Nearly every online publisher has launched or announced a paywall — but of course, even the ones that are successful won’t convince every reader, or even the majority of readers, to sign up. Now Piano and True[x] say they’ve found a more effective way to monetize the rest of the audience, without threatening crucial subscription…
Agora, a developer of cloud communication APIs, will create products for new markets and verticals after raising a $70 million Series C led by Coatue Management. Existing investors SIG, Morningside Capital and Shunwei Capital also returned for the round, which brings Agora’s total funding so far to $125 million. The startup’s APIs are used by…
500 Startups has set its sights on Vietnam, a historically dormant market that’s recently emerged as one of the most rapidly-expanding tech ecosystems in Southeast Asia. The Silicon Valley startup accelerator and venture capital fund has raised $14 million for 500 Startups Vietnam, it’s Ho Chi Minh City-based micro-fund focused on Vietnam-headquartered startups or companies…
BFR, the monster rocket that will cost SpaceX roughly $5 billion to develop, has a new name. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted late Monday night that he has renamed the company’s largest (and yet to be built) BFR rocket to Starship. Or more precisely, the spaceship portion will be called Starship. The rocket booster used…
It was a stormy Monday for cloud stocks today with the general trend pointing way down. Okta stock took the biggest beating, down over 15 percent to $48.67, and even mighty Salesforce had its worst day since 2016, according to CNBC, down 8.7 percent to $121.01. Wall Street was apparently disenchanted with just about every…
Facebook’s founder is facing pressure to accept an invite from eight international parliaments, with lawmakers wanting to question him about negative impacts his social network is having on democratic processes globally. Last week Facebook declined an invitation from five of these parliaments. The elected representatives of Facebook users want Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions in…
According to a new report from Thurott, Microsoft has been working on a new console in the Xbox One family. This cheaper model could play regular Xbox One games, but there would be no Blu-Ray drive. This move would lower the price of the entry-level Xbox One. An Xbox One S officially starts at $299…
There are plenty of weather apps to choose from on the App Store, but the newly released Weather Up app is doing something different. Instead of just offering the daily weather, it will now offer Event Forecasts — meaning forecasts that sync with your calendars so you can see what the weather will be for…
When Aileen Lee, the former Kleiner Perkins partner and founder of the seed-stage venture capital firm Cowboy Ventures, coined the term “unicorn” in 2013 on this very site, there were just 39 companies that had earned the title. She called them “the lucky/genius few.” Her definition: U.S. software startups launched since 2003 worth more than…
Tesla is now taking orders for the Model 3 from customers in China, according to its website. Reuters was the first to report that Tesla is taking orders in China. Tesla won’t confirm or comment on the information published on its own China-focused website. Tesla CEO Elon Musk did say in a tweet Thursday that…
