Tech

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about Uber’s new “money” team. Before that, I told you about how SoftBank is screwing up. Remember, you can
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Stock trading app Robinhood is valued at $7.6 billion, but it only operates in the US. Freshly-funded fintech startup Alpaca does the dirty work so developers worldwide can launch their own competitors to that investing unicorn. Like the Stripe of stocks, Alpaca’s API handles the banking, security, and regulatory complexity, allowing other startups to quickly
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The third session of the International Grand Committee on Disinformation, a multi-nation body comprised of global legislators with concerns about the societal impacts of social media giants, has been taking place in Dublin this week — once again without any senior Facebook management in attendance. The committee was formed last year after Facebook’s CEO Mark
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Microsoft Research is a globally distributed playground for people interested in solving fundamental science problems. These projects often focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, and since Microsoft is on a mission to infuse all of its products with more AI smarts, it’s no surprise that it’s also seeking ways to integrate Microsoft Research’s innovations
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Tinder’s big experiment with interactive content — the recently launched in-app series called Swipe Night — was a success. According to Tinder parent company Match during its Q3 earnings this week, “millions” of Tinder users tuned into to watch the show’s episodes during its run in October, and this drove double-digit increases in both matches and messages. As a
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Following the death of five people at a Halloween party hosted at a California Airbnb rental, and a scathing Vice report outlining Airbnb’s failure to prevent nation-wide scams, the company says it will begin verifying all seven million of its listings. Airbnb properties will soon be verified for accuracy of photos, addresses, listing details, cleanliness,
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FirstVet, the Swedish startup which provides pet owners with on-demand video consultations with local, qualified veterinarians, has closed €18.5 million in Series B funding. The round is led by London-based Omers Ventures, the venture capital arm of Canadian pension fund Omers that recently launched a dedicated €300 million fund to invest in European tech startups.
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Over the past two years, as technology companies continued to struggle with diversifying their work forces, Los Angeles-based venture capitalist Kobie Fuller wrestled with how to solve the problem. As a black professional himself, Fuller had experienced the frustrations and isolation that can sometimes come with being the only person in the room who looked
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Workday announced this afternoon that it has entered into an agreement to acquire online procurement platform Scout RFP for $540 million. The company raised over $60 million on a post valuation of $184.5 million, according to Pitchbook data. The acquisition builds on top of Workday’s existing procurement solutions, Workday Procurement and Workday Inventory, but Workday
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Babbel, the popular Berlin-based language learning service, today announced that its founder and current co-CEO Markus Witte is stepping down from his CEO role but that he will remain the executive chairman of the company’s board. The company’s current co-CEO Arne Schepker will become Babbel’s sole CEO. In addition to these leadership changes, the company
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The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Google is acquiring Fitbit for $2.1 billion Google will pay $7.35 per share for the wearables company — an all-cash deal
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