TikTok parent ByteDance hiring for AI drug discovery team

ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, is entering the health industry as it seeks to diversify a business dependent on advertising and livestreaming sales. The company, which prides itself on content algorithms, has started seeking talent in AI drug discovery across Mountain View, Shang

Telegram, nearing 500 million users, to begin monetizing the app

Instant messaging app Telegram is “approaching” 500 million users and plans to generate revenue starting next year to keep the business afloat, its founder Pavel Durov said on Wednesday. Durov said he has personally bankrolled the seven-year-old business so far, but as the startup scale

AI-driven energy startup Octopus hits $2B mark after $200M investment from Tokyo Gas

You've heard of challenger banks? Now meet the challenger energy suppliers. The U.K.'s Octopus Energy has attained a $2.06 billion valuation (£1.5 billion) after attracting a $200 million (£150 million) investment from Tokyo Gas, for a 9.7% stake, in order to launch a joint venture. Octop

On-demand logistics company Lalamove gets $515 million Series E

Lalamove will extend its network to cover more small Chinese cities after raising $515 million in Series E funding, the on-demand logistics company announced on its site. The round was led by Sequoia Capital China, with participation from Hillhouse Capital and Shunwei Capital. All three are returni

Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide bags $200M in funding

WeRide, one of China's most-funded startups developing autonomous driving capabilities, said on Wednesday that it has raised a $200 million strategic round from Chinese bus maker Yutong. Mega investments aren't uncommon at companies like WeRide developing the next-generation level 4 drivin

TaskRabbit is resetting customer passwords after finding ‘suspicious activity’ on its network

TaskRabbit has reset an unknown number of customer passwords after confirming it detected “suspicious activity” on its network. The IKEA-owned online marketplace for on-demand labor said it reset user passwords out of an abundance of caution and that it “took steps to prevent acce

Daily Crunch: Stimulus bill increases penalties for illegal streaming services

The stimulus bill includes significant changes to copyright law and enforcement, the Biden administration may have to build a presidential Twitter following from scratch and we round up the startups that shut down this year. This is your Daily Crunch for December 22, 2020. The big story: Stimulus b

Substack explains its 'hands-off' approach to content moderation

Content moderation has been a thorny topic in 2020. And when I say “thorny,” I mean in the sense of having multiple congressional hearings on the subject. Twitter and Facebook in particular have been mired in concerns around the subject, fielding complaints that they both haven't done enoug

Elon Musk claims he tried selling Tesla to Apple but Tim Cook wasn’t interested

Tesla stock’s miraculously bizarre 2020 might have a gone different way had Apple’s Tim Cook agreed to a meeting in recent years, or so says Elon Musk. Reacting to Reuters’ recent news that Apple has not abandoned its electric car program and is still pursuing plans to build a phy

Bandit ML helps e-commerce businesses present the most effective offer to each shopper

Bandit ML aims to optimize and automate the process of presenting the right offer to the right customer. The startup was part of the summer 2020 class at accelerator Y Combinator. It also raised a $1.32 million seed round in September from YC, Haystack Fund, Webb Investment Network, Liquid 2 Ventu

NASA opens new launchpad at Kennedy Space Center meant to serve multiple commercial launch customers

NASA has finished work on a new launchpad at its Kennedy Space Center in Florida — Launch Complex 48 (LC-48), a pad that will be able to support smaller launch vehicles than either LC-39A or B, or SLC-41, which currently host SpaceX, SLS and ULA launches, respectively. It’s designed to

With a $50B run rate in reach, can anyone stop AWS?

AWS, Amazon's flourishing cloud arm, has been growing at a rapid clip for more than a decade. An early public cloud infrastructure vendor, it has taken advantage of first-to-market status to become the most successful player in the space. In fact, one could argue that many of today’s star

To win post-pandemic, edtech needs to start thinking big

The edtech market raked in more than $10 billion in venture capital investment globally in 2020, but for students, parents and teachers, the year was defined more by its scramble than its surge. Nandini Talwar, a student and teacher's assistant at Columbia University, wants to hold more efficie

Twitter's POTUS account will reportedly be reset to zero followers when Biden takes over

In this country, we have a longstanding peaceful transfer of power for the executive office, even in the wake of the hardest-fought elections. Certain circumstances have led many to question whether the tradition will continue come January 20. Despite his very vocal protestations, however, the curr