Techmeme
June 12, 2018, 2:15 PM

Top News

Dan Primack / Axios:
Sources: e-scooter company Bird is seeking to raise ~$200M in new funding at a $2B valuation; just three months ago the startup raised at a $300M valuation  —  E-scooter company Bird is seeking to raise around $200 million in new funding at a $2 billion valuation, according to multiple sources.
Richard Nieva / CNET:
Congress releases Facebook's written responses to follow-up questions from Mark Zuckerberg's April testimony; Facebook says it received 2,000+ questions  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered a lot of questions when he testified before Congress in April.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Josef Adalian / Vulture:
Inside Netflix's original content efforts as it spends $8B this year: “It's 70 percent gut and 30 percent data”, says Ted Sarandos  —  “What do you think about gas in the tank for the long term?” asks Cindy Holland, Netflix's vice-president of original content.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Large funding rounds for Bird and Lime suggest strong economics, which means the potential for building moats for dockless scooter startups are relatively weak  —  As I understand it, the proper way to open an article about electric scooters is to first state one's priors …
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Uber unveils Uber Lite, a low-data app just 5MB in size for developing markets that shows maps only on request, coming to India first  —  “The next hundreds of millions of riders for us are going to come from outside of the United States", Uber's head of rider experience Peter Deng tells me.
Siobhan Hughes / Wall Street Journal:
Bipartisan group of senators move to stop Trump's deal to give ZTE a lifeline amid US export ban, by adding ZTE export ban as amendment to defense spending bill  —  White House sent top official to Capitol Hill to lobby against bipartisan effort to reverse pact to revive the Chinese telecommunications company
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Swedish video-based call-a-doctor service Kry raises $66M Series B led by Index Ventures to finance further expansion in Europe  —  Swedish telehealth startup Kry has closed a $66 million Series B funding round led by Index Ventures, with participation from existing investors Accel, Creandum, and Project A.
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Instagram adds shopping tags directly into Stories, so now users can tap a shopping bag icon to learn more about buying a particular item  —  Instagram's shoppable tags are about to pop up in Stories.  The company first started testing the feature back in 2016 with a limited set of 20 partners.
Christina Rogers / Wall Street Journal:
Argo AI, which received $1B from Ford and works on automated driving, says it has ~330 staff, up from under 12 last year, by hiring from Apple, Uber, and others  —  Equity stakes in a fast-growing startup and a link to a big auto maker are helping recruit engineers and robotics researchers
Jon Russell / TechCrunch:
Vietnam's new cybersecurity law raises concerns about restricting free speech, also requires foreign internet companies to store user data locally  —  Big tech firms including Google, Facebook and Twitter have expressed major concern after Vietnam's government passed a law that promises …
Robert Triggs / Android Authority:
USB Type-C has become a mess of compatibility issues, conflicting proprietary standards, and lacks sufficient consumer information to guide purchasing decisions  —  6.6K  —  USB Type-C was billed as the solution for all our future cable needs, unifying power and data delivery with display …

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More News

Jon Russell / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Jeff Grubb / VentureBeat:
Sean Lyngaas / Cyberscoop:
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: