Here’s how you make the most of your Galaxy S10 phone.
Source: CNET
Whether you need a new laptop for school or work or you’re just doing some post-holiday shopping, we have you covered: These are the best laptop deals going right now, from discounted MacBooks to on-the-go gaming PCs.
The post From Chromebooks to MacBooks, here are the best laptop deals for April 2019 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
In 2007, Stefania Mallett and Briscoe Rodgers conceived of ezCater, an online marketplace for business catering, and began building the company in Mallet’s Boston home, mostly at her kitchen table.
Recently, sitting at that same table, Mallett negotiated with Brad Twohig of Lightspeed Venture Partners the final terms of a $150 million Series D-1 at a $1.25 billion valuation. Lightspeed, alongside GIC, co-led the round, with participation from Light Street Capital, Wellington Management, ICONIQ Capital and Quadrille Capital.
“Raising money or getting to unicorn status, it’s all nice validation but that’s not the purpose, the purpose of being in business is to grow a very successful company with happy customers and happy employees,” Mallett, ezCater’s chief executive officer, told TechCrunch. “We are going to have cupcakes with unicorns on them. That will take us about a half hour, then we will get back to work.”
EzCater co-founder and CEO Stefania Mallett
Mallett compares ezCater to Expedia . The travel company doesn’t own and operate hotels, nor do they create them. EzCater, similarly, works with 60,500 restaurants and caterers around the U.S. to fulfill orders, but at no point do they work directly with food nor make any deliveries themselves.
Since its inception, the ezCater marketplace has grown considerably, expanding 100 percent annually for the last eight years, Mallett tells us. Though, like most unicorns, ezCater isn’t profitable yet.
Both Mallett and Rodgers are software industry veterans, establishing engineering careers prior to tackling business catering. The pair bootstrapped the company until 2011, when they secured a small Series A investment of $2.7 million. That same year, U.S. foodtech startups raised $176 million, per PitchBook. EzCater would go on to raise more than $300 million in equity funding, including its latest round, and VC interest in foodtech would explode. Already this year, U.S. foodtech startups have brought in $626 million after pulling in a whopping $5 billion in 2018.
EzCater has benefited from this boom. The company raised a $100 million Series D just 10 months ago.
“We really didn’t need the money, we have quite a lot of money in the bank from the last round,” Mallett said. “There was so much talk of a funding winter and a recession coming so we said maybe we should try to raise money and then people jumped on it so we thought OK, why not? If there is a funding winter, we’re set; if not, well, we are still set.”
The investment comes hot off the heels of ezCater’s acquisition of Monkey Group, a cloud platform for take-out, delivery and catering. Mallett declined to disclose terms of the deal but said the partnership makes ezCater the indisputable market leader in catering management software. The company will use its recently expanded war chest to accelerate its international expansion and, potentially, continue its M&A streak. As for the future, an initial public offering is amongst the possibilities.
“We certainly are considering it,” Mallett said. “As we’ve grown, we’ve become more sophisticated and mature; that puts us in a good position to continue operating as a successful standalone company or be acquired by a public company or go public if we see an opportunity to do that. We are not wedded to any of these outcomes.”
Source: TechCrunch
Well, on Friday we thought we’d have to wait another few weeks to hear about Valve’s plans for its first virtual reality headset, but the company (accidentally?) seems to have let a few details and images slip regarding its high-powered contender to consumer VR headsets built by Oculus and HTC.
A product page for the Valve Index went live this morning and was discovered by Twitter user @Wario64. We’ve learned that while we’ll hear full details and pre-order the headset on May 1 per the teaser, the device will be launching on June 15.
No word on pricing, though the company did let some other details slip. Including that the headset will come with the “Knuckles” controllers that Valve has been developing, which are now called the Valve Index Controllers. The placeholder page didn’t have full details on resolution or other specs though we also now see that the wired headset has integrated headphones as well, something that has been controversially left out of Oculus’s upcoming Rift S headset.
Valve has confirmed the details to other publications, saying that the information is accurate, but not comprehensive. We have also reached out to the company for confirmation.
Source: TechCrunch
A little over a year after it introduced Syndicates to the India market, AngelList — the U.S. service that helps connect companies with investors — is rolling out its own fund in the country with the backing of some stellar names.
Dubbed ‘The Collective,’ the syndicate includes money from Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal — Flipkart, of course, sold a majority stake to Walmart for $16 billion last year — and VCs Salil Deshpande of Bain Capital Ventures, Matrix India trio Avnish Bajaj, Tarun Davda and Vikram Vaidyanathan, Navroz Udwadia from Falcon Edge Capital and Rahul Mehta of DST Global. There’s also involvement from funds that include Kalaari Capital, FJ Labs and Beenext.
The Collective will be managed through an investment committee that is Utsav Somani, a partner with AngelList who launched the service in India, former 500 Startups India partner Pankaj Jain and Nipun Mehra, who has worked with Sequoia Capital, Flipkart and payment startup Pine Labs.
