Techmeme
July 28, 2021, 1:35 PM

Top News

Patrick Klepek / VICE:
Activision Blizzard staff are staging a walk out today, demanding fairer treatment for underrepresented staff and ending arbitration clauses in staff contracts  —  “This is the beginning of an enduring movement in favor of better labor conditions for all employees.”  —  Patrick Klepek
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Twitter says it is testing Shop Module, a new shopping section that brands can add to the top of their profiles, launching in the US today on iOS  —  Starting with a pilot of around a dozen brands  —  Twitter is piloting a new feature that allows businesses to add a shopping section …
Tripp Mickle / Wall Street Journal:
Google says anyone coming to work at its campuses must be vaccinated, starting in the US, and will delay the return to offices from September until mid-October  —  Tech giant postpones planned return to offices until mid-October after earlier targeting late September
Apple:
Apple reports Q3 revenue of $81.4B, up 36% YoY, net income of $21.7B, up from $11.2B YoY, Services sales of $17.4B, up from $13.2B YoY, iPhone sales of $39.6B  —  Revenue up 36 percent to new June quarter record  —  Services revenue reaches new all-time high
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Spotify Q2: revenue of €2.3B, up 23% YoY, ad revenue up 110% YoY to €275M; paying subscribers reached 165M, up 20% YoY, total MAUs reached 365M; stock down 6%+  —  Spotify, citing ongoing headwinds from the COVID pandemic, fell short of its total monthly user growth goal in the second quarter of 2021.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Sony says it has now sold over 10M PS5 consoles, up from the 7.8M announced in April, making it the fastest-selling PlayStation ever  —  PS5 is the fastest-selling PlayStation  —  Sony has now sold more than 10 million PS5 consoles.  That's up more than 2 million sales …
Dustin Volz / Wall Street Journal:
Biden instructs federal agencies to develop voluntary cybersecurity goals for companies operating critical infrastructure, as officials consider mandatory rules  —  Though voluntary, officials said the new step could be a prelude to a push for cybersecurity mandates
Jonathan Greig / ZDNet:
Google announces a new bug bounty program, called Bug Hunter University, and says the existing program found 11,055 bugs from 2,022 researchers, paying ~$30M  —  The platform includes a new “Bug Hunter University.”  —  Google announced a new bug bounty platform as it celebrated …
Bloomberg:
PowerSchool, which develops software used by 70% of K-12 students in the US and Canada, raises $711M in its IPO, selling shares at $18, valuing it at $3.5B  —  Education software provider PowerSchool Holdings Inc. raised $711 million in an initial public offering priced at the bottom of a marketed range.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
QuotaPath, which offers tools to track commissions for sales and revenue teams, raises $21.3M Series A led by Insight Partners  —  QuotaPath, which has developed a commission-tracking solution for sales and revenue teams, has raised $21.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Insight Partners.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Class, a virtual classroom that integrates exclusively with Zoom, raises $105M led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 at a $804M post-money valuation  —  Class, a virtual classroom that integrates exclusively with Zoom, announced today that it has raised $105 million in a financing led by SoftBank Vision Fund II.
More: Reuters
Gillian Tan / Bloomberg:
Lithic, previously Privacy.com, which offers APIs to help businesses issue virtual credit cards, raises $60M, sources say at an $800M valuation  —  - Bessemer, Index Ventures, Exor also part of fundraising round  — Firm's goal is to make issuing cards faster and easier
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Creators of PunkSpider say they're relaunching their search engine for hackable sites at Defcon next week to spur web admins to fix thousands of unpatched bugs  —  PunkSpider is back, and crawling hundreds of millions of sites for vulnerabilities.  —  THE WEB HAS long been a playground for hackers …
Bloomberg:
Duolingo raises $521M in its IPO after pricing shares at $102, valuing the company at $3.66B  —  Language learning app Duolingo Inc. and its investors raised $521 million in an initial public offering priced above the marketed range.  —  The company priced 5.1 million shares at $102 each Tuesday …

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