Free crowdsourced language learning site Duolingo, Inc. has raised $45 million Series D in a round led by Google Capital that included previous investors Union Square Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Tim Ferris, Ashton Kutcher, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. According to reports, the round valued the company at $470 million. Pittsburgh, PA-based Duolingo offers ...

Microsoft Corp. has acquired application management and transaction monitoring startup Blue Stripe Software, Inc. (BlueStripe.) Founded in 2007, BlueStripe’s solutions help map, monitor and troubleshoot distributed applications across heterogeneous operating systems and multiple data center and cloud environments. Software from the company is said to be used by customers to extend the value of Microsoft ...

Spotify AG is facing a good fight against Apple’s new streaming music service Apple Music, but it goes into that battle well set, with numbers released today showing their service is thriving. In a post to the Spotify Blog, the company said that it had increased its numbers to 20 million paid subscribers, and 75 ...

Spotify AG has raised $526 million Series G in a round that included Baillie Gifford, Landsdowne Partners, Rinkelberg, Senvest Capital, Discovery Capital Management, Goldman Sachs, Halcyon Asset Management, GSV Capital, D.E. Shaw & Co., Technology Crossover Ventures, Northzone, P. Schoenfeld Asset Management and TeliaSonera. According to The Wall Street Journal the deal was on a ...

Elon Musk’s Space X Corp. is one step closer to its ambition of delivering internet access from space with the company applying for Federal Government approval to start testing on the project. According to The Washington Post the filing was made with the Federal Communications Commission late last month and proposes tests starting next year. ...

Online restaurant review site Zomato Media Ptv Ltd, the owners of the service previously known as Urbanspoon, have been hacked by a white hat who thankfully for Zomato contacted them with details of the vulnerability. Along with private user details of Zomato users, the exposed data also included Instagram access tokens, which would give access ...

Blockchain securities management startup Symbiont has raised a $1.25 million seed round that included a number of high-profile individual investors. The list includes Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the NYSE Euronext; Matt Andresen, founder of the Island ECN and trading head at Citadel; Getco, LLC founders Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler through Wicklow Capital; Scott ...

A day after Apple, Inc. revealed its music streaming service Apple Music, it has been revealed that the tech giant is under investigation for anti-trust violations that may specifically target Spotify AG. The attorneys general of New York and Connecticut are said to be investigating specifically whether Apple pressured the music industry to have the ...

Cryptocurrency exchange service ShapeShift AG has today launched an iPhone app which allows users to trade virtual currency via their phones. Claimed to be the first app of its kind on iOS, the ShapeShift app allows users to exchange Bitcoin for other cryptocurrencies, including DogeCoin, Litecoin, Namecoin and others, vice versa, or even between obscure ...

Two of Australia’s top 4 banks, The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ,) and Westpac Banking Corp., have joined the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. in trialling Ripple Labs, Inc.’s Bitcoin inspired Blockchain ledger system for payment tracking. Westpac is reported to be further along with its trial, with the bank telling The ...