Tech watchdog campaign challenges big tech for hiding behind small business

Time and time again, tech’s most powerful companies have pushed the narrative that any threat to their own trillion(ish)-dollar businesses will trickle down, hurting the small companies that rely on their products. But counter to the warm and fuzzy anecdotes that Big Tech has rolled out over

Hong Kong-based fintech XanPool raises $27M for its decentralized payment network

XanPool, a payment infrastructure provider that facilitates faster crypto and fiat settlements, announced today it has raised a $27 million Series A led by Valar Ventures. The round included participation from CMT Digital, Wise founder and chairman Taavet Hinrikus and existing investors Gumi Crypto

Google in talks to invest in Facebook-backed Indian social commerce Meesho

Google has held discussions to invest over $50 million in Indian social commerce startup Meesho, which recently secured $570 million in a financing round, according to a source familiar with the matter. The Android-maker, which has backed over half a dozen startups in India, has yet to make the inv

Bolt Mobility launches in-app navigation for shared e-scooters

"speakable-summary" dir="ltr">Bolt Mobility, a micromobility company co-founded by Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt, has launched an in-app navigation system for its e-scooters dubbed “MobilityOS.” To make this feature easy to use, Bolt’s next generation of scooters, the “Bolt Two

Brex just signed a term sheet for $300M at a $12.3B valuation

Fast-growing fintech Brex has raised $300 million in funding that propels it to decacorn status, just six months after it was valued at $7.4 billion, according to people familiar with the deal. The sources, who wished to remain anonymous since the deal is not yet public (although a term sheet has b

Mesh++ raises $4.9M to make the world more connected than ever

If you’re standing at the water’s edge of the San Francisco Bay, chances are that you have half a dozen high-speed internet providers clamoring for your attention, eager to give you gigabits of internet. That isn’t the case for billions of people in rural communities around the wo

Snap says iOS privacy changes hit its ad business harder than expected

In an earnings call Thursday, Snap said that it failed to meet revenue expectations for its third quarter. Snap reported $1.07 billion in Q3 revenue, missing Wall Street’s hopes that the company would bring in $1.1 billion. The company notched 306 million daily active users, up from the 293 m

Starting your journey to zero trust adoption

“Zero trust” is certainly a buzzword that gets freely thrown around in cybersecurity. But what does it actually mean? Also, why is a zero trust security model and architecture being mandated by the government? What should organizations consider to ensure their success?

Daily Crunch: 'To stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech,' Trump launches social network

To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for October 21, 2021! News today was all over the map, including a number of items dealing with a very particular former U.S. pr

Red Hat continues to grow, but IBM’s struggles continue

IBM has been in the midst of a strategy shift with a focus on hybrid cloud and AI since Arvind Krishna was promoted to CEO in last year. Red Hat, the software company it purchased for $34 billion in 2018 has been at the center of it all. With the company reporting earnings yesterday, the financial

Potential winners and losers line up as Plaid pushes deeper into payments

So Plaid now calls itself a payments company. It was only a matter of time, really. Earlier today, the data and connectivity startup announced a new payments partner ecosystem that will extend its existing payments infrastructure and make ACH bank transfers a more attractive alternative to credit c

Facebook agrees to pay French publishers for news reuse

Facebook has reached a multiyear agreement to pay French publishers for resharing their content on its platforms, it announced today. The social media giant said the licensing agreement with the Alliance of national and regional newspapers “means that people on Facebook will be able to contin

ESG and shareholder activism: A tsunami is coming to Silicon Valley

With the increase in attention on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues over the past few years, it's easy for companies to assume that we've reached the crest of the ESG wave. However, we are only at the early stages — an ESG tsunami is headed toward Silicon Valley. The incre

Charting a course through the internet’s ever-changing landscape

When you think of today's internet landscape, Google's overwhelming market share immediately comes to mind. The latest reports show that Google accounts for nearly 87% of the global search market, while Chrome makes up over 67% of the global browser market, touting 2.65 billion users worldw