Singapore’s digital fintech companies are attracting investor attention and dollars in 2019. Fresh from Singapore Life — a digital-only insurer — raising $33 million across two recently closed rounds, so Credit Culture, a digital loan specialist — has banked SG$40 million ($29.5 million) ahead of its imminent launch. Credit Culture has raised its capital from…
It’s a dark day to work in media. On the heels of news that TechCrunch parent company Verizon Media Group (formerly Oath) would lay off roughly 800 workers, BuzzFeed has announced its own substantial staffing cuts. And though they were anticipated, Gannett also made substantial cuts to newsrooms around the US on Wednesday. In a memo…
In 2019, we still don’t really know what to do about fake news. With nothing to disincentivize viral hyperpartisan headlines and other exercises in confirmation bias, online misinformation seems to run as rampant as ever. It’s a tricky problem, particularly because it’s one that requires the readers most drawn to too outrageous to be true…
London-based edtech startup, pi-top, has unboxed a new flagship learn-to-code product, demoing the “go anywhere” Pi-powered computer at the Bett Show education fare in London today. Discussing the product with TechCrunch ahead of launch, co-founder and CEO Jesse Lozano talked up the skills the company hopes students in the target 12-to-17 age range will develop and…
Groww, a startup hoping to make saving and investment opportunities more widely available to young people in India, has closed a $6.2 million Series A to grow its business. Founded in 2017, the Bengaluru-based company was part of Y Combinator in the U.S. last year and it went on to raise a $1.6 million “pre-Series A”…
Alchemist, which began as an experiment to better promote enterprise entrepreneurs, has morphed into a well-established Silicon Valley accelerator. To prove it, San Francisco-based Alchemist is announcing a fresh $2.5 million investment ahead of its 20th demo day on Wednesday. Juniper Networks, a networking and cybersecurity solutions business, has led the round, with participation from…
M. Umair Siddiqui Contributor M. Umair Siddiqui, PhD is the chief scientist of Phase Four. In case you missed it, space is being democratized — and quickly. Last November, from a sheep farm in New Zealand, California-based Rocket Lab launched six payloads via their “It’s Business Time” small Electron rocket. The successful launch brings Rocket…
Varsity Tutors, the online learning platform that launched in 2011, has today announced the acquisition of Veritas Prep. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but, according to the press release, the Veritas Prep team will remain at its Calabasas, CA office and that the product will continue on as a separate brand. Veritas…
The global crypto market may have tanked last year, but notable names have joined forces to develop Bitcoin and blockchain financial services in Japan, which has emerged as one of the world’s most crypto-friendly markets. Blockstream, a blockchain startup founded by Bitcoin contributors, announced this week that it has launched a joint venture in Japan…
Last September, two former National Football League players launched an app called Politiscope to track the voting records of members of Congress and the bills that they were introducing — and provide non-partisan information about what those bills and votes would mean to voters. The pro-football-playing brothers, Walter Powell Jr. and Brandon Williams, launched the…
