It’s been a banner year for The Pokémon Company: Pokémon GO was a global phenomenon and the latest full-on Pokégame for the 3DS sold very well indeed. One would expect the company to be doing well financially — perhaps even doubling or tripling last year’s profits. Well, apparently it quinvigintupled them, which is to say
Month: May 2017
Like Box’s last quarterly check-in, the company once again touted that it had free cash flow in the first quarter this year as part of its Q1 earnings report today — a signal that Wall Street may be looking for as a barometer of its future health as a company. Box in the last quarter
For the past few years, the Los Angeles Auto Show has hosted the Top Ten Automotive Startups competition. The event is now open for submissions through July 15, so if you’ve got an automotive app, service or cool bit of tech, now’s your chance. The 10 winners will be featured at the LAAS Automobility Technology
The BlackBerry KEYone, which goes on sale in its home country of Canada today, is a weird device. But it’s weird not because it wasn’t designed in-house, and instead was handled by partner TCL; it’s weird because it’s strangely successful at pulling off an odd balancing act of combining modern functionality with the same kind
Daily fantasy sports are too complicated for the average fan. Or at least that’s the thesis behind Boom Fantasy, a daily fantasy sports experience designed for the everyday sports fan. Instead of sorting through thousands of players to craft lineups from scratch, Boom Fantasy players answer a series of simple questions – like “who will
Android Pay launched in Canada on Wednesday, with support for a number of major banks at launch, and additional banks to be added soon. The Android Pay debut in Canada was teased at Google’s I/O developer conference keynote earlier this month, and reported as imminent last week by MobileSyrup. The launch today includes support for
If you’re about to replace your roof, Tesla has you covered, but roofs have a long life span, and besides, not all of us have the luxury/misery of having a roof to replace in the first place. Most of us have walls with glass in them, however, and that’s the window of opportunity SolarGaps is
This is the best way to get up to speed on everything going on in tech. Kleiner Perkins venture partner Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report is essentially the state of the union for the technology industry. The widely anticipated slide deck compiles the most informative research on what’s getting funded, how Internet adoption is
Pokémon GO-maker Niantic says it has driven 500 million visitors to sponsored locations like McDonald’s Japan where gamers can score a special virtual good. But it never said how much those sponsors paid per visitor delivered by the game. But in an interview published yesterday by Brazil’s Globo newspaper, Niantic VP of strategic partnerships Mathieu
CoreOS is hosting its user conference in San Francisco today. Unsurprisingly, the company had a few announcements to make at the event. Most of these centered around its Tectonic platform for managing Kubernetes-based container infrastructures. For the most part, these updates are pretty straightforward. Tectonic now uses the latest version of Kubernetes, for example (1.6.4),
You probably still get plenty of snail mail at your home — whether that’s wedding invitations, bills or advertisements for new credit cards. But despite all the efforts to kill that snail mail and get it sent directly to an inbox, there really doesn’t yet seem to be a replacement to that experience of getting
Concord wants to be your all-in-one solution for everything related to contracts. The startup just raised a $3.7 million Series A round from Alven Capital, with existing investors Streamlined Ventures, Bruno Deschamps and Thibault Poutrel also participating. Many departments rely on contracts to work with clients, suppliers, legal partners and more. But it’s still a
Robot arms have come a long way since the 1960’s when George C. Devol and Joseph Engelberger created the earliest industrial models. Those had two-finger grippers that, in retrospect, look fit to pluck a rubber ducky out of a bin in a carnival game, but nothing too sophisticated. By now, robots in factories and warehouses
Move over duckface. Shove off rainbow spew. There’s a new selfie game in town and it wants to turn your 2D visage into uncannily accurate 3D — then splice that axiomatic piece of you into animated cartoon suits that rock out, strut their disco stuff, skateboard, look coy, relaxed or laugh maniacally. Think: realistic-looking stickers
Salesforce Ventures is announcing a $50 million fund to invest in “cloud consulting” startups. The corporate venture arm is making a special effort to finance companies that are synergistic to the tech giant’s business. The team has a “strong commitment to our consulting partners to make sure that we continue to have the partners that
