Over a year after WhatsApp officially introduced its app for business customers to its first markets, the previously Android-only WhatsApp Business app is today launching on the iPhone. According to the Facebook-owned company, WhatsApp Business has been adopted by millions of businesses worldwide since its debut, but one of its customers’ most frequent requests was…
Zaver, a Swedish fintech that has built a payments platform to facilitate peer-to-peer trades and more, has picked up just over $1.2 million in seed funding. Backing the burgeoning startup are VC firms Inventure and Inbox Capital, as well as a number of relatively well-established angel investors. They include Joen Bonnier (partner at Atomico), Tom…
SpaceX has completed the first tethered jump for its Starship prototyped, Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet Wednesday evening. Called the Starhopper because it’s making limited hops to test the landing capabilities of the Starship vehicle, the tethered jump represents the first firing of a rocket engine at the company’s Boca Chica launch site. The…
We live in the subscription streaming era of media. Across film, TV, music, and audiobooks, subscription streaming platforms now shape the market. Gaming and podcasting could be next. Where are the startup opportunities in this shift, and in the next shift that will occur? I sat down with Pär-Jörgen “PJ” Pärson, a partner at European…
“We give them the power. That’s the bad part. We buy their products. We sign up for these websites. Delete Facebook, right?” That’s WhatsApp founder Brian Acton’s most recent quote about his former employer Facebook. Acton has seemingly been fueled by his experience running WhatsApp from within Facebook, which has been scrutinized for profiting from…
ByFounders, a relatively new early-stage venture capital firm targeting the Nordic and Baltic regions of Europe, is officially launching its first fund today. The debut fund has closed at €100 million and will be used to back tech startups at pre-seed, seed and in some instances Series A. ByFounders will also do follow on investments…
This morning, Forbes wrote a lengthy profile of Andreessen Horowitz, the now 10-year-old venture firm that its rivals love to hate but nevertheless tend to copy. It’s a great read that revisits some of the firm’s wins and losses and, interestingly, regrets, including the founders’ early predisposition to talk trash about the rest of the…
BuzzFeed and Eko have been working together to create a wide range of interactive videos, and they began launching in the past week or so — starting with this Tasty potato recipe that allows you to customize your ingredients, revealing a bit about your personality in the process. There’s also an interactive Tarot reading, a…
Meet Alcatraz AI a startup that wants to replace all the bade readers in your office with a Face ID-like camera system. Alcatraz has integrated multiple sensors to identify faces and unlock doors effortlessly. If you think about it, it’s weird that fingerprint sensors took off on mobile but everybody is still using plastic badges…
Elvie, the developer of femtech hardware including a silent wearable breast pump and a smart pelvic floor exerciser, is one of the boldest startups around. Led by co-founder and chief executive officer Tania Boler, the London-based business has successfully infiltrated the bro-y community of venture capitalists, which has historically shied away from the “unrelatable” and…
