Startups

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I’m going to do exactly what this travel startup tells me to do

 I’m gearing up for another trip, but instead of taking a sleep pod bus, I’m flying (like a normal person) to Berlin. I’m going with my mom, who has never been out of the country, so I want to make sure it’s a good trip. That’s where Journy, founded by Leiti Hsu and Susan Ho, comes in. Journy is essentially a travel startup for millennials that is designed to… Read More

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Authory wants to help journalists raise their voices

 Journalists wanting a neat way to back up and showcase their writing should take a look at Authory: a new service that promises to save your work from tumbling into a digital abyss — i.e. being buried 10,000 leagues down, folded under the ceaseless deluge of new data, where few eyeballs stray. Read More

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Dear Floyd Mayweather, you’re why the SEC exists

 Dear Floyd Mayweather: While perusing Facebook, I chanced across your post drumming up interest in the upcoming Stox initial coin offering (ICO). I understand your motivations in wanting to diversify your portfolio of investments, but I caution that your actions are reckless and potentially financially damaging to you and your fans. Read More

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Gas pump card skimmer now phones home

 In an unsurprising move by credit card thieves, police have found a new credit card skimmer that sends stolen data via SMS. By tearing apart cheap phones, crooks are able to send credit card information to their location instantly without having to access the skimmer physically or rely on an open Bluetooth connection. Brian Krebs received images of the skimmer from an unnamed source. They… Read More

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Placecast launches new product to verify the location data in mobile ad campaigns

 Alistair Goodman, CEO of mobile marketing company Placecast, said location data is the “next frontier” when it comes to ad measurement and verification. For example, Goodman pointed to a study by Factual and the Mobile Marketing Association that found that 40 percent of marketers are concerned about the quality of location data. He said there are a number of different… Read More

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Mattress startup Purple merges with NY shell company in $1.1 billion deal

 Purple, a Utah-based mattress startup announced today it will merge with Global Partner Acquisition Corp (GPAC) in a deal that would value the company at $1.1 billion. Purple was already well on its way to that valuation when we got to take a sneak peak at operations at the company’s headquarters in the small town of Alpine, Utah and its giant factory an hour away in rural Grantsville… Read More

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Dropbox is reportedly inching closer to a potential IPO

 Dropbox may be taking another step in its very slow shuffle toward an IPO, and is now working with Goldman Sachs to prepare documents that could be filed as soon as this year, according to a report by Bloomberg. The company is expected to hire Goldman Sachs as the lead advisor of the IPO process, according to the report. Read More

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Timekettle’s WT2 real-time translation earpieces enable ordinary conversation across language barriers

At TechCrunch’s event in Shenzhen last month, we had a chance to test out the WT2, a clever and ambitious device from startup TimeKettle. It’s a pair of wireless earpieces; each person in a multilingual conversation wears one, and they translate what’s said into the language spoken by each participant. Essentially it’s a Babel fish, though admittedly a rough draft of one. Read More

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Peer5 raises $2.5M for its peer-to-peer approach to streaming video

 Peer5, which helps publishers stream video to large audiences, is announcing that it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. I wrote about the startup earlier this year when it was part of Y Combinator. CEO Hadar Weiss said he raised the funding after YC Demo Day from investors including FundersClub, Oriza Ventures, Tank Hill Ventures, Leorsa Group, Ed Roman and Buddy Anheim. In… Read More

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A running list of every company backed by the $93B SoftBank Vision Fund

 When SoftBank announced the first close of its $93 billion Vision Fund back in May, it was hard to understand how the company would even manage to deploy so much capital in an already saturated ecosystem. For starters, it seemed like a good idea to keep a running list of all Vision Fund investments for reference. We will update this list on a regular basis. Read More

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