Facebook has gone ahead and purchased Charles Jolley’s conversational AI startup Ozlo. Jolley, formerly Head of Platform for Android at Facebook, will not be returning to the company. The Ozlo team is expected to join Facebook to work on natural language processing challenges. Ozlo launched with a consumer facing app back in October 2016. Jolley told me at the time that the… Read More
from TechCrunch
Noted venture firm Kleiner Perkins is getting a little leaner. General partner Mike Abbott announced Monday that he’s leaving the team for an undetermined startup role. Separately, its early stage “Edge” team is folding. The instances are unrelated, I am told. Abbott, who joined KPCB in 2011 from Twitter, wrote in a post, “my desire to discover and invest in the next… Read More
from TechCrunch
Redfin, the Seattle-based real estate site, had a great first couple days on the stock market. After pricing above the expected range at $15 per share, the stock closed Friday up about 45% at almost $22. Today, shares were up another 11%, closing above $24. With a market cap approaching $2 billion, it’s more than double than the $770 million valuation that Redfin achieved in its last… Read More
from TechCrunch
Lost My Name, the London-based startup that uses tech to create and publish personalised story books for children, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding. It is also revealing an upcoming tie-in with the Roald Dahl Estate, owners of IP such as Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Read More
from TechCrunch
Spotify’s singular focus on music sees it adding subscribers faster than the iPhone company with a streaming app on the side. Spotify has added 20 million paid subscribers in under a year, while it’s taken Apple Music over a year and a half to make that progress. Spotify now has 60 million subscribers, compared to Apple Music’s 27 million as of June. Spotify’s ability… Read More
from TechCrunch
Reddit, the 12-year-old, San Francisco-based online discussion platform that has long called itself the “front page of the internet,” just closed its biggest round ever, from a whole lot of investors, reports Recode. Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Coatue Management, Vy Capital, Fidelity, Sam Altman and Ron Conway all chipped into the $200 million financing. Read More
from TechCrunch
Valerie Jarrett, who served as Senior Advisor to President Obama, is joining Lyft’s board, the company announced Monday. The team already includes Lyft’s co-founders, Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz, Ann Miura-Ko from Floodgate and other industry players. The company believes that Jarrett, who previously chaired the Chicago Transit Board, “brings experience tackling… Read More
from TechCrunch
Ding, a London-based hardware startup, has raised more than £263,000 (~$345k) via the Seedrs equity crowdfunding platform as it works to get its first product — a wi-fi connected doorbell — to market this year. Read More
from TechCrunch
What a difference a week makes. Less than seven days after Flipkart’s much-rumored acquisition of Snapdeal appeared to be nearing completion after months of speculation, the deal has officially died.
All that stood between a reported $900-$950 million acquisition was the approval of Snapdeal’s board, but now talks are over and Snapdeal will continue on as an independent company. Read More
from TechCrunch
SAIF Partners, one of India’s most active tech investment firms, has returned with a new fund of $350 million, its sixth to date. Unlike other firms, SAIF opted to keep its newest fund at the same size as its previous one because it allows it to be selective on deals, a number of partners told TechCrunch in an interview. SAIF has more than $4 billion in assets under management. Its… Read More
from TechCrunch