Magicpin, an India-based company that combines elements of Foursquare with offline-to-online services, has closed a $7 million Series B round. The money comes from existing backers Lightspeed India Partners, Westbridge and undisclosed overseas investors, and it takes the startup past $10 million raised to date. The two-year-old company was founded by former Lightspeed investor Anshoo
Reddit is continuing its march towards becoming a social network after it added location tagging to its mobile app. The service is famously known as “the front page of the internet,” but this year it has rolled out features that make it much more like Twitter or Facebook. Back in March, Reddit introduced user profile
Through Lyft and Uber, the sharing economy has taken a charge at cabs. Airbnb is making hotels palpitate in their pants. If TRVL has its way, it’s the travel agencies’ turn to tremble. Armed with 2.7 million freshly minted dollars from a conglomerate of angel investors, the company is hoping to augment services like Booking.com,
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage at Code Conference on Tuesday and talked about why he owns a large position in Twitter. “There’s a real opportunity to make that a valuable economic asset,” said Ballmer, defending his decision to invest in what has been a volatile ride for the social media company. He
Twitter is testing a new interface for its mobile applications on iOS and Android, which involves rounded profile images, buttons and other features. It’s unclear what advantage going “round” would bring, as the style’s adoption among app makers and designers tends to be more of a trend that ebbs and flows over time, rather than
Alex Wilhelm is the editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News and co-host of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast. More posts by this contributor: 2017 is miles ahead of 2016 when it comes to IPOs. Instead of the mere two tech IPOs we had this time last year, there have been at least 10, depending on what you
The tech industry is opening its eyes to the possibilities of raising money using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Ethereum through ‘initial coin offerings,’ and it’s about to see the first ICO from a major venture-backed company. Last week, Kik, a messaging app popular with young people in North America, announced an ambitious plan to launch
The makers of Epic!, one of many apps jockeying to become a “Netflix for books,” have raised $8 million in a round led by Reach Capital, the education-specialized venture firm. Additional investors in the Series C included TransLink Capital, Rakuten Ventures, Menlo Ventures, WI Harper, Brighteye Ventures and Innovation Endeavors. Epic! at its core is
Twitter will now allow you to review Direct Messages received from people who you don’t follow before responding to them in a consolidated inbox, adopting a feature that Facebook has long used for its own messaging feature and app. The new DM review inbox function works for anyone who’s turned on the setting that allows
Taxi drivers in Spain are protesting against ride-hailing apps Uber and Cabify today, holding strikes in multiple cities and a protest march in the capital. Early reports suggest 20,000 protestors took to the streets in Madrid. Meanwhile, both companies are continuing to recruit drivers — using another Spanish startup, Jobandtalent, to help them do so.
CrowdJustice, a startup that brings crowdfunding to “public interest” litigation, has raised $2 million in seed funding for U.S. expansion. First Round Capital, and Venrock led the round, with participation from Bessemer, and previous investor Kindred Capital. The company also counts Bela Hatvany (first investor in JustGiving) and Jonathan McKay (Chairman of JustGiving) as backers.
Taxi drivers in Spain are striking today in cities including Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia to protest at what they see as the exploitative practices of ride-hailing transportation apps Uber and Cabify. Cab drivers in Barcelona are staging a 24 hour strike and will be taking their distinctive black and yellow cars to Madrid to take
During London Tech Week, The Europas Conference & Awards (in partnership with TechCrunch) will see the highest concentration of tech investors and corporate players in one place. No other event can match it. What better time to pitch your startup? But there’s more than one way you can make an impact with your startup there.
Naspers has taken a bite out of yet another food delivery startup, with its commitment to lead and $80 million investment in the Indian online ordering and food delivery startup, Swiggy. The global internet and entertainment conglomerate has invested in several online food ordering and delivery companies worldwide, including the Brazilian company iFood and, in
On this week’s episode of Technotopia we talk to Sarah Kaufman, the assistant director at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management. Kaufman is working to create new transit opportunities for New Yorkers — and the world — and expects the future to be quite interesting. Her prediction? As we move toward self-driving cars