Let’s talk Samsung Galaxy S11

{rss:content:encoded} Let’s talk Samsung Galaxy S11 https://ift.tt/2EkgDkI https://ift.tt/36xehej December 14, 2019 at 09:24PM We’ve officially entered the mid-December hardware doldrums. Obviously no major hardware maker in its right mind is going to be announcing anything major in the next few weeks, for fear of preemptively cannibalizing holiday sales. Things will, however, heat up immediately after the new year with the kick off of CES. Then, a little over a month later, comes MWC. Sandwiched somewhere in there is the launch of Samsung’s next...

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Startups Weekly: This year in startups

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 U.S. VC activity in Europe. Before that, I noted Chinese investor activity in Africa. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you’re new, you can subscribe to Startups Weekly here. Hello from Berlin, where we’ve just wrapped our annual conference, TechCrunch...

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Consumer sous vide startup Nomiku is winding down operations

Founded in 2012, Nomiku became a plucky Silicon Valley darling by bringing affordable sous vide cooking to home kitchens. A Kickstarter project that same year generated $750,000, several times its $200,000 goal. The company scored a glowing TechCrunch profile the following year, as well, thanks in part to a great backstory. Today, however, the company noted on its site and various social media channels that it is winding down operations: Well, I am sorry to say that we have reached the end of the road. It is with a heavy heart (and deep-felt gratitude...

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The newest members of the $100M ARR club

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the grey space in between. Today we’re taking stock of a cohort of special companies: still-private startups that have reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Our goal is to understand which startup companies are actually exceptional. This late in the unicorn era, hundreds of companies around the world have reached a valuation of $1 billion, making the achievement somewhat pedestrian. Reaching $100 million in ARR, however, still stands out. We...

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Chicago’s Sprout Social prices IPO mid-range at $17 per share, raising $150M

On the heels of Bill.com’s debut, Chicago-based social media software company Sprout Social priced its IPO last night at $17 per share, in the middle of its proposed $16 to $18 per-share range. Selling 8.8 million shares, Sprout raised just under $150 million in its debut. Underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 1.3 million shares if they so choose. The IPO is a good result for the company’s investors (Lightbank, New Enterprise Associates, Goldman Sachs, and Future Fund), but also for Chicago, a growing startup scene that doesn’t...

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Equity Dive: Direct Listings

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We have something special this week and it’s not just because Kate’s in Berlin for TechCrunch Disrupt Europe and Alex’s in the throws of a cross country move! No, we’ve had this episode in the works for a while, and we’re excited to finally present our deep dive on direct listings with Chris Mayo, the head of primary markets at the London Stock Exchange. If you’re unfamiliar with direct listings, no need for concern....

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Bluespace.ai, a startup focused on AV technology for mass transit, gets $3.5 million in seed funding

Bluespace.ai, a new autonomous driving startup focused on mass transit, announced today that it has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Fusion Fund. Other investors include YouTube co-founder Steve Chen; UMC, the Taiwanese semiconductor foundry; Kakao Ventures; GDP Ventures; Atinum; Wasabi Ventures; Blue Ivy Ventures; Plug n Play; and SLV Capital. The startup develops software systems for autonomous mass transit fleets and is currently in meetings with cities and transit providers. Its founding team includes CEO Joel Pazhayampallil, previously...

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Sleek raises $5M to help companies incorporate and operate in Singapore and Hong Kong

Sleek, a startup that is making it easier for other startups and companies to incorporate and operate in Singapore and Hong Kong, said today it has extended its seed financing round to raise $5 million. The extended seed round for the two-year-old startup was led by private investors Pierre Lorinet and Fabio Blom, and MI8, an Asia-focused European backed private investment company. Sleek also counts a number of high profile individuals including Martin Crawford, former Group CEO of corporate services giant Vistra, Olivier Gerhardt, founder of Wavecell,...

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Reliance Industries acquires a majority stake in SaaS startup NowFloats for $20M

Reliance Industries, one of India’s largest industrial houses, has acquired a majority stake in NowFloats, an Indian startup that helps businesses and individuals build online presence without any web developing skills. In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited said (PDF) it has acquired an 85% stake in NowFloats for 1.4 billion Indian rupees ($20 million). Seven-and-a-half-year old, Hyderabad-headquartered NowFloats operates an eponymous platform that allows individuals and businesses to easily build...

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Why Bill.com didn’t pursue a direct listing

Bill.com went public today after pricing its shares higher than it initially expected. The B2B payments company sold nearly 10 million shares at $22 apiece, raising around $216 million in its IPO. Public investors felt that the company’s price was a deal, sending the value of its equity to $35.51 per share as of the time of writing. That’s a gain of over 61%. On the heels of its successful pricing run and raucous first day’s trading, TechCrunch caught up with Bill.com CEO René Lacerte to dig into his company’s debut. We wanted to know how pricing...

