London is one of the world’s biggest markets for consumers that travel using ride-hailing services. Is it now also becoming one of the most crowded when it comes to the companies offering the transportation, too? Today, India’s Ola confirmed that it is the latest of the wave of app-based ride-hailing providers to receive a license […]
In China, striving for accuracy in a piece of facial recognition software isn’t enough. As Alibaba’s e-wallet affiliate Alipay has recently demonstrated, the way software presents a user’s look is also crucial to its success. On Tuesday, Alipay announced on social media platform Weibo (in Chinese) that it’s added beauty filters to its pay-with-face system […]
NASA has completed a key test in preparing for its planned crewed space mission to return to the Moon, successfully testing the Launch Abort System (LAS for short) for its Orion spacecraft. This is the first full stress test of the LAS, which involved launching both an Orion test craft and the full LAS system […]
The Europas Awards for European Tech Startups came around again last week (Thursday 27th June), and once again proved that Europe’s enormous diversity in startups continues to shine through on the world stage. Once again TechCrunch was the exclusive media sponsor of the awards, alongside new “tech, culture & society” event creator The Pathfounder. Attendees, […]
French startup Cozycozy.com wants to make it easier to search for accommodation across a wide range of services. This isn’t the first aggregator in the space and probably not the last one. But this time, it isn’t just about hotels. When you plan a trip with multiple stops, chances are you end up with a […]
Google’s vice president of finance, has joined Postmates’ board of directors, the latest sign that the on-demand food delivery startup is prepping to take the company public. Postmates announced Friday that Kristin Reinke, vice president of Finance at Google, will join the San Francisco startup as an independent director. Reinke has been with Google since […]
Spotify seems to have learned little from the Facebook developer platform’s scandals despite getting a huge boost from the social network in its early days. Spotify has been caught allowing record labels to grab tons of unnecessary user data and permissions to even control their accounts just so people can “pre-save” upcoming song releases. An […]
Latin America-based Grow, which formed after micromobility companies Grin and Yellow merged earlier this year, has hit 10 million rides. Grin, which first started operating about one year ago in Mexico, has since expanded into 23 cities across Latin America. That is, of course, thanks in part to its mergers with Yellow and Ride. This […]
Big money continues to flow in India’s growing education market. Bangalore-based Unacademy, which operates an online learning platform to help millions prepare for competitive exams in India, has raised $50 million to further scale its reach. The Series D financing round was led by Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures, with […]
Open, a Bangalore-based startup that operates a “neo-bank” to help businesses automate and run their finances, has bagged $30 million in a new funding round as investors look to replicate a globally tried and tested business idea in emerging markets. The Series B financing round for the two-year-old startup was led by Tiger Global with […]