Venture capitalists have valued direct-to-consumer telehealth business Ro at $500 million with an $85 million Series B financing, sources confirm to TechCrunch. The fresh round of funding comes seven months after Ro — widely known for its men’s health brand Roman, a cloud pharmacy for erectile dysfunction — made headlines with an $88 million Series…
Some viewers following live coverage of the Notre-Dame Cathedral broadcast on YouTube were met with a strangely out of place info box offering facts about the September 11 attacks. BuzzFeed first reported the appearance of the misplaced fact-check box on at least three live streams from major news outlets. Twitter users also took note of…
Smart speakers’ global installed base is on track to top 200 million by the end of this year, according to a report out today from analysts at Canalys. Specifically, the firm forecasts the installed base will grow by 82.4 percent, from 114 million units in 2018 to 207.9 million in 2019. The U.S. will continue to…
A day after the big Episode IX reveal, Disney and subsidiary Lucas film announced that it will be donating $1.5 million to FIRST . The non-profit group was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 to help teach STEM through initiatives like robotics competitions. Disney’s money will go to provide education and outreach to the underserved…
I sat down with Menlo Ventures partner Shawn Carolan this week to talk about his early investment in Uber. Menlo, if you remember, led Uber’s Series B and has made a hefty sum over the year selling shares in the ride-hailing company. I’ll have more on that later; for now, I want to share some…
In a press conference today in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president laid out a number of initiatives focused on helping accelerate the U.S. role in the 5G race. “This is, to me, the future,” Trump said, opening the press conference flanked by Ajit Pai, Ivanka Trump and a room full of communications representatives…
In the almost weekly tradition of Facebook talking about something embarrassing they did on a Friday, the company is now fessing up to the fact that thousands of their next-gen virtual reality headset controllers have “easter-egg” messages inscribed on internal components that weren’t meant to be on non-prototype editions. “Tens of thousands” of unreleased consumer…
The Los Angeles startup scene has come a long way in the three-and-a-half years since Marlon Nichols, Troy Carter and Trevor Thomas launched Cross Culture Ventures. The city and its surrounding Orange County exurbs were at the beginning of a venture capital surge that has seen invested capital in the region rise from $3.63 billion…
Earlier this week, Amazon confirmed that it would be acquiring Canvas, a little known Colorado based startup that creates autonomous driving systems for warehouse fulfillment. It’s the latest in a long line of moves that finds the company looking seriously at automation for the future of retail plans. Last year, the company announced the launch…
Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, who resigned from the company in 2017, still stands to make billions in the company’s initial public offering, expected in May. The ride-hailing giant dropped its S-1 this afternoon, confirming plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “UBER.” The company did not disclose the valuation…
