| 8:20 PM • | Amrith Ramkumar / Wall Street Journal: Bright Machines, which uses robotics and AI to automate manufacturing tasks, is merging with a SPAC to go public at a $1.6B post-deal valuation |
| 8:05 PM • | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: French startup Ankorstore, an online B2B marketplace connecting independent shop owners with brands, raises $102M Series B led by Tiger Global and Bain Capital |
| 7:45 PM • | Russ Mitchell / Los Angeles Times: The California DMV says Tesla is “under review” to determine if the company is misleading its customers by advertising its “full self-driving capability” option |
| 7:35 PM • | Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Transport for London and London Councils select Dott, Lime, and Tier Mobility for its pilot run of e-scooter rentals, starting June 7 and lasting up to a year |
| 7:05 PM • | Sean Hollister / The Verge: Phil Schiller testifies that the App Store drove $400B in physical sales in 2019, which Apple did not take a cut of, and Apple spends ~$50M per year on WWDC |
| 7:00 PM • | The Coinbase Blog: Coinbase launches a Chrome extension for Coinbase Wallet, making it easier to access dapps like Uniswap and Compound on desktop |
| 6:40 PM • | Dave Lee / Financial Times: Job listings indicate that DoorDash is preparing to launch in Germany, in what would be company's first foray into Europe |
| 6:35 PM • | Kim Lyons / The Verge: Facebook's VP of AR and VR Hugo Barra says he is leaving the company after a four year tenure and that he plans to “explore the healthcare technology space” |
| 6:18 PM • | The Information: Source: Amazon is in talks to acquire MGM, in what would be its biggest move to expand into entertainment |
| 5:50 PM • | Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Amount, which helps banks modernize and compete with fintechs, raises $99M Series D at a $1B+ valuation |
| 5:26 PM • | Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire: Twilio announces it is acquiring business texting startup Zipwhip, which is based in Seattle and employs ~275 people, for $850M in a cash and stock deal |
| 4:50 PM • | Makena Kelly / The Verge: FTC says that US consumers have lost $2M+ in cryptocurrency to scammers impersonating Elon Musk over the past six months |
| 4:16 PM • | New York Times: Sources detail how Apple relented to escalating demands from China, making changes to governance of its Chinese users' data and agreeing to censor its platforms |
| 3:40 PM • | Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac: Apple is working on wireless earbuds called Beats Studio Buds that will support noise cancellation, according to files in beta versions of iOS 14.6 |
| 3:05 PM • | Matt Levine / Bloomberg: Elon Musk is either trading on his unique ability to move the price of Bitcoin and Dogecoin, or just trolling, and both scenarios are bizarre and incredible |
| 2:25 PM • | Popular Information: Docs: Google's state policy manager attended a policy working group led by the Republican State Leadership Committee that worked on voter suppression proposals |
| 2:20 PM • | Juli Clover / MacRumors: Apple says the Bluetooth AAC codec used by AirPods Pro and AirPods Max does not support Apple Music's lossless streaming, nor does Lightning on AirPods Max |
| 1:42 PM • | Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: After Eufy device owners noticed they could access others' cameras and live feeds, Eufy says it was a bug and all users should log out and reset their cameras |
| 1:25 PM • | Matthew Leising / Bloomberg: Bank of America is testing Paxos Trust's network to settle stock trades quickly using blockchain, plans to roll out to clients if approved as a clearing agency |
| 12:35 PM • | Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Jerry, a “super app” for car owners that has ~1M US users and is known best for its insurance comparison service, raises $28M Series B led by Goodwater Capital |
| 11:45 AM • | Gené Teare / Crunchbase News: Analysis: 166 new unicorns have already been created in 2021, up from 163 in all of 2020; Tiger Global has invested in twice as many unicorns as Sequoia Capital |
| 10:50 AM • | Wall Street Journal: As Epic and Apple face off in the antitrust trial, a snapshot of the app economy behind the fight |
| 10:40 AM • | Kevin Randall / Washington Post: As Parler returns to the App Store, its chief policy officer says posts labeled as “hate” by its AI, hidden on iOS, will be viewable on other devices and web |
| 10:35 AM • | Joe Miller / Financial Times: German smart home company Tado, which says it has installed 1M thermostats to date, raises $46M, intended as the last funding round before a sale or IPO |
| 10:20 AM • | Chris Velazco / Engadget: What to expect from Google I/O: a big focus on Android 12, Assistant and smart home improvements, changes to Wear OS, and possible Pixel Buds A-series |
| 10:10 AM • | Sarah Krouse / The Information: Sources: Google's plans to match Apple's ATT changes have been delayed by internal concerns that such moves will diminish mobile ad revenues |
| 10:05 AM • | Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal: Amazon announces WorkingWell, a new program to educate employees on avoiding injuries and improving mental health, expanding to 1,000 facilities by end of 2021 |
