Day: February 6, 2020

It’s no secret that it’s hard to make the economics work at rideshare companies. That may explain the success to date of HopSkipDrive, a six-year-old, L.A.-based company that pairs drivers with both families but also, crucially, school districts. Specifically, the now 100-plus person company has deals in place with school districts in 13 markets across […]

Launched at CES 2020, NURVV, a biomechanics startup, has closed a $9m Series A round, led by Hiro Capital, the sports/Esports VC, whose partners include Ian Livingstone CBE (Games Workshop co-founder) and Cherry Freeman (co-founder of LoveCrafts). It turns out that if you can figure out how to protect a smartphone from smashing, you can […]

Nuro, the autonomous delivery startup that raised $940 million in financing from Softbank Vision Fund last year, is the first company to receive a driverless exemption from the federal government. The exemption granted by the the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is for Nuro’s newest — and until Thursday, unseen — […]

Forescout, the network security company that has been publicly traded since 2017, announced today it was going private again. Private equity firms Advent International and Crosspoint Capital are acquiring the company in an all-cash purchase of $1.9 billion. The two private equity firms will pay $33 per share, which represented a premium of 30% over […]

Snafu Records is bringing a new approach to finding musical talent — founder and CEO Ankit Desai described the Los Angeles-headquartered startup as “the first full-service, AI-enabled record label.” It’s a world that Desai knows well, having spent the past five years working on digital and streaming strategy at Capitol Records and Universal Music Group. […]

One of the various companies looking to deploy a globe-spanning broadband internet satellite constellation is adding 34 satellites to its existing operations in space. OneWeb will launch that many satellites aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan with a liftoff time set for 4:42 PM EST (1:32 PM PST) today. The new satellites will join OneWeb’s […]

In December, dating app Bumble announced new tools to filter match by more than just age and distance. Now, it seems Tinder is poised to do the same. Tinder parent company Match Group this week announced plans to expand its filtering capabilities, alongside other product updates such as new social engagement features and the forthcoming […]

Netskope has always focused its particular flavor of security on the cloud, and as more workloads have moved there, it has certainly worked in its favor. Today the company announced a $340 million investment on a valuation of nearly $3 billion. Sequoia Capital Global Equities led the round, but in a round this large, there […]