Author: techbizweb
“The Irishman,” the much-anticipated Martin Scorsese film produced by Netflix, will get a theatrical release on November 1, starting in Los Angeles and New York. It will then debut on the streaming service about four weeks later, on November 27. This follows a similar pattern to the release of Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” last year, which saw Netflix (which had previously insisted that any theatrical run happen simultaneously with a film’s streaming debut) debuting the film in theaters three weeks before it came to streaming. Netflix doesn’t report box office numbers, so it’s not clear how much money it’s making from…
About one-fourth of the startups in Y Combinator’s summer batch had a female founder. Not the most disappointing statistic if you consider this: Companies with at least one female founder have raised only about 11% of venture capital funding in the U.S. in 2019, according to PitchBook. Companies with female founders exclusively have raised just 3%. There is so much room for improvement. To close the funding gap, programs tailored to female entrepreneurs are working tirelessly to mentor and incubate upstarts in hopes of impressing venture capitalists. Ready, Set, Raise, an accelerator program built for women, by women, is amongst…
Airship announced today that it has acquired Apptimize, an A/B testing company whose customers include Glassdoor, HotelTonight and The Wall Street Journal. Formerly known as Urban Airship, the more concisely named Airship has built a platform for companies to manage their customer communication across SMS, push notifications, email, mobile wallets and more. It says that by acquiring Apptimize, it can help customers test the impact of their messages. That means integrating Apptimize’s testing capabilities into the Airship platform, but the company says it will also continue to support Apptimize as a standalone platform. “By combining Apptimize mobile app and web testing with…
Peloton, the well-funded maker of internet-connected stationary bikes and treadmills, has finally revealed documents for its upcoming initial public offering. The business previously submitted a confidential draft submission of its S-1 statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June. The New York-based company, which plans to raise $500 million in its Nasdaq offering, will trade under the ticker symbol PTON. Peloton reported $915 million in total revenue for the year ending June 30, 2019, an increase of 110% from $435 million in fiscal 2018 and $218.6 million in 2017. Its losses, meanwhile, hit $245.7 million in 2019, up…
World-mapping computer vision startup 6D.ai is expanding support to new devices as its augmented reality platform exits beta. The SF startup launched its beta in October and is now ready to let developers ship apps as it launches pricing for its services. The pay-as-you-go subscription rates for 6D move from a free tier to $20-$50 per app based on the number of map download calls that users prompt. 6D will have custom-pricing for customers ushering in more than 50,000 map downloads. The startup boasts Autodesk, Nexus Studios and Accenture among its customers. The company’s platform has previously been confined to…
Travelers are increasingly being denied entry to the United States as border officials hold them accountable for messages, images and video on their devices sent by other people. It’s a bizarre set of circumstances that has seen countless number of foreign nationals rejected from the U.S. after friends, family or even strangers send messages, images or videos over social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, which are then downloaded to the traveler’s phone. The latest case saw a Palestinian national living in Lebanon and would-be Harvard freshman denied entry to the U.S. just before…
A number of Uber and Lyft drivers are protesting outside Uber’s San Francisco headquarters today to demand the passage of Assembly Bill 5 and the right to unionize. “What do we want? AB-5! When do we want it? Now!” That was one of the phrases drivers chanted outside Uber’s HQ this afternoon. This was part of a three-day caravan across California organized by Gig Workers Rising and Mobile Workers Alliance. As part of the protest, hundreds of drivers circled the blocks around Uber’s HQ honking their horns and sporting signs that say “AB5 + a union.” Adan, an Uber and…
Sebastian Thrun can’t be described easily. He’s a serial entrepreneur and educator, a computer scientist and inventor. He helped bring self-driving cars out of academia through X, the Google moonshot factory he founded. (That little project is now known as Waymo.) Thrun went on to co-found Udacity, the $1 billion online education startup where he is executive chairman. Now, Thrun is pushing the “future of transportation” idea beyond self-driving cars. As CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, Thrun is working on bringing two aircraft to market — the one-person Flyer and a two-person autonomous taxi called Cora. Kitty Hawk recently formed a…
Sebastian Thrun can’t be described easily. He’s a serial entrepreneur and educator, a computer scientist and inventor. He helped bring self-driving cars out of academia through X, the Google moonshot factory he founded. (That little project is now known as Waymo.) Thrun went on to co-found Udacity, the $1 billion online education startup where he is executive chairman. Now, Thrun is pushing the “future of transportation” idea beyond self-driving cars. As CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, Thrun is working on bringing two aircraft to market — the one-person Flyer and a two-person autonomous taxi called Cora. Kitty Hawk recently formed a…
Sales organizations are changing, and now companies are looking for a different type of sales leader It wasn’t so long ago that sales meant just showing up with a deck and a smile. These days, it seems that sales leaders almost need a PhD in statistics just to get through the typical day managing a sales funnel. From SQLs and MQLs to NDRR and managing overall retention, the roles of VP of Sales and Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) are evolving rapidly in tandem with the best practices of SaaS startups. Few people know this world better than David Ives, who…