Articles

Oscar Williams / New Statesman: A look at how the withdrawal of Google and others from London’s decade-old Silicon Roundabout may be proof the UK’s startup scene has expanded and matured  —  Nearly a decade after David Cameron launched Tech City, Shoreditch has been dramatically transformed.  But what is the initiative’s [Read More...]

Todd Spangler / Variety: CreatorIQ, which helps brands with influencer marketing by providing e-commerce and campaign measurement tools, raises $40M from investors including TVC Capital  —  Influencer marketing company CreatorIQ announced that it closed a new $40 million funding round, looking to enhance tools [Read More...]

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios: LA-based Tradesy, an online marketplace for secondhand high-end fashion goods, raises $67M Series D led by Foris Ventures, the family office of John Doerr  —  Tradesy, an online marketplace for secondhand high-end fashion goods, raised $67 million in Series D funding led by Foris Ventures, John Doerr’s family [Read More...]

Amrith Ramkumar / Wall Street Journal: Pagaya, whose AI-powered service makes financial transactions like lending more efficient for banks, is going public in a SPAC merger at a valuation of ~$9B  —  Pagaya would combine with the SPAC EJF Acquisition and uses artificial intelligence to improve lending and other financial [Read More...]

Matthew Martin / Bloomberg: Saudi-based customer communications service Unifonic raises $125M Series B led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Sanabil, which is owned by Saudi Arabia’s PIF  —  – Japanese conglomerate leads $125 million round for Unifonic  — Sanabil, wholly owned by Saudi wealth fund, co-led the [Read More...]

Sean Hollister / The Verge: A look at the lawsuit over Kosta Elefteriou’s FlickType app for Apple Watch that he claims Apple had offered to buy, as Apple unveils its own swipe keyboard  —  In January 2019, Kosta Eleftheriou had every reason to believe Apple was about to make a deal, his lawsuit [Read More...]

Tom Krazit / Protocol: Interview with GitHub COO Erica Brescia on GitHub’s infrastructure, changes in open-source software philosophies, and why hybrid work will thrive post-pandemic  —  An astonishing amount of the code that runs the world’s software spends at least part of its life in [Read More...]

Will Oremus / Washington Post: Profile of Chris Gilliard, aka @hypervisible, who has helped coin concepts like “digital redlining” to highlight the impact of tech on marginalized groups  —  Chris Gilliard grew up with racist policing in Detroit.  He sees a new form of oppression in the tech we use every [Read More...]

Nick Clegg / About Facebook: Facebook VP says WSJ’s series contained deliberate mischaracterizations, and conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook’s leadership and employees  —  A lot has been said about Facebook this week.  A series of articles published by the Wall Street Journal has focused [Read More...]

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Telegram blocks Navalny’s Smart Voting chatbot on the second day of voting in Russia’s parliamentary election  —  Popular messaging app Telegram has suspended all chat bots used in the Russian elections campaign, in another blow to jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s Smart Voting [Read More...]

Brian X. Chen / New York Times: The dismantling of digital advertising based on personal data and cookies is reshaping revenue plans for ad and tech industries, publishers, and small companies  —  As Apple and Google enact privacy changes, businesses are grappling with the fallout, Madison Avenue is fighting back and Facebook has cried [Read More...]

Aditya Kalra / Reuters: Investigation report shows India’s antitrust authority found that Google abused the dominant position of Android in the country to illegally hurt competitors  —  Google abused the dominant position of its Android operating system in India, using its “huge financial muscle” to illegally hurt competitors [Read More...]

Michael Berens / Reuters: A review of US laws governing the corporate use of biometric screening finds Illinois stands out in banning biometric data collection without consent  —  When night fell, a clerk at a bustling 24-hour MotoMart flipped a switch from behind the counter.  —  Electromagnetic locks sealed the [Read More...]