Walmart today took its biggest step yet in its bid to compete against Amazon in the world of digital commerce: today the retail giant announced that it would be acquiring Jet.com — an online-only shopping site that has been live for a little over a year — for $3 billion in cash, plus up to $300 million in shares for the founders and others at the company. Jet.com will continue… Read More
from TechCrunch
Google today announced another acquisition that will help the company improve how it competes against Amazon’s AWS, Salesforce and Microsoft in the area of enterprise services, and specifically selling enterprise services in the cloud: it has acquired Orbitera, a startup that developed a platform for buying and selling cloud-based software. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed… Read More
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The accelerating drive to get autonomous cars on the road is being accompanied by a parallel push to improve Lidar technology, aka the 3D laser-based sensors that can be used for real-time mapping and navigation for vision systems in driverless cars. Read More
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There’s another notable funding round for a fintech startup in Southeast Asia, after Singapore-based Funding Societies raised a $7.5 million Series A round for its take on marketplace lending. Read More
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European online charity auction platform CharityStars, which counts eBay as its main competitor (in addition to ChaityBuzz and IfOnly), has closed a modest €2 million in Series A funding. The round is led by 360 Capital Partners, with participation from A.S. Roma soccer player Stephan El Sharaawy, and LastMinute Group CEO Fabio Cannavale. Read More
from TechCrunch
Walmart Stores is buying Jet.com in a deal worth $3 billion dollars according to a source with direct knowledge of the deal, confirming reports that have been pouring in about the bid for Jet.com all week. According to our source the signatures for the deal were dry on Friday and will be announced as early as Monday morning — echoing what was reported in both Bloomberg and Recode.… Read More
from TechCrunch
Tech unicorn and sharing economy darling Airbnb has informed the State of Delaware that it’s raising another heap of cash. TechCrunch independently verified that Airbnb indicated in a 28 page filing on July 28th that it has plans to bring in additional late-stage capital. Almost a year after its last raise of $1.6 billion, the company is said to be adding $850 million to its… Read More
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The team from a startup called Eyegroove, a “musical selfie” app, has joined Facebook. According to a message on the company’s website, most of the small team who worked on the app will now be focused on building new experiences for Facebook users that will help them to “create, share and connect.” Founded in late 2013, the Eyegroove application was the… Read More
from TechCrunch
The team from a startup called Eyegroove, a “musical selfie” app, has joined Facebook. According to a message on the company’s website, most of the small team who worked on the app will now be focused on building new experiences for Facebook users that will help them to “create, share and connect.” Founded in late 2013, the Eyegroove application was the… Read More
from TechCrunch
Word just started going around the rumormill that Apple has acquired Turi, a company that describes itself as a “machine learning platform for developers and data scientists.” We reached out to Apple for confirmation, and sure enough — we got the standard reply they give when they’re confirming an acquisition but not saying much else: “Apple buys smaller… Read More
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