The size of the fund is undisclosed, but Somani told TechCrunch it will likely back 60-80 companies over the next 12-18 months. Syndicates interested in engaging The Collective can draw up to $150,000 per deal, according to an AngelList India announcement.
“The fund will exclusively deploy on AngelList India. This is to give more power to the most active GP base we have through our syndicate leads,” Somani explained.
Utsav Somani launched AngelList’s syndicates product in India last year and he will now look after the company’s first managed fund in the country
More generally, he said that the first year of Syndicates in India has seen more than $5 million deployed across more than 50 publicly announced investments, including deals with BharatPe, HalaPlay, Yulu Bikes and Open Bank. Six of those startups have already raised follow-on capital. Somani said AngelList India Syndicates have invested alongside well-known funds that include Sequoia Capital India, Matrix Partners India, Omidyar Network, Blume Ventures and Beenext.
To date, AngelList has helped deploy some $1.09 billion to over 3,100 startups, according to its website. The company claims its portfolio has raised close to $9 billion in follow-on funding. AngelList is primarily focused on the U.S. market, but India is fast becoming a majority priority. Like the U.S., the Indian service is open only to accredited investors so it isn’t a crowdfunding service.
Source: TechCrunch
Just since months after raising $7 million in Series A funding, German SME banking provider Penta has been acquired by Finleap. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although I understand that the acquisition sees Finleap and Penta’s co-founders becoming the challenger bank’s sole owners, with all other shareholders exiting.
Launched in late 2014 by Hitfox Group and Ramin Niroumand, Finleap has developed 16 ventures from scratch, as well as acquiring a number of fintechs. Companies in its portfolio include banking platform solarisBank, of which Penta is a customer, and digital insurer Element, to name just two.
Penta says that becoming part of the Finleap “ecosystem” will help the SME banking provider increase the speed at which it expands internationally. This will include launching in Italy in partnership with Beesy, a Finleap portfolio company focusing on digital business banking for freelancers.
“Penta has a great product and a great team, serving especially the digital industry, which matches perfectly [with] Finleap’s focus on vertical banking,” FinLeap co-founder Niroumand tells me. “Additionally, with Pair Finance for digital debt collection and Perseus for cybersecurity, there are already two other players in the Finleap ecosystem offering services to a similar customer group like Penta, so they form a real value chain for the digital industry”.
To date, Penta counts over 5,500 digital businesses as customers, such as AirHelp, bepro11 and Global Digital Women. The banking fintech set out to fix SME banking, enabling customers to open a business bank account in just a few minutes online. Other features include a real-time overview of a business’ finances, debit cards with individual limits for employees, and accounting integration. Over the next year, Penta plans to add direct debits, SME loans, international transfers and more.
“The decision to go with Finleap was a strategic one,” says Penta co-founder Luka Ivicevic. “By becoming part of the finleap ecosystem, we’re able to accelerate our growth inside and outside of Germany at an unprecedented pace”.
Meanwhile, Niroumand says Penta will remain an independent business and that Finleap will not be part of the operational management of Penta. However, Penta will be able to benefit from Finleap’s resources and expertise. Penta will be able to get strong support from Finleap’s team of top talents,” he says.
“For example to accelerate their hiring efforts and to solve back-office tasks, so that the Penta team can focus completely on the development of the product and new features, like loans and direct debits. In terms of funding, Penta can also tap into Finleap’s network of corporate financial partners”.
Adds Ivicevic: “This is not an exit, but the next step of our growth, Finleap is the right partner for it”.
Source: TechCrunch
From Logitech, Duolingo, McDonald’s and other big names, here’s a tally of this year’s finest — or, at least, most obvious — April 1 2019 jokes.
Source: CNET
Lingering space debris from the missile test poses a threat to astronauts on the International Space Station.
Source: CNET
Sometimes, gentle reader, we report on things at TechCrunch because it’s information that we think you, as a member of our community should know, given your interests and sensibilities.
This is one of those times.
Do yourself a favor and watch the clip for Jim Jarmusch’s zombie movie.
The movie’s trailer bills it as “the greatest zombie cast ever disassembled” (and the movie’s trailer is not wrong).
You could watch it because it features Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Caleb Landon Jones, Iggy Pop, Sara Driver, Selena Gomez, Carol Kane, and Tom Waits.
You could watch it because it’s likely to be one of the greatest entrants into the zombie movie oeuvre ever.
Or you could simply watch it because it’s been a long April Fool’s Monday and you’d like to give your brain a break (before it’s consumed in the great zombie apocalypse).
There’s no tech angle to this, simply consider it service journalism (as in, we’re providing a service by bringing this gem to your attention).
And please, go see it in theaters when it opens in June, (based on the trailer) you’ll likely be very glad you did.
Also… Tom freaking Waits.
Source: TechCrunch
Commentary: Jordan Peele’s reboot starts with a comedy of terrors starring Kumail Nanjiani, and for a working comic like me, it’s dead-on.
Source: CNET