Why image recognition is about to transform business

 From programs that help the visually impaired and safety features in cars that detect large animals to auto-organizing untagged photo collections and extracting business insights from socially shared pictures, the benefits of image recognition, or computer vision, are only just beginning to make their way into the world — but they’re doing so with increasing frequency and depth. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

New initiatives emerge to help refugees

 Prompted by the ongoing refugee crisis affecting much of the western world, new initiatives have emerged to provide solutions to the many challenges facing the beleaguered masses. In a sea of clueless government bureaucrats and fearful citizens, these new startups want to tap into the potential of the newcomers. Privately funded initiatives may one day become the norm in helping tackle… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Startups need to do due diligence, too

 I hear a lot of horror stories about investors. Many are misunderstandings. Some are just outright false. Then there are those that are true. Sadly, there are a lot of those. This kills companies. I’ve watched great entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas sink because they’ve been fucked around and because they made poor choices. I wanted to write something that will help people. Here… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Digital magazine company Issuu is now a collaboration platform, too

 Digital media company Issuu has been trying to offer a better way to present content online. Now it’s a promising a better way for teams to work together on creating that content too, with the launch of a new product called Collaborate. Issuu, for those of you who don’t know, allows publishers to create digital publications. They may resemble glossy magazines, except freed from… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Kentucky Derby attendees can now order food, place bets from their seats

 Getting around, drinking and dining at the Kentucky Derby this year should prove a lot easier for fans and employees. According to Churchill Downs’ General Manager Ryan Jordan, the famed horse racing venue on Friday launched a Churchill Downs Racetrack app, powered by VenueNext, to give attendees a better experience on-site. The new app, available for iOS and Android devices, will let… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Home Chef raises $10M for meal kits and “taste algorithms”

 Home Chef, one of several startups delivering recipes and ingredients to take some of the hassle out of home cooking, is announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding. Founder and CEO Pat Vihtelic told me that Home Chef stands out from similar-sounding companies in a couple of ways. The big one is flexibility — customers get to choose their meals from 10 overall choices… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Tall poppy syndrome and the Canadian opportunity

 There’s an epidemic in Canada. That epidemic is a mentality that leaves top talent with no option but to leave the nation’s borders and with them, everything they learned. It undervalues breakthroughs developed and paid for by Canadian taxpayers. It’s a mindset that resents the success of others. It’s a bad case of tall poppy syndrome. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

John Borthwick, Naveen Selvadurai, and Heather Hartnett to school us on startup studios at TC Disrupt NY

 Some of the most influential and successful companies in the game have come out of startup studios. Just look at Giphy, Reserve, and Operator. But what makes a startup studio successful? At Disrupt NY in May, we aim to find out. Betaworks’ John Borthwick, Expa’s Naveen Selvadurai, and Human Ventures’ Heather Hartnett will be joining us for a panel called “How A… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

With Sqreen, web developers can seamlessly find and avoid security threats

 French startup Sqreen wants you to rethink how you deal with security for your web-based apps. With little effort, Sqreen can inspect, track and fix security holes, acting like a shield. You won’t have to change your workflow as Sqreen plugs to your existing app. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Gametime now lets users “snap and sell” printed tickets

 Mobile ticket sellers Gametime added a new feature to their app this week that could draw more supply of concert and sports tickets to their marketplace. Designed to make it easier for users to sell old-school printed tickets via mobile, the “snap and sell” feature in Gametime feels something like check scanning in mobile banking apps. A user who clicks the “sell”… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

The League launches a rebuilt, event-centric dating app

 The League, the dating startup that’s maybe-maybe-not elitist, is launching version 2.0 in a new city — Los Angeles. Founder and CEO Amanda Bradford said The League has already rolled out the updated app to users in its existing markets, New York and San Francisco, without much fanfare. Today, however, marks the official launch, as well as the addition of its first city in nearly… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone relaunches Jelly as a human-powered search engine

 Calling it an “un-pivot,” Biz Stone is bringing back Jelly, the Q&A app he created in 2013. Launching today, the new and improved Jelly remains close to its roots, but with an added twist. This time, everything is anonymous so you can ask what you really want to know. Referring to the new Jelly an “on-demand search engine,” Stone said that one lesson he learned… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

About those Mexican sharks

 You know entrepreneurship has gone mainstream when a local Shark Tank hits cable TV. I was approached by the Shark Tank production team in Mexico to recommend startups for the show. I sent some names of candidates that had not yet received institutional capital nor angel investment and could benefit from the exposure — at their own risk. As entrepreneurship and reality TV collide in… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Bnbsitter raises $2.5M for on-demand concierge service for short term rentals

 Bnbsitter is another startup operating in the Airbnb and short term rentals ecosystem. However, unlike property-management style concierge services, such as London-based Hostmaker, which charge an on-going management fee, the Paris-based company offers something more akin to an on-demand platform for concierge. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Bitlock crowdfunded a smart bike lock in 2013. What happened next?

