SEC wants to regulate Coinbase's crypto yield product, Coinbase disagrees

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has reacted strongly to the company's current relationship with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to him, the SEC is threatening to sue the cryptocurrency exchange if it launches its yield-generating product called Coinbase Lend. With this new p

Twitter wants you to tweet to interest-based communities, not just followers

Twitter is a useful place for following breaking news and keeping up with what the people you’re already interested in are doing, but its relative dearth of discovery features and a lack of organized community spaces make it pretty hard to connect with anyone you aren’t actively seeking

Headout raises $12M, plans to hire 150+ people as domestic travel rebounds

The travel industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, and startup Headout was no exception. A marketplace that let tourists make same-day bookings for tours, events and activities, the app expanded around the world after launching in 2015. Then COVID-19 hit. But business is growing again

Peloton's CEO and chief content officer are coming to Disrupt

It's been a wildly unprecedented year and a half by any metric. The pandemic has utterly transformed many industries and made or broken others. In the world of technology, however, few categories were as well positioned to embrace a changed world than connected fitness. The space was well on it

‘Thin file’ loans startup Koyo closes $50M Series A led by Force Over Mass

Koyo, a fintech startup using open banking to offer loans to people with poor credit histories, has closed a Series A funding round of $50 million in debt and equity led by Force Over Mass, with participation from existing investors Forward Partners, Frontline Ventures and Seedcamp. New investors i

Spotify playlist curators complain about ongoing abuse that favors bad actors over innocent parties

A number of Spotify playlist curators are complaining that the streaming music company is not addressing the ongoing issue of playlist abuse, which sees bad actors reporting playlists that have gained a following in order to give their own playlists better visibility. Currently, playlists created b

Thoma Bravo takes a stake in threat intelligence provider Intel 471

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo has taken a stake in Intel 471, a provider of cyberthreat intelligence for enterprises and governments. The strategic growth investment, which comes as organizations double down on cybersecurity amid a pandemic-fueled rise in cyber threats, will enable Intel 471 to

Sila Nanotechnologies’ battery technology will launch in Whoop wearables

Sila Nanotechnologies’ next-generation battery technology made its commercial product debut Wednesday in the new Whoop fitness tracker, a milestone that caps a decade of research and development by the Silicon Valley startup, all aimed at cracking the code to packing more energy into a cell a

TrueFort snares $30M Series B to expand zero trust application security solution

As companies try to navigate an ever-changing security landscape, it can be challenging to protect everything. Security startup TrueFort has built a zero trust solution focusing on protecting enterprise applications. Today, the company announced a $30 million Series B. Shasta Ventures led todayR

A Chinese EV startup wants to build a ridable robot unicorn for kids

Never mind buying a robot dog for your kids — you might just get them a mythical creature instead. Chinese EV maker Xpeng has teased a robot unicorn meant for children to ride. As SCMP notes, the quadruped will take advantage of Xpeng’s experiences with autonomous driving and other AI tasks

UK offers cash for CSAM detection tech targeted at E2E encryption

The U.K. government is preparing to spend over half a million dollars to encourage the development of detection technologies for child sexual exploitation material (CSAM) that can be bolted on to end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms to scan for the illegal material, as part of its ongoing polic

Former head of Mint raises $4.5M for Lean to give gig workers access to financial products

Gig and independent workers have different needs than salaried employees when it comes to financial products. It's a challenge that Tilak Joshi, founder of Lean, became acutely aware of during his tenure as head of Mint and years as a product exec at American Express and PayPal.

We must subsidize and regulate space exploration

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (popularizing the modern internet). He didn't protect the technology because he wanted it to benefit us all. Three decades later, most of the power — and a lot of the profits — of the internet are in the hands of a few tech billio

Dear Sophie: When can I apply for my US work permit?

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies. “Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says