software News of 10/23/19

Google Picks Up Microsoft Veteran, Javier Soltero, To Head G Suite

Google has hired Microsoft’s former Cortana and Outlook VP, Javier Soltero, to head up its productivity and collaboration bundle, G Suite — which includes consumer and business tools such as Gmail, Hangouts, Drive, Google Docs and ...

Spiff Pitches A Way To Automate Sales Commissions Calculations

Spiff , a Salt Lake City-based company pitching a new service for calculating sales commissions for salespeople around the world, has raised $6 million in funding to sell its own product to the millions of Willie Lohman’s looking for an end to ...

MediaLab Acquires Messaging App Kik, Expanding Its App Portfolio

Popular messaging app Kik is, indeed, “here to stay” following an acquisition by the Los Angeles-based multimedia holding company, MediaLab . It echoes the same message from Kik’s chief executive Tim Livingston last week when ...

Mercedes-Benz App Glitch Exposed Car Owners’ Information To Other Users

Mercedes-Benz car owners have said that the app they used to remotely locate, unlock and start their cars was displaying other people’s account and vehicle information. TechCrunch spoke to two customers who said the Mercedes-Benz’ ...

Popular App Snaptube Caught Serving Invisible Ads And Charging Users For Premium Purchases They Haven’T Made

A popular video downloader app for Android has been found generating fake ad clicks and unauthorized premium purchases from its users, according to a security firm. Snaptube, which boasts some 40 million users, allows users to download videos and ...

Ekos Announces $8m Series A To Build Software For Craft Breweries

Ekos , a Charlotte, NC startup that creates software to help craft breweries and other beverage companies organize their businesses, announced an $8 million Series A today led by Noro-Moseley Partners , an Atlanta  venture firm. Prior to taking ...

Nigeria’S #StopRobbingUs Campaign Could Spur Tech Advocacy Group, CEOs Say

Nigeria’s #StopRobbingUs campaign to curb police harassment of techies could grow into a formal lobbying group for the country’s tech sector, according to founders Bosun Tijani and Jason Njoku . Tijani, the CEO of Lagos based ...

Autify Raises $2.5m Seed Round For Its No-Code Software Testing Platform

Autify , a platform that makes testing web application as easy as clicking a few buttons, has raised a $2.5 million seed round from Global Brain, Salesforce Ventures, Archetype Ventures and several angels. The company, which recently graduated from ...

Google Updates Its Titan Security Keys With USB-C

Google has revealed its latest Titan security key — and it’s now compatible with USB-C devices. The latest Titan key arrives just weeks after its closest market rival Yubico — which also manufactures the Titan security key for Google ...

Pelion Venture Partners Adds Jeff Kearl As A Managing Director, Opens Southern California Presence

The Salt Lake City-based Pelion Venture Partners is opening an outpost in Southern California and has added Jeff Kearl as a managing director to head up operations in the region. Kearl was the chief executive officer of Stance , a ...

Cryptocurrency’S Bad Day Continues As The SEC Blocks Telegram’S $1.7 Billion Planned Token Sale

Cryptocurrency’s bad news day continues to get worse as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has said it has filed an emergency action and received a restraining order for the $1.7 billion planned token offering of Telegram’s ...

Autonomous Trucking Startup Einride Eyes US Market With $25 Million In New Funding

Einride , the Swedish autonomous vehicle startup known for its futuristic pods designed to haul freight, has raised $25 million in a Series A round that will be used to fund its expansion into the United States. The round was co-led by EQT ...

Apple Rolls Out New Siri Audio Clip Grading Opt-In And Request History Deletion Feature In Beta

Apple is rolling out a new opt-in notice for Siri audio sample review with the beta of iOS 13.2. This new opt-in feature was promised back in August after reports that audio from Siri requests were being reviewed by contractors and that the ...

Google Takes AMP To The OpenJS Foundation

AMP , Google’s somewhat controversial project for speeding up the mobile web, has always been open-source, but it also always felt like a Google project first. Today, however, Google announced that the AMP framework will join the OpenJS ...

Twitter Admits It Used Two-Factor Phone Numbers And Emails For Serving Targeted Ads

Twitter has said it used phone numbers and email addresses, provided by users to set up two-factor authentication on their accounts, to serve targeted ads. In a disclosure Tuesday, the social media giant said it did not know how many users were ...

Contentstack Raises $31.5m Series A Round For Its Headless CMS Platform

Contentstack , a startup that offers a headless CMS platform for enterprises, today announced that it has raised a $31.5 million Series A round led by Insight Partners. Existing investors Illuminate Ventures and GingerBread Capital also participated ...

Opera’S Desktop Browser Gets Built-In Tracking Protection

Browser maker Opera today announced the launch of version 68 of its flagship desktop browser. The marquee feature of the launch is the addition of a tracker blocker that will make it harder for advertisers and others to track you while you browse ...

83north Closes $300m Fifth Fund Focused On Europe, Israel

83North has closed its fifth fund, completing an oversubscribed $300 million raise and bringing its total capital under management to $1.1BN+. The VC firm, which spun out from Silicon Valley giant Greylock Partners in 2015 — and invests ...

Notion Capital Launches New $150m Fund Aimed At European b2b Tech

Notion Capital today announces a new $150M fund in a bid to bolster its claim to being the go-to investor for European B2B tech. Launched ten years ago after the $700M exit of MessageLabs by co-founders Ben and Jos White, this new fourth fund will ...

Actor And HitRecord Founder Joseph Gordon-Levitt Says We Should All Get Off YouTube

The multi-hyphenate actor-director-entrepreneur, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (best known for roles in “3rd Rock from the Sun,” “Inception,” “Snowden” and, “10 Things I Hate About You,”) came to TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019 this morning to talk ...