Instagram has changed a lot since its acquisition by Facebook in 2012. The original premise was so simple. Beautify your photo and share it to your friends in a couple clicks. Like your friends photos with a simple scroll and a double-tap. Now, Instagram has videos and gifs (Boomerang). It has its own set of superstars and an algorithmic feed that helps those superstars dominate users’… Read More
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PullRequest, a Y Combinator Summer 17 graduate, announced a $2.3 million seed round today led by Google’s new AI fund, Gradient Ventures. The Slack Fund, Fika Ventures, Defy Ventures, Lynett Capital, FundersClub and Joe Montana’s Liquid2 Ventures also participated. The company has been concentrating on providing code review as a service, a task that often gets lost in… 
Historically, financial organizations have watched forlornly through the front window while startups have adopted new and cool tools like Slack, Twitter, and Convo. Now they can join in the fun with something called Echofin. You can imagine the product as a sort of hyper-powered Slack for financial groups. Users can message each other and view portfolios and investment news and small groups… 
Earlier this year, Syte.ai, which develops visual search technology for fashion brands, raised $8 million from investors including top Asian tech firms NHN, Line Corp. and Naver. Now it’s unveiling a new API that makes adding visual search accessible to more e-commerce sites. 
Chattermill, a London-based startup that uses ‘deep learning’ to help companies make better sense of customer feedback, has raised £600,000 in seed funding. Backing comes from Entrepreneur First — Chattermill is an alumni of the company builder — and Avonmore Developments, along with a number of angel investors, including Jeff Kelisky, CEO of Seedrs. 
Qualcomm teased its new flagship smartphone chip at day one its Summit in Maui, and as expected, the company’s got a lot more to offer us on day two. The Snapdragon 845 is the latest premium processor, due out next year. And like its predecessor, the 835, you can expect the thing to be nearly ubiquitous on 2018’s flagship handsets — not to mention a few Windows PCs. As… 
It’s been a bad few months for internet freedom in China (and really a bad few decades, but who is counting?). The government brought into force a broad-ranging “cybersecurity law” earlier this year that empowers Beijing to take unilateral control over critical internet infrastructure, while also mandating that foreign companies keep all citizen data local inside China… 
Lyft is beginning its self-driving car pilot with self-driving car company nuTonomy in Boston as it looks to ramp up its self-driving efforts, and is now matching its riders with self-driving vehicles in parts of Boston, nuTonomy said today. Lyft announced its partnership with nuTonomy in June this year, indicating that the pilots would begin in the coming months. It looks like the project… 
Inflect, a startup that wants to make it easier for businesses to buy their own internet infrastructure, today announced that it has raised a $3 million seed funding round. The service, which is still in preview, provides business with the necessary data to make their purchasing decisions when they go out and look for their own data center space, networking services and exchange… 
Viola, the Israel-based technology investment group, is launching new independent VC fund targeting fintech startups from anywhere in the world. Dubbed Viola FinTech, the “cross-stage venture fund” has an initial closing of $100 million but will extend that towards $120-150 million 
It was a busy day in Maui as Qualcomm kicked off this year’s Snapdragon Tech Summit. The San Diego chipmaker announced a two-in-one PC form factor powered by the Snapdragon 835 that has some big name hardware partners like Asus and HP behind it. The company also used the opportunity to tease its latest flagship processor, the Snapdragon 845. Details are still pretty scarce, but the… 
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