Pivots can be the making of a startup, helping teams refocus on a good idea when previous things haven’t worked. But sometimes, they are just one more step on a difficult track. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Adero — an Amazon-backed maker of Bluetooth-enabled tracking tags that until last December was known as TrackR — is laying…
Dixa, a Copenhagen-based startup that offers a platform to help companies provide better and more consistent customer service across multiple channels, has raised $14 million in Series funding. The round is led by Project A Ventures, with participation from early investor SEED Capital. Founded in 2015 by Jacob Vous Petersen and Mads Fosselius, Dixa is…
NASA Kepler space telescope’s “last light” image NASA has released the final view taken by Kepler in September, shortly before the space telescope was retired after nearly a decade of unprecedented discoveries about the universe beyond our solar system. “It bookends the moment of intense excitement nine and a half years earlier when the spacecraft…
Ticketing app Gametime is taking its last-minute approach about as far as it can go, with the launch of a new feature called LastCall. This allows users to purchase tickets through Gametime until 90 minutes after an event has started. Why would you want to do that? Well, prices usually drop precipitously after the event…
The Green New Deal has landed. Proposed by the rising star of the Democratic Party, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Senator Edward Markey, a longtime advocate for decarbonization in both the House and the Senate, the sweeping proposal is a grand vision for what a progressive push to rebuild American institutions for the 21st century looks…
A lengthy antitrust probe into how Facebook gathers data on users has resulted in Germany’s competition watchdog banning the social network giant from combining data on users across its own suite of social platforms without their consent. The investigation of Facebook data-gathering practices began in March 2016. The decision by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, announced…
Cluno, the Munich startup providing what it calls a “car subscription” service, has raised $28 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Valar Ventures, the U.S.-based venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel. Acton Capital Partners and Atlantic Labs, which both backed the company’s Series A round, also participated. It brings total…
UK startup Fabula AI reckons it’s devised a way for artificial intelligence to help user generated content platforms get on top of the disinformation crisis that keeps rocking the world of social media with antisocial scandals. Even Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has sounded a cautious note about AI technology’s capability to meet the complex, contextual, messy…
Last month, Viacom picked up free streaming service Pluto TV for $340 million in cash. This week, the company spoke in more detail about its plans for Pluto TV – including its potential to for ad-supported streaming as well as the ability to market Viacom’s various subscription video properties directly to consumers, similar to how…
Global investor SparkLabs is adding another business line after it announced a new consultancy division that’s aimed at working with Fortune 500 companies and other global corporates keen to deepen their position in tech. Best known for its funds — which cover global deals, a crypto vehicle and a Korea-based fund — and over half a dozen accelerator programs worldwide,…
