Startups
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Acast introduces programmatic ads to its podcast platform
Acast says it’s time for podcasts to embrace programmatic advertising. With its publishing and monetization tools, Acast has already moved beyond the generally low-tech state of podcast advertising, but launching a marketplace for programmatic (i.e. automated algorithmic) ad-buying is the next step in that evolution. Read More
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Algolia raises $53 million for its search engine API
French startup Algolia just raised a $53 million Series B round led by Accel, a couple of years after raising $18.3 million with… Accel also leading the round. So it looks like it’s a love story between the VC firm and the software-as-a-service startup. Gamer chat tool Discord secretly raised ~$50M as insiders cashed out
It’s been a rocky road to glory for Discord, a startup whose iPad battle arena game, “Fates Forever,” earned it a top spot at our 2013 TechCrunch Disrupt show, but wound up flopping with users. What a difference a few years makes. After pivoting to a voice and text chat tool for video game teams and trash talkers in 2015, Discord’s current trajectory makes it one of… Read More
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Rebelmail rebrands as Rebel and adds one-click checkout to its interactive email platform
Rebel has been helping marketers do more with their emails — so that those emails become interactive experiences (with capabilities like galleries and quizzes) in and of themselves. Now the startup is adding the ability for consumers to complete their purchase from an email. Read More
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Stem raises $8M to get music artists paid more seamlessly
While music streaming has become more and more commoditized, artists still have a wide array of places to distribute their songs like Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music — but getting paid properly can start to complicate things. That problem gets even more difficult when there are multiple people collaborating on the same song and it’s not clear who is getting how much of a cut from… Read More
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Pinterest raises $150M at a $12.3B valuation as it makes a full press into visual search
Pinterest said today that the company has raised $150 million in additional capital at a valuation of $12.3 billion as it makes a further full-court press on its visual recognition and search pitch to investors and advertisers — and perhaps one day Wall Street. Pinterest last raised $367 million in additional financing at an $11 billion valuation in 2015. In recent years, the company… Read More
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Snap acquires Placed to prove geofilters drive store visits
If Snapchat’s growth remains slow, it needs to maximize how much it can charge per ad by demonstrating they inspire purchases and physical store foot traffic. So today, Snap confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s acquired location-based analytics and ad measurement startup Placed for an undisclosed sum. Placed will help Snap scale its measurement systems like Snap To Store so… Read More
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Three computer vision experts join TechCrunch’s Tel Aviv event
Who’s going to be the next Mobileye? Computer vision is a hot topic for the tech industry, and especially in Israel. It seems like Israeli entrepreneurs are one step ahead when it comes to developing computer vision technology. That’s why we’re excited to announce that three computer vision experts are going to join us on stage to share their knowledge about this space. First… Read More
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Evaptainers decouples refrigeration from electricity to help rural farms and families
Some 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity worldwide today, most in rural areas across Southeast Asia, China, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. While others are focused on wiring up those places and developing new energy sources, a startup called Evaptainers has created a kind of refrigerator that requires no electricity, but instead runs on water. Read More
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Sherpa turns Instagram’s best photos into a travel guide
There are many places to find travel inspiration. But a new application called Sherpa launching this week believes that some of the best travel ideas can be found on Instagram. The iOS application curates photos from top Instagram photographers and turns them into visual travel guides that are augmented with data from other services, like Foursquare and Wikipedia. Read More
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