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Pandora launches interactive voice ads

{rss:content:encoded} Pandora launches interactive voice ads https://ift.tt/2RSeDrX https://ift.tt/2skD9qL December 12, 2019 at 09:06PM Pandora has begun to test a new type of advertising format that allows listeners to respond to the ad by speaking aloud. In the new ads, listeners are prompted to say “yes” after the ad asks a question and a tone plays. The ads will then offer more information about the product or brand in question. Debut advertisers testing the new format include Doritos, Ashley HomeStores, Unilever, Wendy’s, Turner Broadcasting,...

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DataRobot is acquiring Paxata to add data prep to machine learning platform

DataRobot a company best known for creating automated machine learning models known as AutoML, announced today that it intends to acquire Paxata, a data prep platform startup. The companies did not reveal the purchase price. Paxata raised a total of $90 million before today’s acquisition, according to the company. Up until now DataRobot has concentrated mostly on the machine learning and data science aspect of the workflow — building and testing the model, then putting it into production. The data prep was left to other vendors like Paxata, but...

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Twitter is bringing back Election Labels to identify 2020 U.S. election candidates

With just under a year until U.S. Election Day, Twitter is bringing back its Election Labels, which provide information about political candidates — including what office they’re running for and their state and district number. The labels will also have a small ballot box icon to accompany this information. The feature was first launched during the 2018 U.S. midterms, where the labels were seen 100 million times per day by Twitter users in the week before Election Day. In addition, 13% of U.S. election-related conversations on Twitter included...

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Amazon launches Audible Suno free app featuring short-stories in India

{rss:content:encoded} Amazon launches Audible Suno free app featuring short-stories in India https://ift.tt/2qKj2Sq https://ift.tt/36r7zGC December 12, 2019 at 05:23PM Amazon is having another go at expanding its reach to listeners in India. The company, which launched pay-to-use Audible in the country last year, today introduced a new service called Audible Suno that offers free access to “hundreds of hours of audio entertainment, enlightenment and learning.” And it’s banking on major Indian celebrities to draw the listeners. Audible Suno, which...

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And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019 is… Scaled Robotics

At the very beginning, there were 14 startups. After two days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner. Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup. After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: Gmelius, Hawa Dawa, Inovat,...

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Yubo raises $12.3 million for its social app for teens

French startup Yubo has raised a $12.3 million funding round led by Iris Capital and Idinvest Partners. Existing investors Alven, Sweet Capital and Village Global are also participating. The startup has managed to attract 25 million users over the years — there are currently tens of thousands of people signing up to the platform every day. Yubo is building a social media app for young people under 25 with one focus in particular on helping teenagers meeting new people and creating friendships. Compared to the most popular social media apps out...

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Facebook Messenger adds Star Wars-themed features and AR effects

Star Wars has come to Facebook’s Messenger app. Facebook today announced a new set of Star Wars-themed features for Messenger users, including a chat theme, reactions, stickers, and AR effects. The features were developed in partnership with Disney to help promote the upcoming film, “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which premieres nationwide on December 20. Both the stickers and the reactions allow users to express themselves using characters from both sides of The Force, says Facebook. Disney also helped to create a set of limited-edition AR...

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Robinhood lets you invest as little as 1 cent in any stock

{rss:content:encoded} Robinhood lets you invest as little as 1 cent in any stock https://ift.tt/2RVN9Sj https://ift.tt/2EbVicZ December 12, 2019 at 04:00PM One share of Amazon stock costs over $1700, locking out less wealthy investors. So to continue its quest to democratize stock trading, Robinhood is launching fractional share trading this week. This lets you buy 0.000001 shares, rounded to the nearest penny, or just $1 of any stock with zero fee. The ability to buy by millionth of a share lets Robinhood undercut Square Cash’s recently announced...

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The IPO window is open

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the grey space in between. This morning we’re digging into the current IPO market, asking ourselves how much damage WeWork really did to other companies hoping to go public. Is the IPO window closed, and if not, what sort of companies can still get out? There’s some good news out today for late-stage startups looking to debut — along with a few impending tests regarding the market’s appetite for risk that we should understand as we head into 2020. Bill.com’s...

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Robinhood lets you invest as little as 1 cent in any stock

One share of Amazon stock costs over $1700, locking out less wealthy investors. So to continue its quest to democratize stock trading, Robinhood is launching fractional share trading this week. This lets you buy 0.000001 shares, rounded to the nearest penny, or just $1 of any stock with zero fee. The ability to buy by millionth of a share lets Robinhood undercut Square Cash’s recently announced fractional share trading, which sets a $1 minimum for investment. Robinhood users can sign up here for early access to fractional share trading. “One of...

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