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A taxi-hailing app. A transplant device developer. An online mortgage provider. Those businesses may have little in common, but one shared thread is that U.S. startups in these sectors have all secured large funding rounds led by Russia-based investors. They’re not alone. Over the past seven years, Russia-based e investors have participated in more than 300 funding rounds for… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Time spent by people watching Instagram Stories — which is temporary sharing with private replies — could someday significantly surpass time spent in the Instagram Feed, which is the permanent stream of photos and videos with comments. Although numbers comparing sharing and time spent between Stories and Feed are not available, there’s more to be done. Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Robin, which pitched a combined “Uber for lawn care” and robotic-lawnmower-as-a-service at Disrupt SF’s Startup Battlefield last year, is making some big changes. It quietly sold the first part to Porch earlier this year, and is now focused on expanding the robot service nationwide via a franchising plan. (And they’re going to be on Shark Tank.) Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Alibaba invented China’s biggest shopping day — 11/11 aka Single’s Day — and it dominates the headlines with record sales year-on-year, but another company just stepped out to remind us that others are busy trying to close the gap. JD.com, the perennial challenger to Alibaba’s e-commerce empire in China, just revealed its 11/11 figures for the first time. While… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Alibaba has set another Single’s Day record after the e-commerce giant sold over $25 billion of product on the Chinese biggest online shopping date. The full number comes in at 163.8 billion RMB, that’s roughly $25.3 billion, in GMV — that’s “gross merchandise volume” which is used to measure a dollar value for all sales on a platform. In Alibaba’s… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Spin, one of several bike-sharing companies now vying for dominance in a number of U.S. cities, has a new weapon to wield against its competitors: Kyle Rowe, the architect of Seattle’s permissive and apparently successful bike-share permit system, who is joining the company to work on government partnerships. In addition, Spin is gearing up to launch in a dozen or so new cities. Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
The debate about the effects social networks like Facebook and Twitter have on us as human beings goes one. Indeed, just this week Facebook co-founder Sean Parker said “The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?… God only… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Uber’s found a way to shave another 25% or so off the price of a ride. Uber Express Pool asks you to walk up to a few blocks to your pickup and destination before and after the ride in exchange for the cheapest fare out of all of Uber’s options. The feature dynamically generates “smart spots” that are easy to drive to and close to the origin or destination of… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
Instagram is testing a new feature with a small fraction of its user base. As spotted by Pippa Akram and The Next Web, some users can now search for a hashtag and follow this tag in particular. Ok this is new. What does this do @SimonSocialMM @BizPaul @NatalieTFG any ideas? I've followed 2 but can't find what that means!! pic.twitter.com/LlCBk4Wmfv — Pippa Akram… Read More
Source: Tech Crunch
It wouldn’t be the launch of a first-generation Apple product without a few hiccups — who can forget Antennagate and Bendgate? — and the iPhone X is no different. A handful of users report that a mysterious and inextinguishable green line has appeared on their device’s display. Read More
Source: Tech Crunch