TechCrunch Startup News

Latest Episodes:

Cisco is buying Duo Security for $2.35B in cash Aug 03, 2018

Show notes

Cisco today announced its intent to buy Ann Arbor, MI-based security firm, Duo Security. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco is paying $2.35 billion in cash and assumed equity awards for Duo. Duo Security was founded in 2010 by Dug Song and Jonathan Oberheide and went on to raise $121.M through several rounds of funding. The company has 700 employees with offices throughout the United States and in London, though the company has remained headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Skyline AI raises $18M Series A for its machine learning-based real estate investment tech Aug 02, 2018

Show notes

Skyline AI founders Iri Amirav, Or Hiltch, Guy Zipori and Amir Leitersdorf A mere four months after coming out of stealth mode with $3 million in seed funding, real estate investment startup Skyline AI announced that it has raised an $18 million Series A. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, a returning investor, and TLV Partners, with participation from JLL Spark, a division of real estate investment management firm JLL.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fashionably AI Aug 02, 2018

Show notes

This summer’s wedding season required me to buy a new suit. I vowed to be adventurous and buy a color I normally never would have considered. Alas, I opted for a little more movie-theater usher and a little less Jidenna. Had I known about it at the time, I probably would have used Eison Triple Thread, a company that specializes in creating made-to-order suits. Working with someone to create a suit can be a hard enough task.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A pickaxe for the AI gold rush, Labelbox sells training data software Aug 01, 2018

Show notes

Every artificial intelligence startup or corporate R&D lab has to reinvent the wheel when it comes to how humans annotate training data to teach algorithms what to look for. Whether it’s doctors assessing the size of cancer from a scan or drivers circling street signs in self-driving car footage, all this labeling has to happen somewhere. Often that means wasting six months and as much as a million dollars just developing a training data system.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tractable is applying AI to accident and disaster appraisal Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

“Happy to spend 10 minutes on our vision and the journey we’re on, but then, really, 15 minutes on what we’ve got today, what it is we’ve achieved, what it is our AI does,” says Tractable co-founder and CEO Alexandre Dalyac when I video called him a couple of weeks ago. “You can probably speed up all of that,” I quip back.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fabric offers an alternative to Facebook sharing with a private timeline of personal moments Jul 31, 2018

Show notes

Fabric, a personal journaling app that emerged from Y Combinator’s 2016 batch of startups, is relaunching itself as a Facebook alternative. The app is giving itself a makeover in the wake of Facebook’s closure of the Moves location tracker, by offering its own tool to record your activities, photos, memories and other moments shared with friends and family. But unlike on Facebook, everything in Fabric is private by default and data isn’t shared with marketers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook’s debacle, $100M rounds and Slack links up with Atlassian Jul 30, 2018

Show notes

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This was one hell of a week. Happily, we had our own Connie Loizos, Matthew Lynley, and Alex Wilhelm on hand, along with InitializedCapital’s Alexis Ohanian to pick over the mix. First up we had zero choice but to talk about Facebook. The social company’s epic repricing in the middle of the week blotted out the news sun.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MentalHappy helps companies send custom care packages to employees going through a rough time Jul 27, 2018

Show notes

For many people, their workplaces become like a second family. More companies are recognizing this with better benefits such as longer family leave and wellness programs. But when an employee needs to take a break or is going through a hard time, they can feel alienated–sometimes enough to seek a new job. MentalHappy wants to help them stay connected to their companies with care packages, called Cheerboxes, designed for people experiencing a major life event.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Outlier raises $6.2 M Series A to change how companies use data Jul 27, 2018

Show notes

Traditionally, companies have gathered data from a variety of sources, then used spreadsheets and dashboards to try and make sense of it all. Outlier wants to change that and deliver a handful of insights that matter most for your job, company and industry right to your inbox. Today the company announced a $6.2 million Series A to further develop that vision. The round was led by Ridge Ventures with assistance from 11.2 Capital, First Round Capital, Homebrew, Susa Ventures and SV Angel.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zbiotics says it’s bioengineered a hangover cure Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

Y Combinator backedZbioticshas spend two years developing what they’re billing as theworld’s first genetically engineered probiotic. The startup’s initial product isn’t exactly world-changing but it might just save your day — given they’ve invented an elixir of ‘next day’ life: Aka a hangover cure.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices