Latest VatorNews stories

• After Q1 earnings reports, Twitter and Facebook talk privacy and user safety

  by Steven Loeb, April 26, 2018

  Facebook's Zuckerberg and Twitter's Dorsey explain how they plan to keep users safe going forward

  "So we believe that privacy is a fundamental right for everyone we serve on our service. Our data business is something we continue to feel really good about. We are different from our peers in that Twitter is public, and we serve the public conversations, so all of our data is out in the public, out in the open. And our data business just organizes that public data in real-time to make it easier for

  Read more »

  

• Castbox Raises $13.5M to push into original programming

  by Anna Vodopyanova, April 25, 2018

  China-based global podcast app with 15 million users raises Series B to be the YouTube of audio

  Wang previously worked at Google in Japan and Dublin. The idea of creating a user-friendly podcast that supported different languages came to her when she tried finding the perfect app to study Japanese that would also include shows in English and Chinese languages. Such a platform did not exist, so she had to seek out, download and organize MP3s, a tedious process that left many listeners frustrated.

  Read more »

  

• KIDBOX raises $15.3 million to give children their own personalized style box

  by Steven Loeb, April 24, 2018

  Its mission is to clothe 1 million children in need and KIDBOX has donated $3.9M in clothing value

  Parents using KIDBOX fill out style profiles indicating what their kids style is, for example Modern Casual or Sporty. Based on that, in addition to other insights such as where they live or what item they could use more of, the company puts together a curated box for them. The company leverages its propriety data algorithm to create the personalized box, which is perfected by a human stylist before

  Read more »

  

• Healthiest ditches subscription boxes, launches browser extension for users to find healthy products

  by Steven Loeb, April 24, 2018

  The company recently sold its off its subscription box service to Bump Boxes

  The company, which started out as "the Honest Company for your medicine cabinet," with a monthly subscription box filled with curated bundled natural products, is upending its model by launching a whole new product that will be its single focus going forward: a browser extension called Healthiest Helper. The idea is that it will assist its users with finding the right products to buy on other e-commerce

  Read more »

  

• Alphabet earnings: how is the company addressing privacy issues in the wake of Cambridge Analytica?

  by Steven Loeb, April 23, 2018

  Alphabet beat on both revenue and EPS, with $31.15 billion on $13.33 per share

  "GDPR, I realize, is a fairly new public topic, but for us it’s not new. We started working on GDPR compliance over 18 months ago and have been very, very engaged on it. It’s really important and we care about getting it right. Overall, we’ve long had a very robust and strong privacy program at Google. So we are committed to meeting requirements on May 25 and also long term," he said.

  Read more »

  

• How does Pluralsight make money?

  The edtech company charges a monthly or annual subscription fee to individuals and businesses

  While Silicon Valley remains the premiere ecosystem for the tech industry, it doesn't hav the same dominance it once did. New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle all have their own established and growing ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Crypto-collectibles auction site, Rare Bits, raises $6 million

  Will use the funds to continue to flesh out the eBay-style crypto marketplace

  Ok, so there are a lot of new uses being realized for cryptocurrency. From real estate to retirement, creative entrepreneurs are finding practical uses for the blockchain and tokenization. These same people ...
  By Josiah Motley
  

• Startup competitions seeking cleantech companies

  They include Climate Launchpad, Cleantech University Prize and 76West Clean Energy Competition

  Vator has been holding its own competitions, using VatorX, to find and filter for the best startups. We've had some very successful and notable winners in the past that have gone on to raise big funding ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• TheWaveVR raises $6M to provide musicians with tools to throw concerts in virtual reality

  The company recently partnered with Warner Bros. for a sequence in Ready Player One

  There's definitely a perception out that that technology is cutting people off from each other. That may be true for some, and it's not hard to notice it when everyone is looking down at their phone, but ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Egnyte is bringing content governance to the Microsoft ecosystem

  Will allow organizations to classify and secure private data across a full range of Microsoft tools

  Content governance and security continues to be a growing factor for businesses of all sizes. As more processes and documentation find housing in cloud storage, having a system to monitor and secure content ...
  By Josiah Motley
  

• Future of behavioral and mental health - week 1

  Taking pills may one day seem 'barbaric'; Can we learn from depressed robots?

  For our next SplashX Invent Health salon on June 21 at HP headquarters in Palo Alto (save the date!), we'll be focusing on the future of behavioral health and mental health. Some of you may be wondering ...
  By Bambi Francisco Roizen
  

• Meet Chris Sklarin, Managing Partner at Castor Ventures

  MIT-alumni investor boasts a diverse portfolio with over $60 million in tech innovation

  An MIT alumni himself, Sklarin has over 20 years of experience investing in tech innovation and product development and has a diverse portfolio of investments over $60 million. His background is in software ...
  By Anna Vodopyanova
  

• SquareFoot raises $7M Series A for commercial real estate tech

  NY-based startup seeks to expand its matching services for commercial space

  Real estate is changing, from Zillow's and Redfin's marketplaces for buyers to see homes available to buy, Apartment List's marketplace for people to rent homes, Opendoor's service to buy homes on demand ...
  By Bambi Francisco Roizen
  

• Standing desk manufacturer iMovR looks to create a connected system for active workstations

  The company is raising a Series A round through crowdfunding to build out the cloud platform

  The past few years have seen the rise of corporate wellness programs to the point where there is now $8 billion being spent by employers on keeping their workers healthy and happy. That has coincided with ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• How does TripAdvisor make money?

  TripAdvisor makes money from advertising, as well as booking fees from hotels and attractions

  Since starting life in 2000, TripAdvisor has been on a long journey to get where it is today. What began life as a site for aggregating official hotel reviews from guidebooks, newspapers and magazines ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Truework seeks to usurp Equifax's employee verification dominance

  As Equifax faces scrutiny around handling sensitive employee data, Truework emerges

  I stayed roughly nine months at my first job at JP Morgan, and then a year at my next job, before going to graduate school. Then I had five jobs at the same time. I was either a hustler or a millennial ...
  By Bambi Francisco Roizen
  

• Punchh, a provider of digital marketing for brick & mortar stores, raises $20 million

  Punchh will use the funding to expand to new categories beyond restaurants

  If you only listen to what the media has to say about the current state of retail, it might seem like nothing but gloom and doom. Sure, there are some pretty bad signs out there for brick and mortar retail, ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Startup competitions seeking transportation technology companies

  They include MobilityX Pitch Competition, Porsche NEXT OI Competition and The Mobility Competition

  Vator has been holding its own competitions, using VatorX, to find and filter for the best startups. We've had some very successful and notable winners in the past that have gone on to raise big funding ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Q1 2018 VC investing hits highest level since 2006, with $28.2 billion deployed

  The number of deals continued to drop, resulting in larger deal sizes and fewer exits

  A couple of years ago, when the tech bubble seemed like it had finally burst, or at least it had begun to deflate, there was a strong possibility that we might be in for a few years of companies struggling ...
  By Steven Loeb
  

• Retailers should leverage digital to drive in-store sales

  Here’s how store owners can maximizing sales in physical locations

  Every time I open my newsfeed I’m reminded about the impending horror of the so-called “retailpocolypse,” which portends the ultimate demise of the brick-and-mortar store. Toys ‘R’ ...
  By Sponsored Story
  
• Loading...
• Load more articles