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…
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…
AUrate, a startup selling gold jewelry directly to consumers, announced today that it has raised $13 million in Series A funding. The company’s co-founders Bouchra Ezzahraoui and Sophie Kahn said that AUrate’s prices range from $50 to $3,000, but they’re really aiming for what Ezzahraoui called “this new market sweet spot” of $300 to $500.…
Ever since the notch was first added to smartphones, everyone in the world except the deeply deluded and my editor have wished it gone. Oppo has done it — or at least shown that it can be done — with a demonstration unit at Mobile World Congress in Shanghai. iPhone users can console themselves that…
Big money continues to flow in India’s growing education market. Bangalore-based Unacademy, which operates an online learning platform to help millions prepare for competitive exams in India, has raised $50 million to further scale its reach. The Series D financing round was led by Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures, with…
Kitty Hawk, the flying car company backed by Google’s Larry Page and led by Udacity co-founder Sebastian Thrun, has struck a deal with aerospace giant Boeing. The terms of the strategic partnership are vague. But it appears the two companies will collaborate on urban air mobility, particularly around safety and how autonomous and piloted vehicles…
Paul Asel is managing partner of NGP Capital and a global technology investor for more than 25 years. More posts by this contributor Technology innovation on the second half of the chessboard SoftBank and Andreesen Horowitz (a16z) recently announced new funds that reinforce the increasing scale of the venture industry. SoftBank announced its intent to…
Welcome to this week’s transcribed edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We’re running an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts This is Your Life in Silicon Valley in words – so you can read from wherever you are. This is Your Life in Silicon Valley was originally started by Sunil Rajaraman and…
Messaging platform Telegram has added a new bunch of location-based features via an update. Users of the latest version of the app will find an ‘Add People Nearby’ setting which they can use to quickly exchange contact details without the need to type in digits. Coupled with a prior update, which lets Telegram users control…
The logistics division of JD.com, Alibaba’s closest e-commerce competitor in China, has raised 1.5 billion yuan (about $218 million) to invest in logistics-related companies and technology. Limited partners in the new fund include JD Logistics and JD.com, as well as undisclosed listed companies and government-led funds, reported Reuters. JD Logistics, which became a standalone subsidiary…
