3D printing has become commonplace in the hardware industry, but because few materials can be used for it easily, the process rarely results in final products. A Swiss startup called Spectroplast hopes to change that with a technique for printing using silicone, opening up all kinds of applications in medicine, robotics and beyond. Silicone is not very bioreactive, and of course can be made into just about any shape while retaining strength and flexibility. But the process for doing so is generally injection molding, great for mass-producing lots...

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Workplace digital assistant startup Capacity raises $13.2M from Midwestern VCs

Solving information scatter inside enterprises seems to be the founding idea behind dozens of enterprise software startups. Capacity, which recently rebranded from Jane.ai, is raising new cash to tackle the issue with its corporate data search platform. The company just closed a $13.2 million Series B, funded entirely by Midwestern private investors and angels. Jane.ai raises $8.4M to bring a digital assistant into your office software The St. Louis workplace startup helps its customers pull all of their organizational data together into a...

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DoorDash reveals details of its new tipping model

{rss:content:encoded} DoorDash reveals details of its new tipping model https://ift.tt/2TY8r0r https://ift.tt/33Qv77j August 23, 2019 at 12:38AM DoorDash announced last month that it would be changing its controversial tipping model. Today it’s revealing the basics of how the new system will work. Under the past model, Dashers (DoorDash drivers and other delivery people) were guaranteed a minimum payment per delivery, with DoorDash paying a $1 base, then providing an additional payment boost when a customer’s tip wasn’t enough to meet the minimum...

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DoorDash reveals details of its new tipping model

DoorDash announced last month that it would be changing its controversial tipping model. Today it’s revealing the basics of how the new system will work. Under the past model, Dashers (DoorDash drivers and other delivery people) were guaranteed a minimum payment per delivery, with DoorDash paying a $1 base, then providing an additional payment boost when a customer’s tip wasn’t enough to meet the minimum — a system that made it seem like tips were being used to subsidize DoorDash payments. Under the new system, meanwhile, DoorDash will pay a base...

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Frontier technologies are moving closer to the center of venture investment

As the technologies that were once considered science fiction become the purview of science, the venture capital firms that were once investing at the industry’s fringes are now finding themselves at the heart of the technology industry. Investing in the commercialization of technologies like genetic engineering, quantum computing, digital avatars, augmented reality, new human-computer interfaces, machine learning, autonomous vehicles, robots, and space travel that were once considered “frontier” investments are now front-and-center priorities...

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Mobile gaming is a $68.5 billion global business, and investors are buying in

{rss:content:encoded} Mobile gaming is a $68.5 billion global business, and investors are buying in https://ift.tt/2Ntuhrl https://ift.tt/2Hfe4lN August 22, 2019 at 07:30PM Omer Kaplan Contributor Omer Kaplan is CMO and co-founder at ironSource. More posts by this contributor Mobile gaming is a $68.5 billion global business, and investors are buying in By the end of 2019, the global gaming market is estimated to be worth $152 billion with 45% of that, $68.5 billion, coming directly from mobile games. With this tremendous growth (10.2%...

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