Hello and 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 a new e-commerce startup, Pietra. Before that, I wrote about the flurry of IPO filings. Remember, you can…
VW Group of America said Friday it has reached an agreement with thousands of U.S. customers over alleged inflated fuel economy information on about 98,000 gas-powered vehicles from its four brands, Audi, Bentley, Porsche and Volkswagen. The agreement involves alleged misinformation about fuel economy on 98,000 vehicles, or about 3.5% of the model year 2013-2017…
A hacker has compromised Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account. A stream of rogue tweets — including racial slurs — were posted to the Twitter chief executive’s own Twitter account just after 3:30pm ET. One of the tweets posted a Twitter handle for someone who purported to take credit for the account takeover. That account was quickly suspended.…
YouTube has found itself front-and-center in the recent debates about free speech, the internet and how the online world is shaping our offline lives. There’s no denying the site’s tremendous reach and influence, but that’s also why it’s faced so much criticism for the role it can play in spreading misinformation, harassment and hate speech…
Nigerian fintech firm Interswitch has been circulating in business news around a possible IPO on the London Stock Exchange. Last month Bloomberg News ran a story—based on unnamed sources—reporting the financial services firm had hired investment banks to go public on the LSE later in 2019. The piece spurred additional aggregated press. That Interswitch—which provides…
In light of gig worker protection legislation Assembly Bill 5 making its way through California’s legislature, Uber and Lyft are amping up their efforts to do whatever they can to prevent it from happening. And in the event that the bill does pass, which would force Uber and Lyft to make their drivers W-2 employees,…
Scott Sanborn Contributor 2019 has already been an active year for U.S. tech IPOs. Some highly anticipated unicorns, such as Uber and Lyft, have disappointed investors with their IPO debuts and their first results as public companies. Others, such as Fiverr, Zoom and CrowdStrike, have soared. And food-tech brand Beyond Meat (two words you normally…
The future is female and all you fierce female founders have one last shot at receiving 30 minutes of face time with some of the industry’s leading female funders. Say what now? We’re talking the All Raise “ask me anything” (AMA) sessions at Disrupt SF 2019 — and applications close tomorrow, August 30. All Raise,…
Koru Kids, the London-based startup that helps you find and manage childcare, has raised £10 million in new funding to scale its platform. The Series A round is led by Atomico, with Atomico Partner Niall Wass joining the company’s board. Also participating are previous investors AlbionVC, Forward Partners, Samos, JamJar, Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital,…
Alphabet Chief Legal Officer David Drummond is at the center of a media firestorm, following a new Medium post authored by a former Google employee who was engaged in a years-long relationship with Drummond more than 10 years ago. Though the extramarital affair was originally reported on last fall by the New York Times in…
