The Aston Martin DBX is a tale of two vehicles

The Aston Martin DBX is the brand’s first SUV — and the stakes for the iconic British luxury car maker couldn’t be higher. Like Astons before it, the DBX is objectively handsome. Its sculptural form stretches out to unapologetic ample proportions, and stands out in the crowd of SU

Daily Crunch: Google swears off ad-tracking

Google says it’s focusing on privacy-friendly approaches to ad targeting, Okta acquires Auth0 and a flying taxi startup raises $241 million. This is your Daily Crunch for March 3, 2021. The big story: Google swears off ad-tracking While Google had already announced it would be

As activist investors loom, what's next for Box?

Box could be facing troubled times if a Reuters story from last week is accurate. Activist investor Starboard Value took a 7.9% stake in the storage company in September 2019, and a year ago took three board seats as its involvement in the cloud company deepened. It seemed only a matter of time bef

Cashify raises $15 million for its second-hand smartphone business in India

Tens of millions of people each year purchase a second-hand smartphone in India, the world’s second-largest market. Phone makers and giant online sellers such as Amazon and Flipkart are aware of it, but it's too much of a hassle for them to inspect, repair and resell used phones. But thes

Bank of America is bringing VR instruction to its banks

As consumer VR begins to have a moment following years of heavy investment from Facebook and other tech giants, corporate America is similarly beginning to find more utility in the technology, as well. Bank of America announced today that they’ll be working with Bay Area-based VR startup Stri

Okta acquires cloud identity startup Auth0 for $6.5B

As Okta announced earnings today after the bell, it revealed that it’s buying cloud identity startup Auth0 for a hefty $6.5 billion. The company had a valuation of $1.92 billion when it raised $120 million led by Salesforce Ventures last July. With Auth0, Okta gets a cloud identity company th

Toro acquires robotic tractor/snow blower maker, Left Hand Robotics

Toro this week announced its intentions to acquire Left Hand Robotics. The Colorado-based startup (not to be confused with Righthand Robotics) is a natural fit for the lawn mowing giant, as the producer of the RT-1000, an autonomous system capable of mowing large lawns and clearing snow from sidewa

Amazon Fire TV expands live TV features, adds Alexa support for live content

Amazon is rolling out a new experience for its Fire TV platform that puts more focus on subscription-free streaming and other live content. The company today announced several new services are being integrated into its suite of Live features, including Xumo and its own IMDb TV and Amazon news app.

Dear Sophie: Can you demystify the H-1B process and E-3 premium processing?

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

Bottomless closes $4.5M Series A to scale its subscription coffee business

As a devoted coffee drinker I was enthused by the idea of Bottomless. The Y Combinator-backed startup sends its users coffee as they run low so that they never run out of the Magic Juice of Life. What could be better? Because life is somewhat funny, after signing up for its service the company reac

11 words and phrases to cut from your VC pitch deck

You have just 170 seconds. Weeks or even months of working on your pitch deck could come down to the 170 seconds (on average) that investors spend looking at it. “Investors see a lot of pitches,” VC and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman noted. “In a single year, the classic general partner

Version 2 of Google’s Flutter toolkit adds support for desktop and web apps

At an online event, Google today announced Flutter 2, the newest version of its open-source UI toolkit for building portable apps. While Flutter started out with a focus on mobile when it first launched two years ago, it spread its wings in recent years and with version 2, Flutter now supports web

Postscript raises $35M to give Shopify stores SMS superpowers

Postscript helps Shopify stores stay in touch with customers via SMS, with a focus on keeping everything opt-in, legally compliant, and spam free. The company raised $4.5M back at the end of 2019; this morning it’s announcing it has raised a $35M Series B. The company has grown pretty rapidly

GSV Ventures doubles assets managed with new fund focused on global edtech

GSV Ventures, co-founded by Deborah Quazzo and Michael Cohn, has raised $180 million in its second fund, exclusively focused on backing edtech startups across the globe. The startup now manages $277 million in cumulative assets, inclusive of its debut fund that was closed in 2016.