Friday app, a remote work tool, raises $2.1 million led by Bessemer

Friday, an app looking to make remote work more efficient, has announced the close of a $2.1 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Active Capital, Underscore, El Cap Holdings, TLC Collective and New York Venture Partners also participated in the round, among others. Founded by Luke T

Corporate services platform Sleek lands $4 million in new funding

Sleek, the corporate services platform that helps entrepreneurs launch and run new companies in Singapore and Hong Kong, has raised $4 million. The new funding was led by SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of government agency Enterprise Singapore. Returning investors MI8 Limited and Pierre Lorinet

Metigy gets $20 million AUD to make online marketing easier for SMEs

"attachment_2077298" aria-describedby="" style="width: 1024px">David Fairfull, CEO and co-founder of Metigy Metigy, a marketing platform created to help small businesses automate more of the decision making in their online ad campaigns, has raised a Series B of $20 million AUD (about $14.6 million U

Snapchat launches a TikTok-like feed called Spotlight, kick-started by paying creators

After taking on TikTok with music-powered features last month, Snapchat this morning is officially launching a dedicated place within its app where users can watch short, entertaining videos in a vertically scrollable, TikTok-like feed. This new feature, called Spotlight, will showcase the communit

Digital marketing firms file UK competition complaint against Google’s Privacy Sandbox

Google’s push to phase out third party tracking cookies — aka its ‘Privacy Sandbox’ initiative — is facing a competition challenge in Europe. A coalition of digital marketing companies announced today that it’s filed a complaint with the UK’s Competition an

Resilience raises over $800 million to transform pharmaceutical manufacturing in response to COVID-19

Resilience, a new biopharmaceutical company backed by $800 million in financing from investors including ARCH Venture Partners and 8VC, has emerged from stealth to transform the way that drugs and therapies are manufactured in the U.S. Founded by ARCH Venture Partners investor Robert Nelsen, Nation

Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine shows high efficacy, and is cheaper to make and easier to store

Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine, being developed in partnership with drugmaker AstraZeneca, has shown to be 70.4% effective in preliminary results from its Phase 3 clinical trial. That rate actually includes data from two different approaches to dosing, including one where two full-stren

The promise and challenge of Roblox’s future in China

In a much-anticipated move, California-based gaming firm Roblox filed to go public last week. One aspect driving the future growth of the children- and community-focused gaming platform is its China entry, which it fleshes out in detail for the first time in its IPO prospectus. How Roblox avoided t

Byju’s-owned Indian startup WhiteHat Jr sues critics

Karan Bajaj, an Indian entrepreneur who teaches meditation and in his recent book invites others to live a life away from the noise, is going after the most vocal critics of his startup. Bajaj, founder of coding platform WhiteHat Jr, has filed a defamation case against Pradeep Poonia, an engineer w

Week in Review: Venture-backed loneliness

Hello everyone and welcome back to Week in Review! Natasha here, subbing in for Lucas while he's out. This week, we'll talk about loneliness raising money and how Zoom fatigue is fueling innovation. For everyone celebrating, happy holidays! Keep on the lookout next week for more festive con

A bug meant Twitter Fleets could still be seen after they disappeared

Twitter is the latest social media site to allow users to experiment with posting disappearing content. Fleets, as Twitter calls them, allows its mobile users post short stories, like photos or videos with overlaying text, that are set to vanish after 24 hours. But a bug meant that fleets werenR

Human Capital: Uber’s Black employee base shrinks

Welcome back to Human Capital, where I break down the latest in diversity, equity and inclusion, and labor in tech. TL;DR: This week, Apple announced its third head of diversity and inclusion in four years, Uber's Black employee base shrunk despite the company committing to anti-racism and Redd

Affirm, Airbnb, C3.ai, Roblox, Wish file for tech IPO finale of 2020

Editor's note: Get this free weekly recap of technewss news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7 a.m. PT). Subscribe here. The wait was long but this week the time was right: Airbnb finally filed its S-1 and so did Affirm, C3.ai, Roblox, and Wish. We are likely to see

Hulu UX teardown: 5 user experience fails and how to fix them

Hulu is the first major streaming platform to offer a social watching experience. And with most major league sports now being allowed to resume behind closed doors, Hulu's combined proposition with ESPN will likely help entertain the service’s 30+ million users over the winter months. But