Techmeme
August 2, 2021, 9:45 AM

Top News

Jon Porter / The Verge:
YouTube trials Premium Lite subscription for €6.99/month, offering ad-free viewing across all major platforms, currently available in Europe  —  Currently being piloted in parts of Europe  —  Google is piloting a more affordable premium subscription tier for YouTube …
Reuters:
Square says it's buying Australia-based buy now, pay later service Afterpay for $29B in an all-stock deal, paying a 30% premium on Afterpay's last closing  —  U.S. fintech company Square Inc (SQ.N) said on Monday it had agreed to purchase Australian buy now/pay later giant Afterpay Ltd …
Greg Ahlstrand / CoinDesk:
Square reports Q2 revenue of $4.88B, up 143% YoY; Cash App's bitcoin yearly revenue was $2.72B, up 200%, as Square's bitcoin holdings had a $45M impairment loss  —  Cash App's bitcoin gross profit rose to $55 million, Square said in its Q2 letter to shareholders.
Olivia Solon / NBC News:
Female journalists and activists share how they were targeted and harassed by authoritarian regimes through hack-and-leak attacks using the Pegasus spyware  —  Ghada Oueiss, a Lebanese broadcast journalist at Al-Jazeera, was eating dinner at home with her husband last June when she received …
Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
A now-deleted tweet by an Intel executive suggests Thunderbolt 5 could double the bandwidth of existing Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 connections to 80 Gbps  —  An executive visiting various research divisions across the globe isn't necessarily new, but with a focus on social media driving named individuals …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Zoom agrees to pay $85M and bolster its security practices to settle a class action lawsuit over alleged user privacy violations and Zoombombing  —  Zoom Video Communications Inc (ZM.O) agreed to pay $85 million and bolster its security practices to settle a lawsuit claiming …
Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal:
Non-VC funds invested in a record 42% of tech startup funding deals in Q2 2021; H1 '21 US startup funding was $150B, with FY 2021 on pace to double 2020's total  —  Hedge, mutual and pension funds are investing heavily, leading to higher valuations and more leverage for company founders
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Bangalore-based online learning startup Unacademy raises $440M led by Temasek at a $3.44B valuation  —  Unacademy has raised $440 million in a new financing round as the Indian online learning startup looks to expand into multiple additional categories.  —  Temasek led the Bangalore-based startup's …
Emmanuel Akinwotu / The Guardian:
Analysis: Nigeria is second only to the US in bitcoin trading volume, hitting $2.4B in May from $684M in Dec. 2020, as the government tries to curb its use  —  As leaders around the world grapple with cryptocurrencies, what happened when the African country tried to ban them?
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Estonian ride hailing startup Bolt, formerly known as Taxify, raises $713M at a ~$4.75B valuation, led by Sequoia, Tekne, and Ghisallo  —  - Estonian ride-hailing start-up Bolt has raised $713 million in fresh funding to push into the rapidly-growing online grocery delivery industry.

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Politico:
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Earlier Picks

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Brent Lang / Variety:
Maya Wolfe-Robinson / The Guardian:
Stitch / The Verge:
Kyle Chayka / New Yorker: