Amazon’s strategy to bring more brick-and-mortar options into its vast e-commerce empire, and its ambition to sell more pharmaceutical products, today may have found themselves a little more knitted together. The company announced a new service in the US called Counter, a free in-store pick-up service where Amazon shoppers can arrange to collect packages. And…
Pavegen, a UK startup which harvests energy from people’s footsteps and also tracks that data, has raised £2.6m on its crowdfunding push having doubled its initial £950k target. The campaign secured funds from over 1,400 investors, including partnership and anchor investment from major global engineering conglomerate Hinduja Group and family investment firm Tamar Capital. The…
Last night, I stumbled on an interesting tweet thread from Manchester-based PHD student Oli Clark, who argued that conferences should serve vegetarian food as the default option. This would be a reverse of the current situation, where events offer several meat-infused dishes, and scarcely anything for those on a plant-based diet. My hot take 🔥:…
The German police yesterday raided the house of the developer of OmniRAT and seized his laptop, computer and mobile phones probably as part of an investigation into a recent cyber attack, a source told The Hacker News. OmniRAT made headlines in November 2015 when its developer launched it as a legitimate remote administration tool for…
Google has always argued that the data it collects does more than provide power for its targeted ad empire — it also makes its services more useful. But not everyone thinks that Google should be able to suck up a never-ending stockpile of personal data on its users. Today, Google is taking a step towards…
NTWRK, is a fascinating experiment in live video shopping for the iPhone set. It’s been described as a blend of QVC and Twitter and Twitch and they just got a new slice of money from investors like Drake and Live Nation to expand into physical events. There’s been a bunch of attempts at this kind…
If you’re an Instagram user, chances are you’ve encountered a ton of ads for companies trying to sell products directly to consumers, using social networks as storefronts paired with online stores. French startup Taster is doing the same thing with restaurants built specifically for food delivery startups. The startup raised an $8 million funding round…
Alibaba and JD.com have been in a war over the Chinese e-commerce space for a decade or so, but a third player called Pinduoduo has managed to shake up the duopoly in recent times. The startup, which was founded in 2015 by an ex-Googler and went public on the Nasdaq last July, has further flexed…
Warburg Pincus, the private equity fund with over $60 billion under management, is doubling down on Asia after it announced a $4.25 billion fund dedicated to China and Southeast Asia. The firm has been present in China for 25 years, and it has invested over $11 billion in a portfolio of over 120 startups that…
India may have plans to follow France’s footsteps in building a chat app and requiring government employees to use it for official communications. The New Delhi government is said to be pondering about the need to have homegrown email and chat apps, local news outlet Economic Times reported on Thursday. The rationale behind the move…
