Eric David
Latest from Eric David
Claiming it’s ‘double the scale’ of Apple Music, Spotify files to go public
Music streaming company Spotify Technology SA officially announced its plans to go public today, and the company’s paperwork confirmed last month’s rumors that Spotify is not taking the usual initial public offering route. Rather than raising funds through an IPO, Spotify will instead public through what is known as a direct listing. That means that Spotify’s existing shareholders, which include employees and ...
Facebook rolls out job search to more than 40 new countries
Facebook Inc. added its first job search features more than a year ago, but so far they have been available only in the U.S. and Canada. That changed today, as Facebook announced that it is rolling its job search tools out to more than 40 more countries, including Brazil, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Alex ...
Self-driving car startup Aurora raises $90M to work with, not against, big automakers
Silicon Valley has almost as many self-driving cars companies as it does actual self-driving cars, but there still seems to be plenty of funding to go around — at least for now. Palo Alto-based startup Aurora Innovation Inc. is the latest autonomous vehicle company to woo investors, and it announced today that it has closed a $90 million Series A funding co-led by Greylock Partners ...
Facebook launches $3M accelerator to help newspapers sell more digital subscriptions
Facebook Inc. announced today that it has launched the Facebook Journalism Project: Local News Subscriptions Accelerator, a $3 million pilot program that will teach local news outlets how to grow their digital subscriber numbers. Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, said in a statement that the accelerator will help metro news organizations develop strategies for their digital ...
Why Google rejects half of all ‘right to be forgotten’ requests
Google LLC has received more than 2.4 million “Right to be Forgotten” requests since the EU passed the digital privacy laws in 2014, but the search giant revealed today that it has denied more than half of them. The Right to be Forgotten laws allow EU citizens to request that search engines delist URLs that contain their ...
Cybersecurity firm PhishMe acquired at $400M valuation, rebrands as Cofense
PhishMe Inc., a security startup that protects businesses from phishing attacks and other cyberthreats, announced today that it has been acquired by private equity consortium at a valuation of $400 million. According to Fortune, the equity group includes Pamplona Capital Management, which bought two-thirds of the shares, and BlackRock, which owns the remaining third. PhishMe, which ...
Airbnb Plus targets wealthy guests with higher standards
Airbnb Inc. celebrated its 10-year anniversary today by announcing some new changes coming to its vacation rental platform. The company is adding a few new property types like bed-and-breakfasts and vacation homes, and it is also launching Airbnb Plus, a new tier of hosts that must meet hotel-like standards of amenities, cleanliness, aesthetics and more. Much like Uber Black, ...
Facebook mentors seven UK startups at its first in-house incubator
Facebook Inc. announced in December that it would be launching its own in-house incubator to help mentor promising U.K.-based tech startups, and now the company’s LDN_LAB has officially opened its doors for its first cohort. LDN_LAB is part of Facebook’s new London office, which opened in December and added 800 employees to Facebook’s U.K. staff. The incubator ...
Worried about shortages, Apple may buy battery minerals directly from miners
Apple Inc. is in talks with mining companies to secure a direct supply of minerals before demand from the booming electric car industry causes a shortage. According to sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported today, Apple is hoping to buy cobalt directly from miners in a deal that the company believes will protect both sides. Cobalt is a relatively rare mineral ...
Samsung crammed 30TB of storage into a palm-sized SSD
It has been a little over two years since Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. bragged about having the world’s highest-capacity solid-state drive, which had an impressive 15.36 terabytes of storage. The company seems intent on keeping that record, as it unveiled a new SSD today that doubles the capacity of its previous drives, with 30.72TB of storage space crammed ...