| 10:00 AM • | Bloomberg: JD Logistics, the delivery arm of JD.com, plans to raise up to $3.4B in its Hong Kong IPO, beginning trading on May 28 |
| 9:55 AM • | Tim Higgins / Wall Street Journal: Tim Cook is expected to testify for about 100 minutes in Epic v. Apple late this week or early next; Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi will testify before Cook |
| 9:45 AM • | Micah Singleton / Billboard: Amazon Music HD is now available to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers for free, effectively cutting the Hi-Fi service's price from $14.99 to $9.99 per month |
| 9:40 AM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: GitHub now lets users add videos to pull requests, discussions, issues, comments, and more |
| 9:30 AM • | Jay Peters / The Verge: Twitch says it is switching to localized subscription prices in some non-US markets, which will often be lower, starting with Turkey and Mexico on May 20 |
| 9:15 AM • | Apple: Apple says it will bring lossless audio to all Apple Music subscribers for free and will support Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, available in June |
| 9:10 AM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft launches a personal version of Teams, after previewing it nearly a year ago, available for free |
| 9:00 AM • | Todd Spangler / Variety: DVD rental and streaming company Redbox is going public via SPAC in a deal that values the combined company at $693M; Redbox had earnings of $114M in 2020 |
| 7:35 AM • | Brian Stelter / CNN: AT&T to spin off WarnerMedia and combine it with Discovery in a $43B deal; the new company will be run by Discovery CEO David Zaslav |
| 7:15 AM • | Shannon Liao / Washington Post: Q&A with Bloomberg's Jason Schreier on his new book Press Reset, which expounds on closures of video game studios like Irrational Games, the makers of BioShock |
| 4:30 AM • | The Economic Times: Indian B2B e-commerce marketplace Moglix raises $120M Series E at a $1B valuation, bringing its total raised to $220M |
| 3:05 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Ride-hailing giant Gojek and e-commerce marketplace Tokopedia say they have merged to form GoTo Group, the largest tech group in Indonesia |
| 3:00 AM • | Jonathan Greig / ZDNet: Survey: over 60% of 1,400 CISOs in 14 countries expect a damaging cyberattack in the next 12 months, due to massive shift to remote work since the pandemic |
| 12:40 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Pine Labs, which makes POS software for payments terminals as well as invoicing tools, raises $285M at a $3B valuation, up from $2B in a round last December |
| 10:45 PM • | Hamish McKenzie / Substack Blog: Substack acquires People & Company, which focuses on community building, to expand its support infrastructure for writers, including workshops and legal support |
| 9:00 PM • | CNBC: MasterClass, which offers celebrity-taught online classes, raises $225M Series F led by Fidelity Management, sources say at a $2.75B valuation |
| 8:50 PM • | Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: Actor claiming to be voice behind TikTok's text-to-speech feature sues TikTok for “irreparable harm”; says recordings she made were never authorized for TikTok |
| 8:30 PM • | Variety: Disney+ misses on Q1 subscriber estimates, reaching 103.6M subscribers vs. 109.3M expected; ESPN+ subscribers rose 75% YoY to 13.8M, Hulu grew 30% YoY to 41.6M |
| 8:05 PM • | Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: Chemical distributor Brenntag paid a $4.4M ransom in bitcoin to the DarkSide ransomware gang, who claimed to have stolen more than 150 GB of sensitive data |
| 7:15 PM • | Todd Spangler / Variety: Jeff Blackburn, an S-team Amazon exec who had departed in February, is returning as SVP of Global Media and Entertainment, overseeing Prime Video, Twitch, more |
| 6:30 PM • | MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Coinbase reports Q1 revenue of $1.8B, up 207% QoQ, monthly transacting users of 6.1M, up from 2.8M last quarter, says it plans to list dogecoin in 6-8 weeks |
| 6:00 PM • | Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC: Bumble stock falls 14%+ on Thursday to $40.48, below its IPO price, after beating Q1 revenue expectations Wednesday but issuing a more cautious Q2 guidance |
| 5:25 PM • | Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: Collective, a subscription-based service that handles back office tasks like accounting for the self-employed, raises $20M Series A led by General Catalyst |
| 4:50 PM • | Amelia Lucas / CNBC: DoorDash reports Q1 revenue of $1.08B, up 198% YoY, and a net loss of $110M, blaming a shortage of drivers, but raises forecasts; stock up 23%+ |
| 4:30 PM • | Yogita Khatri / The Block: Tether, which claimed at launch that each tether was backed 1:1 with USD, releases a breakdown of its reserves, revealing that only 3.87% are in actual cash |
| 4:20 PM • | Jordan Novet / CNBC: Airbnb reports Q1 revenue of $886.9M, up 5% YoY, gross booking value of $10.3B, up 52% YoY, but net loss tripled to $1.1B, largely due to debt repayments |
| 4:05 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Pinterest says it will test livestreaming events this month through a three-day virtual event featuring sessions with around 21 top creators |
