| 12:44 PM • | Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Privacy browser Brave launches a non-tracking search engine in beta, at search.brave.com, to offer an “all in one” alternative to Google Search and Chrome |
| 12:35 PM • | Nilay Patel / The Verge: Q&A with Patreon CEO Jack Conte on its relationship with Apple and exception from App Store's 30% cut, supporting creators across platforms, and more |
| 12:30 PM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Oyster, which develops HR software for a distributed workforce, raises $50M Series B led by Stripes at a $475M valuation, up 6x from its previous valuation |
| 12:00 PM • | Vicky McKeever / CNBC: Dating app Bumble says it's giving all ~700 employees a “paid, fully offline one-week vacation” in June, recognizing the challenges endured during the pandemic |
| 11:05 AM • | Silicon Canals: Berlin-based Myos, which runs an AI-based lending platform for e-commerce merchants, raises €25M Series A led by Fasanara Capital and Xploration Capital |
| 10:10 AM • | Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: How Monero, a cryptocurrency that obscures the sender and receiver, is increasingly being used by ransomware gangs wary of bitcoin's traceability |
| 9:50 AM • | Noah Smith / Noahpinion: Q&A with Marc Andreessen on his “It's Time to Build” essay, techno-optimism, Clubhouse and Substack's potential, “Augmented Intelligence”, crypto, and more |
| 9:35 AM • | Saqib Shah / Engadget: Tinder announces several features, including support for up to nine videos on profiles and letting unmatched users talk in short bursts before swiping |
| 9:30 AM • | Daphne Leprince-Ringuet / ZDNet: EU member states approve unimpeded data flows between EU and UK, deciding UK's regulations are as good as GDPR, avoiding complex legal paperwork for businesses |
| 9:25 AM • | The Verge: Epic Games says it will offer free voice chat and anti-cheating tools for developers as part of its Online Services suite, compatible with all major platforms |
| 8:45 AM • | Omkar Godbole / CoinDesk: Bitcoin falls to around $30,000, its lowest level since January 28 after a $64,000 peak in mid-April, as China continues to crackdown on mining |
| 8:30 AM • | Golan Hazani / CTech: Source: Israel-based JoyTunes, which helps users learn guitar and piano using AI, raises $50M at a $1B valuation led by GV |
| 8:20 AM • | Reuters: Google confirms it is replacing its Engineering Residency, aimed at underrepresented participants, after employees said it enforced “systemic pay inequities” |
| 8:15 AM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: G2, which crowdsources enterprise software reviews and helps paying customers glean insights, raises $157M Series D at a $1B+ valuation |
| 8:05 AM • | Kait Bolongaro / Bloomberg: Canadian lawmakers pass a controversial bill that would subject tech giants to the same requirements as traditional broadcasters; bill now heads to the Senate |
| 7:45 AM • | Aislinn Keely / The Block: Elliptic report: US regulators, led by SEC, have levied $2.5B against various crypto projects since 2009, mostly from unregistered securities offerings |
| 7:10 AM • | Elad Gil / Elad Blog: CB Insights data: US added 154 new unicorns since October 2020, 67%+ of the global total, while Europe added 25 unicorns, India added 11, and China added just 9 |
| 6:45 AM • | Carly Page / TechCrunch: Boston-based Transmit Security, which is building a biometric-based authenticator, raises $543M Series A at a $2.2B pre-money valuation |
| 6:20 AM • | Tim Hardwick / MacRumors: UK government says it will test its new national Emergency Alerts system, starting with Android devices today before a smaller, regional iPhone test next week |
| 6:00 AM • | Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: European Commission says it has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google favors its own display ad tech over rivals |
| 5:40 AM • | Bloomberg: Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal says bipartisan antitrust legislation, one of six bills, would force Amazon to sell its logistics division |
| 5:30 AM • | Laurens Cerulus / Politico: In a draft plan, the EU outlines a Joint Cyber Unit, which would let countries hit by cyberattacks request help, including rapid response teams |
| 5:10 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: DataRails, which offers financial planning and analysis tools that integrate with Excel, extends its Series A by $25M to $43.5M, bringing total raised to $55M |
| 5:05 AM • | Debby Wu / Bloomberg: GlobalFoundries says it will spend $4B+ to build a chipmaking plant in Singapore, starting production in 2023, and devote $1B each to its German and US sites |
| 4:55 AM • | Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: EU Court of Justice says YouTube and other platforms are not liable for copyright-infringing content uploaded by users under certain conditions |
| 4:45 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Amsterdam-based Mollie, which offers developers plugins and APIs to integrate payments, raises $800M at a $6.5B valuation led by Blackstone Growth |
| 4:40 AM • | Jon Porter / The Verge: London's mayor says the Underground will have mobile coverage by the end of 2024 across the entire network, with some popular stations by the end of 2022 |
| 2:25 AM • | TechCrunch: Vienna-based GoStudent, which connects K-12 students with online tutors, raises $244M Series C led by DST Global at a $1.7B valuation |
| 12:05 AM • | Conor Hale / FierceBiotech: Cleerly, whose AI-powered imaging tech aims to provide a more comprehensive view of cardiac health than traditional indicators, raises $43M Series B |
| 11:50 PM • | Ian Hamilton / UploadVR: After agreeing to be Facebook's first VR ad test partner, Resolution Games says it won't move forward with the test in its paid VR game Blaston |
| 11:20 PM • | Reuters: Prosus says the value of its e-commerce portfolio excluding Tencent is worth $39B and had revenue of $6.2B in FY 2021, up 54% YoY, on $429M loss, down 46% YoY |
