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SoundCloud sinks as leaks say layoffs buy little time
A tense scene unfolded yesterday as user-generated music streaming service SoundCloud held an all-hands meeting to explain to employees why it suddenly had to lay off 40 percent of its staff last week. Exiting team members wanted to know why they weren’t warned, while those who survived the cuts wanted assurance that the cost reductions would keep the company afloat for the long-run. Read More
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Bitly sells a majority stake to Spectrum Equity for $63M
Bitly is announcing that it has raised $63 million in additional funding from Spectrum Equity — a deal that gives the growth equity firm a majority stake in Bitly.
Founded in 2008, the company was initially known for providing a handy link shortening tool for anyone with a Twitter account, but it’s now focused on using link shortening as a way to provide more control and data to… Read More
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Elton John invests in Qloo, a startup that analyzes your taste
Qloo, which bills itself as “the cultural artificial intelligence data platform,” has raised $6.5 million in additional funding from AXA Strategic Ventures and Elton John.
Yes, that’s the Elton John who co-wrote and performed “Tiny Dancer” and “Candle in the Wind.” He’s actually not the first big name to back the New York startup — actor… Read More
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Optimizely hires Jay Larson as its new CEO
Co-founder Dan Siroker is stepping down as the CEO of Optimizely. He’s handing the role over to Jay Larson, who was previously CEO at Birst, as well as an executive at Mercury Interactive and Success Factors. Datatron raises $2.7M to help companies query real-time and historical data
Fresh out of 500 startups, Datatron has raised $2.7 million in seed financing for its data-savvy assistant, Emma. But under the somewhat trite coating of an assistant, Datatron is making it easier for employees to gather insights from the complex web of historical and real-time data. Read More
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Abstract launches as the versioning system of record for design
Sales teams have Salesforce. Engineers have GitHub. But designers have always had slim pickings. Abstract, launching today, is a workflow platform and system of record built for designers to solve the debilitating frustrations of the design process. The company is targeting Sketch users out of the gate, with ambitions to accommodate the whole gamut of visual file types. Read More
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Buoyant raises $10.5M Series A round as it looks to bring service meshes to the masses
Buoyant, a company founded by former Twitter infrastructure engineers William Morgan and Oliver Gould, today announced that it has raised a $10.5 million Series A round. CompareAsiaGroup scores $50M from investors including IFC, Alibaba and Goldman Sachs
CompareAsiaGroup, which runs online financial marketplaces in seven Asian countries, has closed a $50 million Series B. The round was led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and includes capital from new investors Alibaba, SBI Group, and H&Q Utrust. Returning investors also participated. Read More
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Foodles uses connected fridges to modernize your office canteen
French startup Foodles thinks office canteens should work more like food delivery startups. The company delivers fresh food every morning into smart fridges that sit in your office. Employees can then buy cheap lunches using a card or a phone. Think about Foodles as a sort of hybrid company between vending machines and those popular full-stack delivery startups in Paris, such as Frichti,… Read More
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How Bassem Hamdy aims to disrupt the construction industry
Construction – the actual process of putting brick on brick to build something – is still in the dark ages. While there is plenty of technology out there to help plan massive projects few people are thinking hard about what it takes to actually build. Luckily Bassem Hamdy is one the case. Hamdy works for Procore Technologies where he and his team build products to help… Read More
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