Day: September 5, 2018

This morning at TechCrunch SF 2018, Founders Fund partner Cyan Banister shared her inspirational journey from a homeless teen at the age of 15 to now a venture capitalist who’s invested in startups like Uber, Thumbtack, SpaceX, Postmates, EShares, Affirm and Niantic. Banister spoke this morning at Disrupt about the handful of values she cites as […]

Beth Seidenberg, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins since 2005, has taken the wraps off her new fund, Westlake Village BioPartners. The Los Angeles-based firm has raised $320 million to incubate and invest in early-stage life sciences companies — Seidenberg’s specialty. A spokesperson for Westlake Village confirmed to TechCrunch this morning that she is in […]

Factual announced this morning that it has raised $42 million in new funding. The company launched in 2009 and now provides location data to customers like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. And it’s still adding new capabilities, like the ability for advertisers to measure whether their campaigns drove in-store visits. Founder and CEO Gil […]

“Where we are at the beginning of this century is where Star Trek begins,” says Alan Stern, the NASA researcher who was one of the architects of the New Horizons mission to Pluto.  In an age where science fiction is rapidly becoming a simple fact, Stern says moon mining, extra-terrestrial energy generation and space tourism […]

Facebook has accused BlackBerry of stealing its voice-messaging technology in its instant messaging app. In an 118-page complaint filed Tuesday in San Francisco, Facebook claimed BlackBerry infringed on five other patents, including the tracking and analysis of GPS data, voice-messaging technology and the ways in which the app displays graphics, video and audio. In the […]

The Justice Department has confirmed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has expressed a “growing concern” that social media giants may be “hurting competition” and “intentionally stifling” free speech and expression. The comments come as Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey gave testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, as […]

Goop, the lifestyle and e-commerce site started by Hollywood darling Gwyneth Paltrow, has settled a $125,000 lawsuit connected to false advertisements of a $66 vaginal Jade egg, which the company said balanced hormones, prevented uterine prolapse and more. Scientists begged to differ. According to the lawsuit, filed with the Santa Clara County District Attorney, the “wellness […]

Google has inducted a new class of startups into the Launchpad Studio accelerator it inaugurated last year; the first group was focused on gleaning new insights from medical data, and this one is about shaking up established financial markets and systems. Some of the companies are well-known, established businesses — but this isn’t the usual […]

Drops, the game-based language learning app, has announced Native Hawaiian as the newest addition to the app’s 30-language selection. With just under 300 Native Hawaiian speakers worldwide, according to the Endangered Language Project, this addition is the app’s second foray into digitizing niche and endangered languages for a new generation. “Our native tongue is Hungarian,” […]

Every year, TechCrunch chooses an elite cohort of startups to compete in Startup Battlefield — TechCrunch’s premier global startup launch competition. This year’s selection was the most competitive in Startup Battlefield history and we’re excited for you to watch these innovative startups duke it out on the Main Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018. Companies are […]