Instagram is developing its own version of Twitter’s Super Follow with ‘Exclusive Stories’

Instagram is building its own version of Twitter’s Super Follow with a feature that would allow online creators to publish “exclusive” content to their Instagram Stories that’s only available to their fans — access that would likely come with a subscription payment of

Cityblock’s Iya Romm and Maverick Ventures’ Ambar Bhattacharyya are joining us on Extra Crunch Live

If the pandemic achieved anything good, it was putting health front and center in the minds of the general public, elected officials, investors and innovators. Cityblock has been working on solutions for bringing together the healthcare industry and communities since long before now, but it raised

Fewer CEOs are serving on outside boards. That's good (and bad)

It used to be a heavily traveled two-way street in corporate America: CEOs joined other companies' boards to broaden their experiences, expand their influence, or simply because it felt good. Boards sought out CEOs because of the knowledge they bring and their unique ability to interact with th

Bessemer replaces board member at Hinge Health following competitive tensions

Board tensions at Hinge Health, a San Francisco-based digital health unicorn, have caused Bessemer Venture Partners to switch up its board director seat, replacing the original investor at the chair with a different one. Hinge Health co-founder and CEO Daniel Perez says BVP’s original board s

Microsoft says a third of its government data requests have secrecy orders

Microsoft’s customer security chief says as many as one-third of all government demands that the company receives for customer data are issued with secrecy clauses that prevents it from disclosing the search to the subject of the warrant. The figure was disclosed in testimony by MicrosoftR

Twitter is making NFTs now, apparently

No, it’s not April Fool’s Day. But Twitter’s entire account has been taken over by NFTs. As its new header reads: “I’ve stopped moisturizing because tweeting about NFTs is keeping me young now.” If that’s true, the Twitter bird is going to look like a littl

Facebook and Matterport collaborate on realistic virtual training environments for AI

To train a robot to navigate a house, you either need to give it a lot of real time in a lot of real houses, or a lot of virtual time in a lot of virtual houses. The latter is definitely the better option, and Facebook and Matterport are working together to make thousands of virtual, interactive di

Slack’s new video and voice tools are nod to changing face of work

Slack started talking about a new set of communications tools to enhance the text-based channels at the end of last year. Today the company released a new audio tool called Slack Huddles and gave more details on a couple of other new tools including the ability to leave a video message and an enhan

Zipline raises $250M at $2.75B valuation to build out its instant logistics service

Drone delivery startup Zipline, a company that got its start delivering medical supplies across Africa, has raised $250 million in new funding. This latest round has vaulted the company's valuation to $2.75 billion and will fuel further expansion of its logistics networks in Africa and the Unit

Gusto is now offering pieces of its service to other companies via API

This morning Gusto, a unicorn that sells payroll and benefits management software, announced that it will now offer part of its service via an API to external platforms. The new product, dubbed “Gusto Embedded Payroll,” will allow vertical SaaS companies to provide payroll support to th

ServiceTitan acquires Aspire to move into landscaping, raises $200M at a $9.5B valuation

With a lot of us spending more time at home these days, home improvement has continued to be a booming market. Now, one of the big players in that space — ServiceTitan, which builds software that today is used by over 100,000 contractors to manage their work — is getting a little bigger

Pittsburgh’s Locomation puts a convoy twist on autonomous trucking

The Pittsburgh Strip District, once home to Industrial Age giants Alcoa, Heinz, U.S. Steel and Westinghouse, has evolved over the past decade into a technology and robotics hub, and notably, a testbed of autonomous vehicles.  That activity has more recently spilled out beyond Smallman Street, so-c

Dear Sophie: How can I bring my parents and sister to the US?

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

Porsche, Yamaha Motor Ventures invest $3.75M in e-micromobility dealership Ridepanda

Online electric micromobility dealership Ridepanda has announced a raise of $3.75 million that the startup will use to build out its engineering, product and design teams to boost its e-commerce and B2B solutions. The company also wants to double down on strategic partnerships with delivery fleets