These undergraduates left university to build Flux, a payments startup now in YC

"" data-block="true" data-editor="50nu9" data-offset-key="5mhcj-0-0"> "" data-offset-key="5mhcj-0-0"> In the 170 years since Western Union was founded, no company has managed to solve two basic problems that continue to bedevil the remittance business — exorbitant fees and slow deposit times.

Next Billion Users head Caesar Sengupta is leaving Google

Caesar Sengupta, the longtime head of Google's Next Billion Users initiative, is leaving the company next month, he said Monday. Sengupta, who additionally also led the company’s payments business in the past three years, is leaving the firm after nearly 15 years. A regular fixture at Goo

Spark Capital decides to ‘sever all ties’ with David Dobrik's Dispo app weeks after leading deal

Venture capital firm Spark Capital has decided to “sever all ties” with Dispo, a photo-sharing app co-created by famous YouTuber David Dobrik. The move, announced by the firm late Sunday, was triggered by a recent investigation by Business Insider that exposed allegations from a woman w

Indonesian savings and investment app Pluang gets $20M in pre-Series B funding

Indonesia-based fintech Pluang announced today it has raised $20 million in a pre-Series B round led by Openspace Ventures, with participation from Go Ventures and other returning investors. The company offers proprietary savings and investment products that allow users to make contributions starti

Singapore-based M Capital Management closes $30.85M debut fund to invest in Southeast Asian startups

"attachment_2127980" aria-describedby="" style="width: 1024px">M Capital Management founding partners Joachim Ackermann (left) and Mayank Parekh (right). Image Credits: M Capital Management M Capital Management, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, announced today it has closed its debut fund, M

Sivo, a young ‘Stripe for debt’ led by a veteran operator, seems to have investors clamoring

Kate Hiscox is having a moment. Her company, Sivo, founded eight months ago, has already raised $5 million from investors at a post-money valuation of $100 million, and she says she is in active talks with others who would like her to consider accepting Series A funding from them. Surely the attent

The debate about cryptocurrency and energy consumption

Energy consumption has become the latest flashpoint for cryptocurrency. Critics decry it as an energy hog while proponents hail it for being less intensive than the current global economy.  One such critic, DigiEconomist founder Alex de Vries, said he's “never seen anything that is as ineffi

Tim Cook and Tim Sweeney among potential witnesses for Apple/Epic trial

A proposed witness list filed by Apple for its upcoming trial against game-maker Epic reads like a who's who of executives from the two companies. The drawn out battle could well prove a watershed moment from mobile app payments. The two sides came to loggerheads when the Fortnite maker was kic

Startups, Supreme and soft-circling your way to an investment

In an Extra Crunch Live this past week, Cleo Capital founding partner Sarah Kunst broke down what founders can learn from Supreme, a sought-after streetwear brand. She argued that founders, similar to Supreme, should build a brand around themselves that is so well-respected and has clout that whene

Daily Crunch: Facebook shows off a wrist-based interface

Facebook develops a new way to interact with AR, Uber’s facial recognition policy faces scrutiny and SpaceX’s Starship rocket booster hits a major milestone. This is your Daily Crunch for March 19, 2021. The big story: Facebook shows off wrist-based interface This projec

Deep science: AI is in the air, water, soil and steel

Research papers come out far too rapidly for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. This column aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly

Extra Crunch roundup: AI eats fintech, fundraising visas, no-code transition tips, more

Most American retail banks are designed the same way: Customers must pass several desks set aside for loan and mortgage officers before they can talk to a customer representative. I only step inside a bank a few times each year, but even pre-pandemic, I can’t remember the last time I saw some

Now approved in LA, Abodu’s backyard homes can now go from contract to completion in as little as 30 days

"speakable-summary" dir="ltr">Abodu, one of a slew of startup companies pitching backyard homes and office spaces to Californians in an effort to help address the state’s housing shortage, has instituted a new “Quickship” program that can take an order from contract to construction

It's time to abandon business intelligence tools

Organizations spend ungodly amounts of money — millions of dollars — on business intelligence (BI) tools. Yet, adoption rates are still below 30%. Why is this the case? Because BI has failed businesses. Logi Analytics' 2021 State of Analytics: Why Users Demand Better survey showed that know