Contentful, a Berlin- and San Francisco-based startup that provides content management infrastructure for companies like Spotify, Nike, Lyft and others, today announced that it has raised a $33.5 million Series D funding round led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from OMERS Ventures and Salesforce Ventures, as well as existing investors General Catalyst, Benchmark, Balderton Capital and Hercules. In…
After a few days with the game, I’m no expert. Hell, I’m not even entirely sure I’m confident enough to take on all comers. I am, however, most definitely hooked. This scrappy little gaming upstart just might have a future ahead of it, after all. I admit that I’ve not played a Smash Bros. title…
Netflix is increasing its efforts in Asia after it commissioned more local content and began testing more aggressive price points, but one local rival is hitting back with a program to spotlight promising creators in the region. Malaysia-headquartered Iflix, which operates in 26 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, today announced a $5 million program…
Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, the world’s largest telecom equipment manufacturer and second-largest smartphone maker, has been arrested in Vancouver, Canada on suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran, as first reported by The Globe and Mail. Huawei confirmed the news with TechCrunch, adding that Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, faces unspecified charges in the…
Workato, a startup that offers an integration and automation platform for businesses that competes with the likes of MuleSoft, SnapLogic and Microsoft’s Logic Apps, today announced that it has raised a $25 million Series B funding round from Battery Ventures, Storm Ventures, ServiceNow and Workday Ventures. Combined with its previous rounds, the company has now received investments…
Google has made a rare investment in Japan after the company led a follow-on round for AI and machine learning startup ABEJA. The deal amount is undisclosed but a little digging suggests that it is likely a single-digit million US dollar figure. That’s because six-year-old ABEJA did confirm that it has now raised JPY 6 billion ($53…
Podcasting has grown tremendously in recent years, and a Stockholm-based company called Acast is looking to help all those podcasters make money. Acast is announcing today that it has raised $35 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to more than $67 million. Investors in the round include AP1 (which manages some of…
With Big Dog busy pulling Santa’s sleigh, what horrible robotic hybrid is left to haunt our dreams? How about Elowan! Elowan is a project out of the MIT Media Lab and it’s essentially a mobile houseplant. The plant sends signals to a wheeled transport that rolls back and forth trying to find light. Created by…
Flutter, Google’s toolkit for building cross-platform applications, hit version 1.0 today. Traditionally, the project always focused on iOS and Android apps, but as the company announced today, it’s now looking at bringing Flutter to the web, too. That project, currently called Hummingbird, is essentially an experimental web-based implementation of the Flutter runtime. “From the beginning,…
Wing, the drone delivery X project that “graduated” into full company status under the Alphabet umbrella this past July, is taking flight in Europe. Today, it announced that it will start a new pilot in Finland beginning in the spring of 2019 in Helsinki, delivering goods and packages of up to 1.5 kilograms (about 3.3…