| 3:05 PM • | The Block: Vitalik Buterin sells large amounts of SHIB, AKITA, and ELON tokens, sent to him by coin creators, for ~$60M worth of ETH, and donates the proceeds to charities |
| 2:10 PM • | Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: Twitter has announced six acquisitions so far in 2021, the most the company has made in a calendar year since 2015, as part of its new product push |
| 1:23 PM • | Tom Schoenberg / Bloomberg: Sources: Binance is under investigation by DOJ and IRS; officials involved include those who probe money laundering and tax offenses |
| 12:45 PM • | Swetha Gopinath / Bloomberg: Canada-based chip maker Alphawave closed down 16% on its first day of trading in London, after raising £856M at a valuation of £3.1B |
| 12:35 PM • | Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News: GRIN, which helps brands manage influencer marketing campaigns, adds $16M to its $10M Series A announced in December 2020 |
| 12:10 PM • | Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: Ford says it will start rolling out OTA updates to its vehicles at scale, including adding Alexa later this year to 700K eligible vehicles |
| 11:50 AM • | Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: Discord announces Stage Discovery, a tool to help people find communities through live audio events, and says it will soon test paid, ticketed audio events |
| 11:45 AM • | Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal: Amazon says it is hiring 75,000 workers, representing 8% of its US workforce, and offering an average of $17/hour, above its typical $15/hour starting wage |
| 11:35 AM • | Crystal Tse / Bloomberg: Axtria, which makes data analytics software for life sciences companies, raises $150M, sources say at a valuation close to $1B |
| 11:10 AM • | Strategy Analytics: Global notebook PC shipments grew 81% YoY in Q1; both Apple, with 5.7M shipments, and Acer, with 4.9M shipments, grew 94% as HP grew 91% with 15.4M shipments |
| 10:55 AM • | Joey Roulette / The Verge: SpaceX signs a satellite connectivity deal with Google Cloud, as part of which SpaceX will install Starlink terminals at Google's data centers around the world |
| 10:31 AM • | Bloomberg: Sources: Colonial paid ~$5M ransom in cryptocurrency within hours of the attack, but the hackers' decrypting tool was so slow that it had to use its own backups |
| 10:15 AM • | Richard Nieva / CNET: YouTube has banned almost 40 QAnon channels that were evading YouTube's policies and escaping violations by self-deleting their own videos after a few days |
| 10:05 AM • | Detroit News: Michigan GOP lawmaker introduces a bill that requires fact checkers to register with the state using a $1M fidelity bond, and levies $1K/day fine for violations |
| 9:45 AM • | Billy Steele / Engadget: Amazon Echo Buds (2nd gen) review: affordable, better sound, smaller, True ANC, optional wireless charging, but middling battery life and mediocre call quality |
| 9:25 AM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Roku announces launch of its original programming, including the Quibi content it acquired, on the Roku Channel, starting May 20 |
| 9:15 AM • | Bloomberg: South Korea plans to spend around $450B to build the world's biggest chipmaking base over the next decade; Samsung to boost spending by 30% to $151B by 2030 |
| 8:40 AM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Animoca Brands, which lets players own in-game items through NFTs, enabling them to sell or take items if they leave the game, raises $88M at a $1B valuation |
| 8:25 AM • | Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: Alibaba reports Q4 net loss of $836M, as the massive antitrust fine it received last month weighed on earnings, and revenue of $28.6B, up 64% YoY |
| 8:15 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Cyral, which offers enterprise data governance across platforms including Amazon S3, Snowflake, and MongoDB, raises $26M, bringing its total raised to $41.1M |
| 7:35 AM • | Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: Cryptocurrency markets lost around $365B in value after Musk tweeted Tesla will suspend car purchases with bitcoin; bitcoin, ether, and XRP all fell sharply |
| 7:20 AM • | Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Google has been fined €100M+ by Italy's antitrust watchdog for abusing its dominant market position by restricting third party access to the Android Auto app |
| 4:40 AM • | Peter White / Deadline: IAB: podcast ad revenue in the US grew 19% in 2020 to hit $842M, up from $708M in 2019 and $479M in 2018, and is set to reach $2B by 2023 |
| 3:00 AM • | Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch: Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide says it raised an undisclosed sum to complete its Series C at a $3B+ valuation, four months after its $310M Series B |
| 12:40 AM • | Benjamin Wallace / New York Magazine: Behind the online battle between notable tech figures including a16z partners and Balaji Srinivasan, and the journalists who report, and tweet, on the industry |
| 12:25 AM • | Shiri Habib-Valdhorn / Globes Online: SimilarWeb closes down 0.6% in its NYSE debut after raising $165M in its IPO at a valuation of ~$1.6B; its revenue in 2020 was $93.5M with a net loss of $22M |
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