| 8:35 PM • | Katharine Schwab / Fast Company: Survey of 37 tech giants: $3.8B committed to diversity efforts in 2020 and 2021, ~2/3 had made some kind of DEI policy change after the summer 2020 protests |
| 6:45 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: HPE says it has acquired Determined AI, which is developing an open source platform for building machine learning models; terms of the deal were not disclosed |
| 4:55 PM • | Bloomberg: Filing: Amazon has ordered 1,000 autonomous driving systems from self-driving truck startup Plus and acquired the option to buy up to a 20% stake in the startup |
| 4:00 PM • | Nicole Lee / Engadget: TikTok launches TikTok Jump to let creators enhance their videos by adding mini-app integrations from select partners including Whisk, Wikipedia, Quizlet, more |
| 3:20 PM • | Katherine Anne Long / The Seattle Times: Internal docs: Amazon tries to push 6% of its office staff out of the company each year, calling the loss of low-ranked office workers “unregretted attrition” |
| 2:55 PM • | Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica: Google quietly pushed Massachusetts' MassNotify COVID tracking app to Android phones in the state; after debuting last week, the app has 1M to 5M installs |
| 1:55 PM • | Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: A timeline of Google's long list of mostly-defunct messaging apps and services, starting in 2004 with Gmail and progressing to Google Talk, Hangouts, and Allo |
| 12:45 PM • | Daisuke Wakabayashi / New York Times: Current and former Google execs say the company suffers from both its size and Sundar Pichai's leadership, marked by delayed decisions and raging culture fights |
| 12:15 PM • | BBC: How North Korean hackers nearly stole $951M from Bangladesh Bank's New York Fed account in 2016, only to be stopped at the last moment after transferring $81M |
| 11:00 AM • | Noor Zainab Hussain / Reuters: Filing: cybersecurity company SentinelOne will sell 32M shares at $26-$29, aiming for a $7B+ valuation and raising $928M at the top end, when it floats on NYSE |
| 10:55 AM • | The Information: Sources: Shopify is rolling out a service that will let BuzzFeed and other content publishers link to merchants in exchange for a cut of transaction revenue |
| 10:25 AM • | Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times: A look at the huge rise of esports in South Korea, where thousands of young people compete to go pro, and efforts to create sustainable jobs in the industry |
| 9:40 AM • | Mary Biekert / Bloomberg: Securitize, which helps companies issue asset-backed security tokens, raises $48M Series B co-led by Morgan Stanley and Blockchain Capital |
| 9:30 AM • | Patrick Shanley / Washington Post: A look at the future of E3, once the dominant gaming event, as the pandemic, withdrawal of Sony, and rise of competing events has weakened its impact and appeal |
| 9:00 AM • | Martin Arnold / Financial Times: European Central Bank board member says a digital euro will protect consumer privacy and protect the eurozone from the “threat” of competing cryptocurrencies |
| 8:25 AM • | Julia Fioretti / Bloomberg: Sources: Full Truck Alliance, a Chinese Uber-like service for trucks, raises $1.6B after pricing at $19, the top of the range; trading begins today on NYSE |
| 8:20 AM • | Stephanie Findlay / Financial Times: Sources: Indian payments company Paytm is seeking to raise up to $3B in its forthcoming IPO, targeting a valuation of $29B; the company was last valued at $16B |
| 8:00 AM • | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: Revolut says it had $361M in 2020 revenue, up 57% YoY, non-adjusted operating loss reached $277M due to staff costs, and retail customers rose 45% to 14.5M |
| 7:35 AM • | Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: As China expands its crackdown on cryptocurrency mining farms, analysis shows the price of GPUs has fallen on many e-commerce platforms in the country |
| 7:30 AM • | Sam Shead / CNBC: Google says it has decided not to reopen Campus, its London-based startup space, after the pandemic forced it to close |
| 7:25 AM • | Richard Pallot / ITV: Investigation finds Amazon has been destroying thousands of unsold goods at its UK-based Dunfermline warehouse; source says 130K items are destroyed per week |
| 7:20 AM • | Global Times: China's Sichuan Province closes crypto mines, following Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan; an estimated 90% of China's mining capacity has now been shut down |
| 7:08 AM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Facebook rolls out Live Audio Rooms, available to verified public figures and select Groups, and its podcast service, available to select partners, in the US |
| 7:05 AM • | Sami Fathi / MacRumors: Germany's Federal Cartel Office announces an antitrust investigation into Apple's App Store, pre-installed apps, and more |
| 6:55 AM • | Sarah Frier / Bloomberg: Real estate mogul Frank McCourt says he plans to invest $100M to build a blockchain-based database of social connections, sidestepping the dominant social apps |
| 6:20 AM • | Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer: Researcher finds iPhone bug that disables wireless functionality after joining a WiFi network called “%p%s%s%s%s%n”; resetting network settings fixes the issue |
| 5:45 AM • | Sam Shead / CNBC: A look at Founders Forum, the annual UK event branded as the “Davos of tech” attended by Europe's top CEOs and investors from technology and media |
| 5:05 AM • | Douglas Busvine / Reuters: Forto, a freight forwarding service that gives customers real-time data, raises $240M led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 at a $1.2B valuation |
| 2:05 AM • | Alan Suderman / Associated Press: Tax experts say that ransomware victims' ransom payments are probably tax deductible in the US, unless they were paid by an insurance company |
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