It’s holiday season for tech unicorns

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7 a.m. PT). Subscribe here. Did you follow all of the unicorn news from the last couple of weeks? No? Here’s a list of headlines to catch you up, because this holiday season is already featuring mega acquisitions, even more IPO filings, and a steady drumbeat of fundraises. Somehow, after one of the toughest years in recent memory, the tech industry is heading into December with more enthusiasm than ever. (Still remember...

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This Week in Apps: The year’s best apps, 2020’s biggest downloads, the App Store’s newest hire

{rss:content:encoded} This Week in Apps: The year’s best apps, 2020’s biggest downloads, the App Store’s newest hire https://ift.tt/37B0NAg https://ift.tt/3gfT26O December 05, 2020 at 05:20PM Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People now spend three hours and 40 minutes per day using...

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Revel pulls electric mopeds after failing to make a dent in Austin’s car culture

Shared electric moped startup Revel said Friday that it will shut down its service in Austin later this month. The startup’s CEO and co-founder Frank Reig didn’t place the entire blame on the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused ridership to fall across shared micromobility services as well as public transit, for the company’s decision. Instead, Reig cited the combination of Austin’s “deep-rooted” car culture, which has only become further engrained during COVID. The service will shut down in Austin on December 18. “When Revel came to Austin we...

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Zephr raises $8M to help news publishers grow subscription revenue

Zephr has raised $8 million in a new funding round led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (owned by media giant Bertelsmann). The London-headquarted startup’s customers already include publishers like McClatchy, News Corp Australia, Dennis Publishing and PEI Media. CEO James Henderson told me via email that rather than creating “a monolithic product that tries to do a bit of everything,” Zephr is “focused entirely on the experience and journey for the prospect or customer,” driving an average 150% increase in conversion rates and 25% increase...

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SunCulture wants to turn Africa into the world’s next bread basket, one solar water pump at a time

The world’s food supply must double by the year 2050 to meet the demands from a growing population, according to a report from the United Nations. And as pressure mounts to find new crop land to support the growth, the world’s eyes are increasingly turning to the African continent as the next potential global breadbasket. While Africa has 65% of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land, according to the African Development Bank, the countries on the continent face significant obstacles as they look to boost the productivity of their agricultural...

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YC-backed LemonBox raises $2.5M bringing vitamins to Chinese millennials

Like many overseas Chinese, Derek Weng gets shopping requests from his family and friends whenever he returns to China. Some of the most wanted imported products are maternity items, cosmetics and vitamin supplements. Many in China still uphold the belief that “imported products are better.” The demand gave Weng a business idea. In 2018, he founded LemonBox to sell American health supplements to Chinese millennials like himself via online channels. The company soon attracted seed funding from Y Combinator and just this week, it announced the completion...

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Revolut lets businesses accept online payments

Fintech startup Revolut is launching its own acquiring solution. With this move, the company is competing directly wit hStripe, Adyen, Braintree or Checkout.com. This is an in-house product and not just a fresh coat of paint on an existing solution. As a reminder, Revolut already offers business accounts. It lets you send and receive international payments, exchange funds in multiple currencies. You can also order debit cards to spend money from your Revolut account directly. With Revolut’s acquiring solution, the company is going one step further...

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Enter new markets and embrace a distributed workforce to grow during a pandemic

Sarah Cole Contributor Sarah Cole is a senior associate in Taylor Wessing's Silicon Valley office. She advises mostly North American technology and life sciences companies on their investments into the UK and Europe, including on European launches, cross-border M&A, venture capital and other growth company investment work. Mark Barron Contributor Mark Barron is the head of Taylor Wessing's market-leading technology and life sciences inward investment team, and advises North American companies on how to translate their domestic success...

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Health tech venture firm OTV closes new $170 million fund and expands into Asia

OTV (formerly known as Olive Tree Ventures), an Israeli venture capital firm that focuses on digital health tech, announced it has closed a new fund totaling $170 million. The firm also launched a new office in Shanghai, China to spearhead its growth in the Asia Pacific region. OTV currently has a total of 11 companies in its portfolio. This year, it led rounds in telehealth platforms TytoCare and Lemonaid Health, and its other investments include genomic machine learning platform Emedgene; microscopy imaging startup Scopio; and at-home cardiac...

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Stripe announces embedded business banking service Stripe Treasury

Fintech startup Stripe has announced an ambitious new product today called Stripe Treasury. The company is partnering with banks to offer a banking-as-a-service API. In other words, Stripe clients will be able to provide bank accounts to their customers — the service is invite-only for now. This is part of a bigger trend called embedded finance. Essentially, instead of separating banking services from other services that you use, embedded finance products provide financial services as close as possible to the end customer in the services that they...

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