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Overtime gets $9.5M to build a new style of sports network that young people will actually watch
ESPN may be going from a sure-fire cable bounty to something that needs a little more flexibility in a cord-cutting era — like launching a new streaming service in 2018. But an even more troublesome trend may be emerging among younger sports fans, according to Overtime CEO Dan Porter: they just aren’t getting the content the way…
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Adikteev raises $12 million for its mobile marketing platform
French startup Adikteev raised a $12 million funding round led by Ring Capital and BNP Paribas Développement, with existing investors ISAI, Ventech and Laurent Asscher also participating. It’s also worth noting that it represents Ring Capital’s first investment after raising its initial $170 million fund. Adikteev is an adtech startup that previously acquired Motion Lead,…
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A Google R&D team wants to bring Smart Reply to all your chat apps
Smart Reply, the clever A.I.-powered technology that automatically creates responses to your inbound messages, first debuted in Google’s email client Inbox over two years ago, before later rolling out to Gmail, Android Messages on Project Fi, and Allo. Now, a team inside Google’s internal incubator Area 120 is working to bring the Smart Reply feature to…
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Why Google Stories will save, not screw, Snapchat Discover
Snapchat has a new ally or enemy depending on how you look at Google’s new mobile magazine format, but the social app is welcoming the search giant. Google’s clone of Snapchat Discover, called AMP Stories, officially launched today, allowing news outlets to create photo/video slideshows that appear in mobile search results and on their site. …
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Unacast bags $17.5M to do more with location data
Location tracking can seem pretty creepy if you’re the consumer being watched. But there’s big and growing business in tracking human movements and behavior, thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones. To wit: Unacast, a location data startup from Norway, has today announced a $17.5 million Series B round — to fuel business expansion, including into…
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This former Uber (and Lyft) exec just raised $15 million for his controversial e-scooter startup: Bird
Travis VanderZanden. If you’ve been following the fast-changing transportation industry, it’s a name that may sound familiar. Until September 2016, VanderZanden was VP of growth at Uber and before that, COO of its fierce rival Lyft, which had acquired his on-demand car wash company, Cherry, in 2013. It was a dramatic few years for VanderZanden,…
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Starling’s marketplace banking rollout adds pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgages
Starling, the U.K. challenger bank that offers a mobile-only current account, continues to execute on its marketplace banking strategy. Following the required regulatory approval, the Starling Marketplace is adding a number of financial services integrations, spanning pensions, savings, travel insurance and mortgage brokerage. Specifically, Starling is partnering with PensionBee, Wealthsimple, Kasko, and Habito, respectively. It…
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Facebook works it out with Apple to test news paywalls on iOS
Apple is allowing Facebook to bend the subscription rules. Starting March 1st, news publishers will be able to use their paywalls inside Facebook’s iOS app. Facebook started testing paywalls on Android in October, but at the time it couldn’t come to an agreement with Apple about how subscription revenue would be taxed. TechCrunch has confirmed publishers…
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New book vividly reveals Snapchat’s sexty dorm-room origin
“He wouldn’t have to worry about sending a hookup a picture of his junk! And girls would be way more likely to send him racy photos if they disappeared.” That’s just a taste of juicy details found in “How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story,” a new book coming out tomorrow from former…
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Facebook is pushing its data-tracking Onavo VPN within its main mobile app
Onavo Protect, the VPN client from the data-security app maker acquired by Facebook back in 2013, has now popped up in the Facebook iOS app itself, under the banner “Protect” in the navigation menu. Clicking through on “Protect” will redirect Facebook users to the “Onavo Protect – VPN Security” app’s listing on the App Store.…