Techmeme: Niantic, recently spun out from Google and known for Ingress, raises $20M from Google, Pokémon Company, and Nintendo (Drew Olanoff/TechCrunch)

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October 15, 2015, 6:25 PM

Top News

Douglas MacMillan / Wall Street Journal:

YC raises $700M VC fund, managed by Ali Rowghani, to invest in Series A and later rounds of all YC companies valued under $300M, and selective ones above $300M — Tech Incubator Y Combinator Takes New Tack With Venture Capital Fund — Backers bet $700 million fund will transform startup accelerator …

More: Y Combinator Posthaven, VentureBeat and Y Combinator Posthaven

Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:

Dropbox unveils Paper, a web app for collaborative document editing, to-do management, currently in beta and invite-only — Paper is Dropbox's new vision for how teams can work together — Six months ago, Dropbox quietly announced a collaborative note-taking tool called Notes and launched it in an invite-only beta test.

More: Wired, The Next Web, Gigaom, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, The Verge, Cult of Mac and Pocket-lint

Tweets: @wernerdrew, @joshuatopolsky, @stevekovach, @benparr, @sean_lynch, @heyadam, @ow and @nateingraham

CB Insights:

KPMG and CB Insights: VC funding this year already exceeds all of 2014 with $37B raised in Q3, including 68 $100M+ mega-rounds — Global Venture Capital Report - Q3 2015 — KPMG and CB Insights: VC-backed Companies Haul in US$37.6 Billion Globally in Q3 2015 Due to Mega-Rounds …

More: International Business Times, VatorNews, The Next Web, TechCrunch, CNNMoney, Business Insider, Xconomy, Quartz and VentureBeat

Shira Orbach / IAB:

IAB launches program to address ad blocking with light, encrypted, ad-choice supported, and non-invasive ads — Getting LEAN with Digital Ad UX — We messed up. As technologists, tasked with delivering content and services to users, we lost track of the user experience.

More: Washington Post, Adweek, MediaPost, The Irish Times, Mediatel, Digiday and Consumerist. See also Mediagazer

Drew Olanoff / TechCrunch:

Niantic, recently spun out from Google and known for Ingress, raises $20M from Google, Pokémon Company, and Nintendo — Niantic Raises $20M From Google, Pokémon Company, And Nintendo — Just about two months ago, the maker of the popular-with-nerds game Ingress, Niantic Labs, was spun out of Google.

More: 9to5Google, VentureBeat, Re/code, Tech Times, SiliconANGLE, bizjournals, Gamasutra, Android Authority, MobileSyrup.com, The Pocket Gamer Podcast, Nintendo Life, Variety, Android Central, Business Wire, The Next Web and New York Times. Tweets: @mikeisaac

Nicole Lee / Engadget:

Yahoo Mail offers password-less login, which ties authentication to your smartphone with an Account Key app, and adds third-party email support to updated apps — Yahoo Mail drops passwords and adds third-party email support for new apps — It's Yahoo Mail's 18th birthday this month …

Federico Viticci / MacStories:

Facebook's iOS app continues to use data and drain battery in the background, even with Background App Refresh turned off; Facebook says it's working on fix — The Background Data and Battery Usage of Facebook's iOS App — Nick Heer, commenting on Facebook's battery usage on iOS in response to a piece by Matt Galligan:

More: TechCrunch, Medium, Pixel Envy, Fortune, Macworld, MacRumors, Forbes, iPhone in Canada Blog, USA Today, Lifehacker, App Advice, Tech Insider, Ubergizmo, iDownloadBlog.com, iPhone Hacks, The Tech Portal, BGR, The Mac Observer and iMore. Tweets: @abrahamvegh

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Married Founders Of Wildfire Leave Google 3 Years After $350M+ Buyout — Wife and husband duo Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard hit the jackpot on social. With every brand trying to figure out a Faceboook marketing strategy in 2008, the two built a startup called Wildfire that did it for them.

Noah Kulwin / Re/code:

Civic Tech Startup OpenGov Raises $25 Million, Adds Marc Andreessen to Its Board — For a number of startups, government transparency isn't just a political talking point — it's a lucrative business opportunity. — Their public-interest pitch is that the antiquated technology governments use …

More: Nextgov, bizjournals, PE Hub Blog, VatorNews, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and silicontap.com. Tweets: @anildash

Zac Hall / 9to5Mac:

Apple updates Pages, Keynote, & Numbers for iOS + OS X w/ Split View, 3D Touch, much more — A little later than some expected, Apple has released new versions of the iWork suite of apps for iPhone and iPad with iOS 9 and iPhone 6s features. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers …

More: ZDNet, Ars Technica, The Verge, AppleInsider, MacRumors and MacStories

Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:

Flipboard cofounder Evan Doll leaves permanently after returning from sabbatical to become an EIR at Redpoint Ventures, days after CTO Eric Feng's departure — Flipboard cofounder Evan Doll leaves to become an EIR at Redpoint Ventures — Flipboard has announced that cofounder Evan Doll has …

More: bizjournals and TechCrunch

Roger Fingas / AppleInsider:

Pixelmator for Mac rewritten in Swift, gets El Capitan optimizations and a Metal-based extension for Apple's Photos app — Pixelmator for Mac gets El Capitan optimizations, Metal-based Photos extension — Pixelmator for Mac was updated to version 3.4 on Thursday, adding things like optimization …

More: The Next Web, MacRumors and MacMegasite

William Alden / BuzzFeed:

Square guaranteed investors a 20% return in its most recent round, S-1 shows — Some Of Square's Backers Were Guaranteed A 20% Return In IPO — The payments company revealed the special provision, known as a ratchet, in its IPO prospectus today. — Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square.

More: bizjournals, BBC, Seeking Alpha and TechCrunch

Tweets: @joshconstine and @mikeisaac

Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:

Square lost $56M+ in Starbucks deal over three years, partnership to end in Q3 2016

More: TechCrunch, Tech Times, Wall Street Journal, NFC World+, MarketWatch, StreetInsider.com, Wired, Re/code, Business Insider and GeekWire

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