500 Startups has been aiming to globalize its brand and work toward attracting the attention of young, cool companies outside the Bay Area echo chamber. This has taken 500’s investments into distant corners of the world, with dedicated funds and accelerators scoping out what has amounted to a prolific number of investments. Today, TechCrunch has learned that 500 Startups is launching… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Meet Privacy, a new startup with a confusing name but an interesting product. Privacy lets you generate a virtual burner card every time you need to enter your credit card number on the web. Your actual credit card number stays safe, and you get more control over your online subscriptions. Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
If you’ve tried streaming Master of None from your tablet running on Verizon on AT&T, chances are it looked like a big pile of unwatchable pixels. It turns out Netflix is quietly capping videos on these networks so that you don’t burn through your entire data cap in just a few hours. How bad do these videos look like? Netflix is streaming videos at a resolution of 360p with… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Fortune is reporting that Snapchat, the ephemeral messaging platform that has today become the number one free app on the App Store, has agreed to acquire Bitstrips, the folks behind popular emoji-creation service Bitmoji. Though we haven’t received confirmation from Bitstrips or Snapchat, Fortune’s sources say that the deal is “in the ballpark” of $100 million. The… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
It was already on public record that Andrey Andreev, the low-profile Russian founder of European dating behemoth Badoo, is an investor in female-led dating app Bumble, the Tinder competitor founded by ex-Tinderer Whitney Wolfe. However, TechCrunch can now reveal a number of previously unreported details of Wolfe and Andreev’s partnership. Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
While improvements in camera-phone technology have led to our mobile devices slowly but surely replacing clunky single-purpose cameras, most heavy editing and production still has to be done on desktops. This is especially true for live video, which often requires a full mixing board and production studio. Enter Switcher Studio, a mobile production suite that lets you use an iDevice for live… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Badoo is today launching photo-verification and verified profiles to make online dating safer.
Most folks don’t know that Badoo is the silent giant in online dating. Globally, the 10-year-old company is bigger than any other online dating platform, including OkCupid, Match.com, eHarmony, and yes, Tinder.
The service has 300 million registered users in over 190 countries, and President… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
We’re excited to announce that Carissa Romero, a partner at diversity consulting startup Paradigm, will be speaking on the TC Disrupt New York stage in May. She’s going to share what it’s been like working with top tech companies like Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest and Dropbox around improving diversity and inclusion in their respective workplaces. Before joining Paradigm,… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
We are accustomed to hearing that European tech is perpetually in Silicon Valley’s shadow. Now there have been suggestions that the local tech scene is starting to feel Silicon Valley’s valuation woes. If true, this should raise alarm bells, because if European technology startups struggle to raise money from wary investors, it could hit the brakes on Europe’s budding… Read More
Powered by WPeMatico
Universities in the U.S. are a wellspring of innovation, but they are almost certainly killing off some (really) good ideas too early. Investors should be paying more attention to how innovation is treated at the places it originates.