5 takeaways from BuzzFeed’s SPAC deck
Digital media outfit BuzzFeed announced today that it will go public via a SPAC, or blank check company. BuzzFeed also disclosed that it will purchase Complex, another media company, for $300 million in cash and shares in BuzzFeed itself; the SPAC deal will help finance its purchase of Complex.
The
SmartAsset rethinks financial advisory, and becomes a unicorn in the process
SmartAsset, a marketplace that connects consumers to financial advisors, announced today that it has raised $110 million in a Series D round of funding.
The financing values New York-based SmartAsset at over $1 billion, and brings its total raised since its 2012 inception to just over $161 million,
Companies navigate ethical minefield to build proof of vaccination apps
In the U.S, after you get vaccinated against COVID-19 you are given a small paper card issued by the CDC that is essentially the only evidence that you’ve received your shots. It might seem like a flimsy level of proof, one that you could easily lose, but replacing that paper copy with a digi
After raising $10M, Ryte launches ‘Carbon KPI' to measure the CO2 footprint of web sites
As we become more and more aware of the kind of impact we are having on this planet we call our home, just about everything is having its CO2 impact measured. Who knew, until recently, that streaming Netflix might have a measurable impact on the environment, for instance. But given vast swathes of
Reform your startup’s meeting culture
Bad meetings are the fast food of the knowledge worker; it’s so deliciously quick and easy to throw a 60-minute default meeting on everyone’s schedule, but the long-term costs are extremely unhealthy.
Busy meeting organizers drive-thru schedule meetings because they think they don’
Check out the expert speakers joining us on Extra Crunch Live in July
What are the most important factors when you’re pitching your startup for fundraising? What questions come to the minds of the VCs you’re pitching? How do you get the deal across the finish line? Or choose the right investors for your company to begin with?
Extra Crunch Live looks to an
SPAC charts are exercises in the limits of hype
Having read more SPAC investor decks in the last twelve months than I’d like to admit to, I thought I was over being irked by their bullishness. Call me conservative, but public companies shouldn’t be full of shit, and companies going public should probably aim for a similar target.
Tha
Android apps are coming to Windows 11 through the Amazon Appstore
Ecosystems make strange bedfellows. Here's one of the stranger in recent memory – and one of the most unexpected bits of news from today's Windows 11 event. Microsoft announced today that it will be making Android apps available on the next major version of its operating system.
Chief Pro
You’re a carmaker, drink-taker, automator
The other week at TC Sessions: Mobility, I spoke to a trio of executives at top automotive companies about why they're all so bullish about robotics. There are the obvious implications, of course. Automakers have long employed robotics for manufacturing – they were really ahead of the curve o
Microsoft Teams will be built directly into Windows 11
Happy Windows 11 day. Microsoft is giving us our best look yet at its upcoming operating system, which is due out over the holidays. Following a year when the vast majority of our interpersonal communications arrived through computer and phone screens, the company is putting its communication softw
Microsoft announces Windows 11, generally available by the holidays
After weeks of leaks and hype, Microsoft today officially announced Windows 11, the next version of its desktop operating system. While the company may have once said that Windows 10 was the last version of Windows, forgoing major point launches for a regular cadence of bi-annual upgrades, but it c
Happs raises $4.7 million for a multicast livestream platform creator community
Happs, an app that lets creators stream live video simultaneously across social platforms, has raised $4.7 million in a post-seed round. The product originally began as a platform for independent journalists, but expanded its mission last year to offer tools to all online creators while connecting
Creator tools startup Spore raises $1M to build closer bonds between influencers and their fans
Few spaces have grown hotter in the past year than the creator economy has, but for all of the new tools available to those starting a podcast, newsletter or storefront, most players have been more focused on building out their own platform opportunity rather than selling full independence to creat
Sanity raises $39M for its ‘use-anywhere’ approach to content repositories
Content is king, as the saying goes. But in actual fact, a lot of what companies do today with content, and thus the power of that content, is relatively limited by the tools that exist to present it. That is slowly changing, and now a startup called Sanity, which has built a system to make it easi