Author: Thomas Crown

 Norwegian startup Zwipe, which is taking aim at payment card PIN codes and passwords with an embedded fingerprint reader technology to authenticate card payments, has closed a $5 million Series B funding round. Read More

from TechCrunch

 Playing in the identity space, London-based Veridu is attempting to solve a problem as old as the Internet itself but also one that is increasing with the advent of the so-called sharing economy and peer-to-peer marketplaces. That is, how to ensure that an individual online is who they say they are. Read More

from TechCrunch

 Highland Europe, which pitches itself as a “growth-stage” technology investor, has raised a new €332 million (~$379m) tech fund. ‘Highland Europe Technology Growth II’ will target startups in the internet, mobile and software space and who are at the “venture and growth-stage” with investments between €10m and €30m. Read More

from TechCrunch

 WhatsApp is huge in India. The Facebook-owned messaging service has probably passed 100 million monthly active users in the country — it crossed 70 million in November of last year — and is used by families, merchants, media and more. But WhatsApp isn’t a platform — it will probably never be one — and that leaves opportunities for services that want to offer… Read More

from TechCrunch

 Playlab, a Hong Kong-headquartered mobile games firm that is focused on Southeast Asia, has landed a $5 million investment from Monks Hill Ventures in one of the largest game focused investments in the region to date. Read More

from TechCrunch

 Before the whole Alphabet rejiggering, Google acquired tons of companies over the years. Roughly 184, according to Wikipedia. We thought we’d take a few minutes and pluck out a few names you might recognize, but weren’t all necessarily powerhouses on their own, and let you know what’s become of them! Read More

from TechCrunch

 Khosla Ventures famously backed Gripe.io, a startup which allowed disappointed customers to complain loudly on social media about service providers that had failed them (restaurants, hotels, airlines etc). After this barrage of criticism, the brand owner was supposed give in to this assault and settle with compensation. Unsurprisingly it didn’t work and Gripe closed. A number of other… Read More

from TechCrunch

 SentinelOne, a startup security software provider that attacks security threats at the kernel of devices, has raised $25 million in a new round of funding to tackle the problem of endpoint protection at the core of computing. Read More

from TechCrunch

 If you’ve been keeping up with the news, corporate security breaches are kind of a thing lately.
Thus, it’s no surprise that Cybereason, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in thwarting major corporate cyber attacks, has garnered some major interest from companies looking to protect their data from malicious hackers. Read More

from TechCrunch

 Robot maker iRobot has long had two major lines of businesses: its famous disc-shaped vacuum cleaning robot called the Roomba; and another robot that, well, disposes of bombs. Co-founder Helen Greiner says iRobot — now a publicly traded company currently valued at $940 million — “wouldn’t have been able to have struggle through” without both. Read More

from TechCrunch