Thursday, January 13, 2022

Conduit, which offers APIs for DeFi services, raises a $17M seed led by Portage Ventures (Anita Ramaswamy/TechCrunch)

Anita Ramaswamy / TechCrunch:
Conduit, which offers APIs for DeFi services, raises a $17M seed led by Portage Ventures  —  Financial institutions continue to search for ways to pile into the crypto market, and decentralized finance (DeFi) products are one mechanism that could help them capture share.



Twitter's "work from anywhere" policy helped increase Black employees in the US to 9.4% in 2021, up from 6.9% in 2020; women are 44.7% of its global workforce (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Twitter's “work from anywhere” policy helped increase Black employees in the US to 9.4% in 2021, up from 6.9% in 2020; women are 44.7% of its global workforce  —  Twitter Inc.'s early shift to a “work from anywhere” model during the pandemic as well as implementation of a requirement …



Austria's data protection watchdog upholds a decision that a local website using Google Analytics violates GDPR, a potential issue for US cloud services (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Austria's data protection watchdog upholds a decision that a local website using Google Analytics violates GDPR, a potential issue for US cloud services  —  A decision by Austria's data protection watchdog upholding a complaint against a website related to its use of Google Analytics does …



Researchers report that a record 2,240 third-party WordPress plugin vulnerabilities were disclosed in 2021, up 142% YoY, of which 77% have known public exploits (Becky Bracken/Threatpost)

Becky Bracken / Threatpost:
Researchers report that a record 2,240 third-party WordPress plugin vulnerabilities were disclosed in 2021, up 142% YoY, of which 77% have known public exploits  —  Last year brought forth much more than a Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez reunion - analysts found the number of exploitable WordPress plugin vulnerabilities exploded.



China's state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN) will roll out infrastructure to support NFTs; the NFTs will not be linked to cryptocurrencies (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
China's state-backed Blockchain Services Network (BSN) will roll out infrastructure to support NFTs; the NFTs will not be linked to cryptocurrencies  —  The BSN-Distributed Digital Certificate does not support crypto-transacted NFTs, and will allow businesses and individuals to build apps …



A look at Line's sticker economy, made up of over 4 million hobbyist and professional designers; Line's revenue from direct sticker sales was $200M+ in 2020 (Andrew Deck/Rest of World)

Andrew Deck / Rest of World:
A look at Line's sticker economy, made up of over 4 million hobbyist and professional designers; Line's revenue from direct sticker sales was $200M+ in 2020  —  A handful of designers have made their fortunes on the Line app, but now creators fear the market has become saturated.



Krafton, which makes PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, sues Apple and Google, arguing that neither company removed a game that allegedly copies PUBG (Blake Brittain/Reuters)

Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Krafton, which makes PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, sues Apple and Google, arguing that neither company removed a game that allegedly copies PUBG  —  (Reuters) - The maker of the popular game “PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds” says in a new U.S. lawsuit that a Singapore-based company …



Research: London-based startups raised $25.5B in 2021, ahead of all other European cities, with most rounds over $100M; UK-based startups raised $40B in 2021 (Ivan Levingston/Bloomberg)

Ivan Levingston / Bloomberg:
Research: London-based startups raised $25.5B in 2021, ahead of all other European cities, with most rounds over $100M; UK-based startups raised $40B in 2021  —  London kept up a blistering pace of technology financing last year, leading all other European cities with $25.5 billion in fresh investment.



HR software company Justworks postpones its $260M IPO, which could have valued it at up to $2B, citing "market conditions" amid a tech stock sell-off (Nicholas Megaw/Financial Times)

Nicholas Megaw / Financial Times:
HR software company Justworks postpones its $260M IPO, which could have valued it at up to $2B, citing “market conditions” amid a tech stock sell-off  —  Nasdaq listing delayed ‘due to market conditions’ as index of new public companies falls by nearly 10% this month



TSMC reports Q4 revenue rose 24.1% YoY to $15.74B as net profit reached $6.01B; capex will reach $40B to $44B in 2022, up from $30B in 2021 (Reuters)

Reuters:
TSMC reports Q4 revenue rose 24.1% YoY to $15.74B as net profit reached $6.01B; capex will reach $40B to $44B in 2022, up from $30B in 2021  —  Taiwan chip firm TSMC posted on Thursday a 16.4% rise in quarterly profit to a record, thanks to robust global demand for semiconductors used in smartphones …



OnePlus 9RT, OnePlus Buds Z2 to launch on January 14: How to watch live stream

OnePlus is gearing up to launch the OnePlus 9RT smartphone and OnePlus Buds Z2 TWS earbuds in India tomorrow (January 14). The devices were already launched in China last month. The smartphone will join the OnePlus 9, OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9R in the series. https://ift.tt/34RKAJv

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

London-based Checkout.com, which offers payment processing tools, raises $1B in a share sale, sources say at a $40B valuation (Peter Rudegeair/Wall Street Journal)

Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
London-based Checkout.com, which offers payment processing tools, raises $1B in a share sale, sources say at a $40B valuation  —  The $1 billion deal vaults the digital-payments processor past all but a handful of other startups  —  Checkout.com didn't raise money from outside investors until 2019.



IAMAI sets up India EdTech Consortium to uphold code of conduct by edtech platforms

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on Wednesday announced the formation of the India EdTech Consortium (IEC) that includes leading edtech companies like Byju's, Simplilearn, Unacademy, upGrad, Vedantu and others. https://ift.tt/34AqEKM

Jakarta-based investment app Pluang adds $55M to its Series B, bringing the round to $110M, led by Accel to expand in Southeast Asia (Catherine Shu/TechCrunch)

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Jakarta-based investment app Pluang adds $55M to its Series B, bringing the round to $110M, led by Accel to expand in Southeast Asia  —  Jakarta-based investment app Pluang announced that it has raised $55 million led by Accel.  This is a follow-on to its Series B and brings that round's total to $110 million.



OnePlus 10 Pro vs Xiaomi 12 Pro vs Realme GT 2 Pro: Here’s how the specs of these premium smartphones compare

https://ift.tt/31Rpvh3

How Epic is transforming Fortnite into a content platform, paying $350M to creators in 2024; 36.5% of the total playtime was spent in games made by creators (Julia Alexander/Posting Nexus)

Julia Alexander / Posting Nexus : How Epic is transforming Fortnite into a content platform, paying $350M to creators in 2024; 36.5% of t...