Bright Cellars lands more funding to personalize its subscription-based wines

Bright Cellars, a six-year-old subscription-based wine seller has, like many upstarts, evolved over time. While it once sent its club members third-party wines that fit their particular profiles, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Bright Cellars says it’s now amassing enough data about its customers

Rocket Lab boosts its space systems division in quest to become an ‘end-to-end space company’

Peter Beck hasn't been shy about his intention to grow Rocket Lab into more than just a launch provider, but a fully vertically integrated space company that makes spacecraft in addition to sending them to orbit. The company, which he founded in 2006, has taken yet another major stride toward t

Virtual events startups have high hopes for after the pandemic

Few people thought of virtual events before the pandemic struck, but this format has fulfilled a unique and important need for companies and organizations large and small during the pandemic. But what will virtual events’ value be as more of the world attempts to return to life before COVID-1

Agility Robotics' Digit gets a warehouse gig

A new video from Agility Robotics showcases an increasing familiar sight: advanced, autonomous robots performing boring warehouse tasks. It's not the sort of video that tends to be hugely viral for a company, rather, it's the sort of meat and potatoes proof of concept that companies like Bo

Twitter rolls out paid subscription ‘Super Follows’ to let you cash in on your tweets

After opening applications in June, Twitter is rolling out Super Follows, its premium subscription option, starting today. The feature, first revealed in February, will allow users to subscribe to accounts they like for a monthly subscription fee in exchange for exclusive content. For creators, Sup

Berlin Brands Group, now valued at $1B+, raises $700M to buy and scale merchants that sell on marketplaces like Amazon

Berlin Brands Group (BBG) — one of the new wave of e-commerce startups hoping to build lucrative economies of scale around buying up smaller brands that sell on marketplaces like Amazon and using technology to run and scale them more efficiently — has picked up a big round of funding to

Sphere raises $2M to help employees lobby for green 401(k) plans

In the United States, a 401(k) plan is an employer-sponsored defined-contribution pension account. However, with legacy institutional investing, most of these have at least some level of fossil fuel involvement, and, let's face it, very few of us really know. Now a startup plans to change that.

Ubco 2X2 Adventure Bike review: Utility that shreds

A recent move to Auckland, New Zealand — a city with lackluster public transit and hills that can turn a quick bike ride to the store into a sweaty workout — piqued my interest in e-bikes. Strong demand and skyrocketing prices, however, made it difficult to access these coveted e-bikes here in

SEC fines brokerage firms over email hacks that exposed client data

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has fined several brokerage firms a total of $750,000 for exposing the sensitive personally identifiable information of thousands of customers and clients after hackers took over employee email accounts. A total of eight entities belonging to three compan

Forum Brands secures $100M in debt financing to acquire more e-commerce brands

Forum Brands, an e-commerce acquisition platform, announced today that it has secured $100 million in debt funding from TriplePoint Capital. The financing comes just over two months after the startup raised $27 million in an equity funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Bren

Chrome Beta to experiment with a more powerful New Tab page, web highlights and search changes

Google is launching a new version of its Chrome Beta browser today that’s introducing some fairly notable changes to its user interface and design. The browser will introduce an updated New Tab page, which will now include cards directing you back to past web search activities, instead of onl

Twitter is testing a new anti-abuse feature called ‘Safety Mode’

Twitter’s newest test could provide some long-awaited relief for anyone facing harassment on the platform. The new product test introduces a feature called “Safety Mode” that puts up a temporary line of defense between an account and the waves of toxic invective that Twitter is no

Goodcall picks up $4M, Yelp partnership to answer merchant inbound calls

Even without staffing shortages, local merchants have difficulty answering calls while all hands are busy, and Goodcall wants to alleviate some of that burden from America's 30 million small businesses. Goodcall's free cloud-based conversational platform leverages artificial intelligence to

Apollo completes its $5B acquisition of Verizon Media, now known as Yahoo

Private equity firm Apollo Global Management this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of Yahoo (formerly known as Verizon Media Group, itself formerly known as Oath) from Verizon. The deal is worth $5 billion, with $4.25 billion in cash, plus preferred interests of $750 million.