When “Law and Order” ended its twenty-year run in 2010, it had already cemented its place as one of the longest-running television dramas in history. Its success was a testament to the enduring popularity of a good mystery. Mining that same well of a demand for whodunnits, a roughly one-year-old Los Angeles-based startup called Solve…
Neo-Pentecostal gangs in Brazil, driving out other faiths at gunpoint. A mob of 100 lawyers attacking a hospital in Pakistan to revenge themselves on violent doctors there. Anti-vaxxers, neo-Nazis, and red-pillers. Sometimes it seems like the world has fragmented into a jagged kaleidoscope of countless mobs and subcultures, each more disconcerting than the last. Much…
Hey everyone. Thank you for welcoming me into your inboxes yet again. I’m in Berlin where TechCrunch just pulled off another great Disrupt event, we’ve got a lot of great Europe-focused startup content on the site so get to scrolling if your interest is piqued. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can…
New Orleans declared a state of emergency and shut down its computers after a cyber security event, the latest in a string of city and state governments to be attacked by hackers. Suspicious activity was spotted around 5 a.m. Friday morning. By 8 a.m., there was an uptick in that activity, which included evidence of…
Welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about U.S. VC activity in Europe. Before that, I noted Chinese investor activity in Africa. Remember, you can send me tips,…
Ganes Kesari is a co-founder and head of analytics at Gramener. He helps transform organizations through advisory in building data science teams and adopting insights as data stories. Increasingly, startups across the spectrum are looking to artificial intelligence (AI) to help them solve business problems and drive efficiency. The numerous benefits of building AI capability…
Amazon Alexa can now play podcasts from Apple, making Amazon’s line of Echo devices the first third-party clients to support the Apple Podcasts service, without using AirPlay. Before, this level of support was limited to Apple’s HomePod. According to Amazon, the addition brings Apple’s library of over 800,000 podcasts to Alexa devices. It also allows…
On the heels of Bill.com’s debut, Chicago-based social media software company Sprout Social priced its IPO last night at $17 per share, in the middle of its proposed $16 to $18 per-share range. Selling 8.8 million shares, Sprout raised just under $150 million in its debut. Underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 1.3…
Hulu today is launching a new kind of ad experience that allows brands to specifically target binge-watchers — that is, viewers who are watching multiple episodes of a favorite program over a long stretch of time. These “binge watch ads” utilize machine learning techniques to predict when a viewer has begun to binge watch a…
Reliance Industries, one of India’s largest industrial houses, has acquired a majority stake in NowFloats, an Indian startup that helps businesses and individuals build online presence without any web developing skills. In a regulatory filing on Thursday, Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited said (PDF) it has acquired an 85% stake in NowFloats for 1.4 billion Indian…