 Two and a half years ago Bitlock set out to crowdfund a smart bike lock at a time when hype around connected devices was surging and goodwill in crowdfunding platforms was buoyant. Since then both categories have taken some confidence knocks and served up disappointments aplenty. So what happened? Did Bitlock ship, and if so, did its smart device live up to expectations? What problems did it… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Samsung backs Mast Mobile, the startup that helps you manage multiple numbers on one phone

 Communication startup Mast Mobile is launching on Android — specifically the Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. The news is part of a broader partnership with Samsung, which has made a minority investment of undisclosed size in the company. In addition, Mast said it’s launching the first commercial integration with the Samsung Knox Cloud SDK, which… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Deliveroo begins investing in kitchen space to bring more restaurants to your area

 Deliveroo, the on-demand delivery service for restaurant food, has begun investing in its own kitchen space, as a means to help solve the supply-side problem and expand the offering. Dubbed RooBox, the startup has launched an off-site kitchen initiative that is bringing restaurant brands to areas of London that have a large residential population but are currently underserved in terms of… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Tour booking software startup Xola scores $5M Series A led by Rakuten Travel

 Xola, a software platform that manages booking and marketing for tour providers, is venturing deeper into international markets after closing a $5 million Series A. The funding was led by Rakuten Travel, which is Japan’s largest online travel agency, and contributed half of the round. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Coinbase is finally letting you instantly buy Bitcoin with a debit card

 Anyone who has been a long-time user of Coinbase knows that the cryptocurrency startup hasn’t exactly always made it easy to buy Bitcoin. In the early days you had to link your U.S bank account, verify it via two small deposits, and still wait up to five days for the Bitcoin to be sent to your wallet each time you made a purchase. Then, the company added instant purchases (which… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Drivy grabs $35 million for its car rental marketplace

 French startup Drivy has raised another $35 million (€31 million) from Cathay Innovation, Nokia Growth Partners and existing investors Bpifrance, Via-ID and Index Ventures. If you don’t already know Drivy, the company wants to rethink the way car rental works today. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Acqhire experts Tasman acqhired by consulting juggernaut Ernst & Young

 So you wanna buy a startup? But how do you get the deal signed and roll their team into yours? Consulting behemoth Ernst & Young wants to have the answers and rule M&A advisory services in Silicon Valley. So today it acqhired Tasman Consulting, Bay Area specialists in integrating acqhires and acquisitions into their new parent companies. Tasman’s founders Niki Lee and Shari… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Eden on-demand tech support service launches in Oakland

 Eden, the on-demand tech support company turned office support service, has today announced the launch of the platform in Oakland. That means that Eden’s service now covers all of the Bay Area, from Oakland to San Francisco to the Peninsula, including Palo Alto and Mountain View. Eden launched almost a year ago out of Y Combinator accelerator. Back then, Eden offered on-demand tech help… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Affirm acquires budgeting app Sweep to expand into personal finance

 Online lending company Affirm has announced it is acquiring Sweep, an app-based personal finance tool. The move comes just two weeks after Affirm raised a $100M Series D round, which was partially raised to help the company expand into new product categories outside of lending. Specifically, Max Levchin, co-founder and CEO of Affirm, acknowledged that users will most likely never be… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

Genetics startup Twist Bioscience is working with Microsoft to store the world’s data in DNA

 Twist Bioscience, a startup making and using synthetic DNA to store digital data, just struck a contract with Microsoft and the University of Washington to encode vast amounts of information on synthetic genes. Big data means business and the company able to gather a lot of it is very valuable to investors and stockholders. But that data needs to be stored somewhere and can cost a lot for… Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com

ClearTax nabs $1.3M to make filing taxes online in India less stressful

 The Indian government has taken several steps to make filing taxes online easier, but the process can still be, well, taxing. ClearTax wants to make it easier. The startup, a Y Combinator alum, just raised angel funding of $1.3 million. Investors include Max Levchin (this is the PayPal co-founder’s first investment in India), Scott Banister, Neeraj Arora, Naval Ravikant, and Ruchi Sanghvi. Read More Post by startupsnows.blogspot.com