sky News of 10/23/19

Superhuman Founder Seeks To Raise Debut Venture Fund

The founder of one of 2019’s most buzzworthy startups is putting on his VC hat. Rahul Vohra, the creator of the $30/month subscription emailing service Superhuman , and Todd Goldberg, the founder of the marketing business Mailjoy , are ...

Airbnb’S WeWork Problem

Airbnb’s WeWork problem image Airbnb may be another overvalued “unicorn,” but it’s no WeWork. The Information this morning reported new Airbnb financials — indicating a massive increase in operating losses — that immediately call Airbnb’s future ...

The Station: A New Self-Driving Car Startup, Inside Tesla’S v10 Software, Lilium’S Big Round

The Station: A new self-driving car startup, Inside Tesla’s V10 software, Lilium’s big round image If you haven’t heard, TechCrunch has officially launched a weekly newsletter dedicated to all the ways people and goods move from Point A to Point B — today and in the future — whether it’s by bike, bus, scooter, car, train, truck, flying ...

Sources: Lilium Is Looking To Raise Up To $500m For Its Electric Flying Taxis

“Flying cars” — airborne vehicles designed for urban and other short-distance commutes to replace conventional private automobiles — are (at best) still years away from being a reality, with significant safety, technology and ...

Gatsby Raises $15m Series A For Its Modern Web Development Platform

Gatsby raises $15M Series A for its modern web development platform image Gatsby , a platform that uses modern web technologies like React and GraphQL to help developers build better sites faster, today announced that it has raised a $15 million Series A round led by CRV. Previous investors Trinity Ventures, Mango Capital, ...

Starship Technologies CEO Lex Bayer On Focus And Opportunity In Autonomous Delivery

Starship Technologies is fresh off a recent $40 million funding round , and the robotics startup finds itself in a much-changed market compared to when it got its start in 2014. Founded by software industry veterans, including Skype and Rdio ...

Skype Upgrades Its Messaging Feature With Drafts, Bookmarks And More

Skype upgrades its messaging feature with drafts, bookmarks and more image Skype is best known for being a video calling app and, to some extent, that’s because its messaging feature set has been a bit underdeveloped. Today, the company is working to change that image with a series of improvements to Skype’s ...

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. ...

YC Is Doubling Down On These Investment Theses In Its Most Recent Batch

Nearly 200 startups have just graduated from the prestigious San Francisco startup accelerator Y Combinator . The flock of companies are now free to proceed company-building with a fresh $150,000 check and three-months full of tips and tricks from ...

Waymo Self-Driving Cars Head To Florida For Rainy Season

Waymo is taking some of its autonomous vehicles to Florida just in time for hurricane season to begin testing in heavy rain. The move to Florida will focus on testing how its myriad of sensors hold up during the region’s rainy season as ...

Microsoft Tweaks Privacy Policy To Admit Humans Can Listen To Skype Translator And Cortana Audio

Microsoft is the latest tech giant to amend its privacy policy after media reports revealed it uses human contractors to review audio recordings of Skype and Cortana users. A section in the policy on how the company uses personal data now reads ...

Self-Driving Truck Startup Starsky Launches Hutch, Its API And Nerve Center

Self-driving truck startup Starsky launches Hutch, its API and nerve center image Starsky Robotics has been building its self-driving — and human-driven — truck business for three years now. And it’s finally ready to show off its first product. It’s not, as one might presume, a self-driving truck. This ...

Apple Is Under Formal Antitrust Probe In Russia

Make way for another antitrust investigation into big tech. Step forward Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which has opened an official probe of Apple — following a complaint lodged in March by security company Kaspersky Labs. ...

Monica Lewinsky Will Produce New FX American Crime Story Series On Clinton Impeachment

Monica Lewinsky Will Produce New FX American Crime Story Series on Clinton Impeachment image (BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.) — The next chapter of FX’s series “American Crime Story” will dramatize Bill Clinton’s impeachment with a focus on Monica Lewinsky , Linda Tripp and other women central to the scandal. The ...

PayU, Naspers’ Global Fintech Firm, Enters Southeast Asia With Acquisition Of Red Dot Payment

PayU, Naspers’ global fintech firm, enters Southeast Asia with acquisition of Red Dot Payment image PayU, the Naspers owned fintech firm that specializes in emerging markets, is broadening its global reach into Southeast Asia after it announced a deal to buy a majority stake in Singapore-based Red Dot Payment . Naspers is best known for its ...

Gillmor Gang: Cash Machine

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Esteban Kolsky, and Steve Gillmor . Recorded live Sunday June 23, 2019. Streamed live to Twitter , or just slightly after the fact. Debates and free media, or ...

On The Road To Self-Driving Trucks, Starsky Robotics Built A Traditional Trucking Business

On the road to self-driving trucks, Starsky Robotics built a traditional trucking business image More than three years ago, self-driving trucks startup Starsky Robotics was founded to solve a fundamental issue with freight — a solution that CEO Stefan Seltz-Axmacher believes hinges on getting the human driver out from behind the wheel. But a ...

Skype Publicly Launches Screen Sharing On IOS And Android

Skype is taking one of its most popular desktop features to mobile devices: screen sharing. The company announced on Tuesday that its mobile screen sharing feature is now out of beta testing, allowing both iOS and Android users to share their ...

Startups Weekly: Will The Real Unicorns Please Stand Up?

Startups Weekly: Will the real unicorns please stand up? image Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s noteworthy venture capital deals, funds and trends. Before I dive into this week’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I ...

Groupon Cofounder Eric Lefkofsky Just Raised Another $200 Million For His Newest Company, Tempus

When serial entrepreneur Eric Lefkofsky grows a company, he puts the pedal to the metal. When in 2011 his last company, the Chicago-based coupons site Groupon, raised $950 million from investors, it was the largest amount raised by a start-up, ...