Google’s R&D division experiments with newsletters powered by Google Drive
Following entries into the newsletter market from tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, Google is now experimenting with newsletters, too. The company’s internal R&D division, Area 120, has a new project called Museletter, which allows anyone to publish a Google Drive file as a blog o
Elodie Games obtains $32.5M round to make social co-op gaming better
During the darkest hours of the pandemic, millions upon millions of people turned to online gaming as a way to pass time in lockdown and connect with friends they couldn’t see in person. But a social, cooperative, fun and cross-platform gaming experience is remarkably hard to find — and Elo
OnLoop launches with $5.5M to inject some fun into performance reviews
Performance reviews eat up a lot of a manager's time and are often the most dreaded part of work. OnLoop aims to bring some joy into the process by enabling information-gathering to happen behind the scenes and be easier for hybrid workforces.
The Singapore-based company designed a mobile-first
Tile secures $40 million to take on Apple AirTag with new products
Tile, the maker of Bluetooth-powered lost item finder beacons and, more recently, a staunch Apple critic, announced today it has raised $40 million in non-dilutive debt financing from Capital IP. The funding will be put toward investment in Tile’s finding technologies, ahead of the company
Concreit closes on $6M to allow more people to invest in the global private real estate market
Concreit, a company that wants to open real estate investing to a broader group of people, announced today that it has closed $6 million in a seed funding round led by Matrix Partners.
Hyphen Capital also participated in the round, in addition to individual investors such as Betterment founder Jo
TikTok is hiding a viral challenge that has kids stealing their school’s soap dispensers
It’s back to school season and on TikTok, that means students are inexplicably stealing everything that isn’t bolted down.
The latest TikTok trend to generally wreak social havoc sees students pulling off “devious licks” — small-scale heists of everything from soap dispens
Clubhouse hires a head of news from NPR to build out publisher relationships
Clubhouse has hired a veteran editor from NPR to lead news publishing for the app. Nina Gregory will serve as Clubhouse’s head of News and Media Publishers, working as a liaison between news publishers and the Clubhouse’s ecosystem of audio-based communities.
Gregory led NPR’s Art
The FDA should regulate Instagram's algorithm as a drug
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported Silicon Valley's worst-kept secret: Instagram harms teens' mental health; in fact, its impact is so negative that it introduces suicidal thoughts.
Thirty-two percent of teen girls who feel bad about their bodies report that Instagram makes them fe
YouTube TV expands its live TV service with more Spanish-language networks
Google’s streaming TV service, YouTube TV, announced today it’s adding more Spanish-language networks to its base membership package and is preparing to launch an add-on package that will include even more Spanish-language content. Starting today, all subscribers will gain access to thr
Sustainable e-commerce startup Olive now ships beauty products, in addition to apparel
Earlier this year, a startup called Olive launched its new shopping site and app with the goal of making e-commerce more efficient, convenient and sustainable by offering a way for consumers to aggregate their orders from across retailers into single shipments that arrive in reusable packaging, not
SmarterTravel sheds HopJump name, begins a new journey with $9.5M round
Travel startups continue to rake in venture capital dollars as more people become comfortable traveling amid the global pandemic. The latest is SmarterTravel, which brought in $9.5 million in Series B funding co-led by Link Ventures and Second Alpha, with existing investors also participating.
In a
Sendcloud nabs $177M led by SoftBank to double down on SaaS — shipping as a service
E-commerce has undoubtedly seen a huge boost in growth in the last year and a half of COVID-19 living, with people turning to the web and apps to shop for essentials and not-so-essentials to keep their social distance, and using delivery services to receive their goods rather than picking things up
Zonos banks $69M to develop APIs for democratizing cross-border commerce
Cross-border commerce company Zonos raised $69 million in a Series A, led by Silversmith Capital Partners, to continue building its APIs that auto classify goods and calculate an accurate total landed cost on international transactions.
St. George, Utah-based Zonos is classifying the round as a min
Ireland probes TikTok’s handling of kids’ data and transfers to China
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has yet another Big Tech GDPR probe to add to its pile: The regulator said yesterday it has opened two investigations into video sharing platform TikTok.
The first covers how TikTok handles children’s data, and whether it complies with Europe&