Startups
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R.I.P. Imzy
Imzy, the kinder, gentler online community platform, will be shutting down on June 23rd. Company co-founder Dan McComas made the announcement in a blog post today, stating his apologies and explaining to the community Imzy just couldn’t find its place in the market. Airbnb is running its own internal university to teach data science
Tech companies, and increasingly even non-tech companies, are struggling with the fact that there are not enough trained data scientists to fill market demand. Every company has their own strategy for hiring and training, but Airbnb has taken things a step further — running its own university-style program, complete with a custom course-numbering system. Read More
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Tennis star Serena Williams joins SurveyMonkey’s board
Serena Williams (yes, THAT Serena Williams) has joined the board of consumer survey startup SurveyMonkey, along with Intuit CEO Brad Smith. This is the tennis superstar’s first venture into Silicon Valley and, according to a SurveyMonkey spokesperson, came about at the suggestion of fellow board member and Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. Read More
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Circle with Disney raises $10 million for its parental control device for families
Circle Media, the company behind Circle with Disney – a device that helps parents enforce their home’s internet rules and restrictions – has raised $10 million in Series A funding, the company announced this morning. The round was led by early stage venture fund Relay Ventures. There was another private equity investment in the round, but the parties didn’t want to… Read More
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Robotic toymaker Sphero unveils Ultimate Lightning McQueen — a chatty, smartphone-controlled car
While Sphero has released a whole lineup of robotic, Internet-connected toys, it remains best-known for its BB-8 droid from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Today it’s launching its next Disney tie-in — Ultimate Lightning McQueen. This is a car that you can control from your iPhone or Android, based on the Owen Wilson-voiced character from Pixar’s Cars franchise. (Cars 3 is… Read More
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Pinterest opens up autoplay videos in home feed and search with new measurement tools
Pinterest is adding another ad to its array of products, now allowing advertisers to publish video advertising that will automatically play in the home feed and search, as it continues to bulk up and woo advertisers with a different pitch from Facebook and Google. Pinterest has had to make the argument to advertisers that its 175 million users behave differently on Pinterest when compared… Read More
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Our favorite startups from Alchemist Accelerator batch 15
Founded as an enterprise alternative to accelerator stalwarts like Y Combinator, Alchemist Accelerator has managed to assemble a solid track record in its five years of operation. Going into batch 15, 159 companies have graduated from Alchemist, of which 89 have closed institutional rounds and 15 have been acquired.
The latest batch of 19 companies surely hopes to push those numbers even higher. Read More
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Quiqup, a London-based on-demand delivery startup, raises £20M Series B
Quiqup, a London-based delivery startup that operates a “shop on your behalf” app similar to Jinn in Europe or Postmates in the U.S., in addition to a growing B2B business, has raised £20 million in Series B funding. Leading the round is Jobi Capital, a New York-based fund, with participation from Transmed, a leading distributor of fast-moving consumer goods, and existing investors. Read More
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Watch Alchemist Accelerator’s Demo Day right here
Alchemist is one of those rare programs that focuses on enterprise startups. These aren’t your parents’ enterprise companies. Pitches today will span products that help businesses with crowdfunding, wearables, sustainable farming and managing meetings with the power of AI. TechCrunch is pleased to bring you Alchemist Accelerator‘s demo day. Read More
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A newly famous transaction type we need to understand is called the “Initial Coin Offering.” An ICO is akin to an IPO, but in temporal reverse (sort of). Although confusing, it has recently acquired prominence as a favored way to launch a new cryptocurrency.