Uber’s Asia-based rival Grab has confirmed that it has taken an undisclosed investment from Toyota. The Japanese automotive giant has been named as one of the participants in Grab’s Series G round which is targeted at $2.5 billion. The Singapore-headquartered company confirmed that SoftBank and China’s Didi contributed $2 billion, but it is collecting an additional $500… Read More
from TechCrunch
Appier, a Taiwanese startup that helps companies harness artificial intelligence to make marketing decisions, announced today that it has raised a $33 million Series C round from an impressive roster of Asian investors. They are SoftBank Group Corp., Line Corp., Naver Corp., EDBI (the Singapore Economic Development Board’s corporate investment arm) and Hong Kong-based financial services… Read More
from TechCrunch
Two years ago, Ember launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to build a mug that keeps hot drinks hot and iced drinks cool. Contributors gave the company nearly $362,000. Fast-forward and the five-year-old startup has now raised just north of $24 million altogether, including a $13 million Series C round that it quietly closed last week. Read More
from TechCrunch
Busy parents could benefit a lot from ridesharing, but they can’t send their children alone in an Uber until they are 18 years old. That’s why several startups are trying to build an “Uber for kids” concept, acting as a shuttle to take kids from school to soccer practice or home. There’s HopSkipDrive and Shuddle (which shut down), but now a newer entrant, Zūm… Read More
from TechCrunch
Gigster is shifting from letting anyone outsource full-stack app development to building next-gen tech projects for big companies. If an enterprise needs machine learning and vision, data visualization, blockchain, React or Swift work done and doesn’t want to hire full-time employees, Gigster assembles a squad of freelancers and guarantees the work at a fixed price. Read More
from TechCrunch
BunkerEx is a newly-funded startup out of London that is building an online marketplace to change the way shipping companies buy fuel, or ‘bunkers,’ to use the correct industry term. Read More
from TechCrunch
Fraud detection is a huge problem for retailers and the banking industry. But as companies fortify their defenses against fraudsters, the criminal element finds new weaknesses to exploit. The latest tactic has been phone spoofing, and fraud at the call center itself. Helping to ward off the latest wave of fake accounts is Next Caller, a Y Combinator-backed startup based in New York. Read More
from TechCrunch
Skidos, an edtech startup based in Copenhagen after relocating its HQ from New Delhi, offers an SDK to help games developers turn casual games into “learning apps”. Read More
from TechCrunch
Machine intelligence startups are the black sheep of the startup world. The new kids on the block are challenging investors to do their technical homework and differentiate themselves in intentional ways. Y Combinator joined a growing list of investors offering exclusive services to these companies in a specialized AI track for its latest S17 batch of startups.
In the competitive world of… Read More
from TechCrunch
Sometimes giving up something in the short-term can yield a big reward in the long-term. That’s the idea behind many of Amazon’s businesses, and that’s particularly true of the recent Whole Foods deal. Amazon’s purchase of the upscale Whole Foods grocery chain for $13.7 billion will go through on Monday, and already the online retailer has said prices will drop on… Read More
from TechCrunch