Category : TechCrunch

TechCrunch

Taiwan-based live streaming company M17 raises $26.5 million Series D led by Vertex Growth

M17, the Taiwan-based live streaming entertainment startup, announced that it has raised a $26.5 million Series D. The round was led by Vertex Growth Fund, with participation from Stonebridge Korea Unicorn Venture Fund, Innoven Capital Singapore, Kag...

Alameda County may allow Tesla’s Fremont factory to reopen as soon as next week

Alameda County officials announced today that Tesla can reopen as soon as next week if it implements additional safety recommendations. The statement from the Alameda County Public Health Department said that after receiving Tesla’s COVID-19 site-sp...

Modulr raises £18.9M for its ‘Payments as a Service’

Modulr, the U.K. fintech that offers ‘Payments as a Service’ as an alternative to commercial and wholesale transaction banking, has secured £18.9 million in growth funding. Leading the round is Highland Europe, with participation from exi...

VanMoof raises $13.5M to capitalize on e-bike boom in wake of COVID-19

VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike startup which launched in 2009, is now officially a “scale-up” after attracting a €12.5M / $13.5M investment from London VC Balderton Capital and SINBON Electronics, the Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer which is its bik...

(Update: it’s back) Slack is currently fixing performance issues that prevented some users from connecting

Update: Slack says connection issues are now fixed for everyone. Everyone should be able to connect to Slack now. Please let us know at feedback@slack.com if you have any connection trouble. Thank you for being patient with us, we appreciate it. ht...

Slack is currently fixing performance issues that prevented some users from connecting

Slack is currently fixing issues that are preventing some users from connecting or sending messages, according to its Status page. The company’s latest update on Twitter says some people may start seeing improvements, but that the company is still w...

Sonantic is ready to convince listeners that synthetic voices can cry

When you think of voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, the words “emotional” and “expressive” probably don’t come to mind. Instead, there’s that recognizably flat and polite voice, dev...

RenovAI helps retailers offer automated interior design advice to their customers

Alon Gilady, CEO of RenovAI, told me his startup is trying to solve the problem that many of us face when we’re moving into a new home — we aren’t interior designers, but we can’t afford to hire real designers, either. Apparently Gi...

Slice, an online ordering and marketing platform for pizzerias, raises $43M

Global investment firm KKR is betting on the pizza business — it just led a $43 million Series C investment in Slice. Formerly known as MyPizza, Slice has created a mobile app and website where diners can order a custom pizza delivery from their loc...

Snap’s Yellow accelerator debuts its third batch of investments

This morning, Snap joined a host of startup accelerators shifting its demo day online amid the COVID-19 quarantine. With its third class of startups, Yellow, Snap’s in-house startup accelerator that launched in 2018, brought investors and foun...

Facebook to pay $52 million to content moderators suffering from PTSD

Facebook has agreed in principle to pay $52 million to compensate current and former content moderators who developed mental health issues on the job. The Verge reported Tuesday that the settlement will cover more than 11,000 content moderators who...

In a letter to Amazon, 13 AGs call for increased transparency and stronger worker protections

In an open letter to Jeff Bezos and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, a coalition of AGs have jointly called on Amazon to strengthen protections for a strained workforce amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter, penned by Massachusetts state AG Maura Healey...

Facebook upgrades its AI to better tackle COVID-19 misinformation and hate speech

Facebook’s AI tools are the only thing standing between its users and the growing onslaught of hate and misinformation the platform is experiencing. The company’s researchers have cooked up a few new capabilities for the systems that kee...

US e-commerce sales jump 49% in April, led by online grocery

Online retailers are seeing Black Friday-like sales due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their business. According to new data from Adobe’s Digital Economy Index, U.S. e-commerce jumped 49% in April, compared to the baseline period in...

Decrypted: Contact-tracing privacy, Zoom buys Keybase, Microsoft eyes CyberX

As the world looks to reopen after weeks of lockdown, governments are turning to contact tracing to understand the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Most nations are leaning toward privacy-focused apps that use Bluetooth signals to create an anonymou...