Urgent care centers, emergency departments, and clinics are over-prescribing antibiotics. Can they reform without alienating their “customers”: patients?
Source: Wired
Teamleader, the SaaS platform that helps SMEs operate in a more digitally savvy way, has closed $22 million in Series C funding. The round was led by London-based Keen Venture Partners, with participation from PMV and existing investors Fortino Capital and Sage Capital.
Claiming to serve nearly 10,000 customers in 6 countries — comprised mostly of small and medium-sized enterprises — Belgium-headquartered Teamleader offers a SaaS-based platform to enable SMEs to digitise their business processes. This includes CRM and sales, project management, time tracking, and invoicing.
A more recent aspect — and where Teamleader sees future growth — is the Teamleader Marketplace, which allows customers to integrate their favourite local SaaS tools with Teamleader. This is on track to support 1,000 integrations, with a heavy emphasis on localisation.
“We even created a $1 million fund for developers across Europe to create integrations with Teamleader, a pretty wild idea that’s working great,” Teamleader co-founder and CEO Jeroen De Wit tells me.
“What’s great about the marketplace is that it also allows European SaaS players to piggyback on our growth — like the Belgian startup Cumul.io which is now finding customers in Spain through our marketplace. This perfectly fits our vision”.
More broadly, De Wit says SMEs are no longer afraid of digitization, and are using more and more business software to their advantage. “These tools need to work side by side as one, in integrated systems, for SMEs to get maximum value out of them,” he adds.
Meanwhile, in addition to investing in the Teamleader Marketplace, Teamleader says it plans to use its Series C funding for continued international growth and to accelerate its product roadmap. This will include doubling-down on what it calls a “multi-local approach” and fine-tuning the Teamleader product for country-specific needs. How very European.
Source: TechCrunch
Peloton today announced its Series F funding of $550 million. That brings the total amount raised, according to CrunchBase, to $994.7 million. According to the announcement, this round puts Peloton’s valuation at $4 billion — it was just last May the company hit unicorn status.
TCV led the round with other participation in the round from Tiger Global, True Ventures, Wellington Management, Fidelity, NBCUniversal, and Kleiner Perkin, along with new investors – BlackRock, Franklin and Winslow Capital.
“We are truly honored to partner with TCV and with Jay Hoag personally,” said John Foley, founder and CEO of Peloton, in a released statement. “TCV’s reputation, experience, and involvement in businesses like Netflix, Spotify and Facebook will be invaluable as we build Peloton into one of the most unique and influential global consumer product and media companies of our day.”
The company previously closed a $325 million Series E, which was reportedly used to fuel expansion into the retail market. The company expects to use the latest round of funding to continue growing that sector and grow international.
Earlier this year, Peloton announced its second product, a connected treadmill, which the company still says will launch to consumers this call. The company also introduced a new membership product and opened several retail locations.
Source: TechCrunch
Commentary: The director has sent his first tweet. Now that he’s getting active on social media, will he have to deal with the wrath of angry fans?
Source: CNET
Commentary: Warioware Gold is my video game security blanket for a stressful universe.
Source: CNET
Airbnb: great for travelers, and even better for putting a robot’s new manipulation skills to the test.
Source: Wired
For companies like JPay, the business model is simple: Whatever it costs to send a message, prisoners and their families will find a way to pay it.
Source: Wired
A software program from Primer scours news articles and scientific journals for women scientists who don’t have entries in the online encyclopedia.
Source: Wired
How should you feel to know your employer is far, far richer than Croesus?
As Apple CEO Tim Cook tells it — in a memo to staff, obtained by BuzzFeed News, re: yesterday’s news that the computer company Steve Jobs founded back in 1976 is now worth more than $1,000,000,000,000 — you should feel A) pretty stoked that your labor has helped achieve a significant financial milestone but also B) know it’s not a success metric to get hung up about because it’s the passion for innovation and creation (not the towering mounds of gold) that really counts and so C) please, after taking a moment, remember to get back to work.
Here’s what Cook actually wrote to Apple’s global “team” of circa 123,000 employees:
Team,
Today Apple passed a significant milestone. At our closing share price of $207.39, the stock market now values Apple at more than $1 trillion. While we have much to be proud of in this achievement, it’s not the most important measure of our success. Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values.
It’s you, our team, that makes Apple great and our success is due to your hard work, dedication and passion. I am deeply humbled by what you do, and it’s the privilege of a lifetime to work alongside you. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the late hours and extra trips, all the times you refuse to settle for anything less than excellence in our work together.
Let’s take this moment to thank our customers, our suppliers and business partners, the Apple developer community, our coworkers and all those who came before us at this remarkable company.
Steve founded Apple on the belief that the power of human creativity can solve even the biggest challenges — and that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. In today’s world, our mission is more important than ever. Our products not only create moments of surprise and delight, they empower people all around the globe to enrich their lives and the lives of others.
Just as Steve always did in moments like this, we should all look forward to Apple’s bright future and the great work we’ll do together.
Tim
Source: TechCrunch
Even though it’s not technically alive, when a robot begs you to stay away from its off button, what will you do?
Source: CNET