AlexaSite wins the Disrupt NY 2016 Hackathon Grand Prize
It’s been a long night at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. But this time, you couldn’t see anyone waiting for a boat. Instead, the Cruise Terminal hosted a very special competition — the Disrupt NY Hackathon. Around 650 engineers and designers got together to come up with something cool, something neat, something awesome. The only condition is that they only had 24 hours to work… Read MoreE-susu aims to close the gap between community loan groups and traditional banking services
An interesting hack presented on stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2016 is a platform for non-traditional banking services. Called e-susu, the app is designed for people who are involved with informal loan groups to help them better manage the process of lending money within a family or community group, as well as encouraging the saving process via increased transparency. Read MoreHungry Host uses Alexa to help you figure out what to cook tonight
You have a bunch of ingredients in your fridge, and you don’t know what you want to cook. You just bought an Amazon Echo, dying to figure out some new things to do with it. Well, you can do both of these with a hack put together at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY Hackathon that does just that. Read More911bot is a chat bot that could save your life
When you find yourself in an emergency situation, it’s hard to know what to do. And even if you do, panic can take over. 911bot, a product built at the Disrupt Hackathon here in New York, aims to help you out in a pinch. The Facebook Messenger-based chat bot lets you report emergencies to the authorities through a quick image-based interface. And as your report is sent through the system… Read More- CRUNCH NETWORK
How to keep your investors invested
You did it. You secured your funding. Good for you. You tirelessly developed, pitched, sold, maybe even danced a little. Not a song and dance, but a display of passion, commitment and promise. You successfully instilled the confidence investors need to see before signing on the dotted line. Now that you’ve earned this faith and raised that critical cash, it’s time to consider the… Read More FwdForce faces an uphill battle in trying to make crowdfunding more accountable
One of the big challenges with crowdfunding is that once the campaign ends, most crowdfunding platforms wash their hands of the process from there on. FwdForce does things differently. It lets anybody submit a pitch for a product they want, and establishes checks and balances to the prototyping and production process. The company says its model will make things more accountable for the backers. Read MoreRewardStyle helps influencers make money from social
These days, you can’t swing a bag of cats around without hitting some sort of social influencer. But how do these people make money from their content? RewardStyle, a Dallas-based startup, provides a platform for influencers and bloggers to get paid for all the sales they inspire out of consumers. Though the company has been operating under the radar, it has grown to generate more than… Read MoreThe TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-Off is coming to Stockholm just in time for the summer
Hello startup friends! The TechCrunch team had a great idea — the summer is right around the corner, so we’re going to celebrate Nordic startups with a Meetup + Pitch-Off in Stockholm for the first time ever on June 7. “What a great idea, how do I get involved?” you’re probably thinking right now. So here’s what’s up. As the name suggest, the… Read More
Earny’s app gets your money back on purchases after prices drop
A new mobile application called Earny has launched with the goal of getting you your money back. That is, the app connects with your email and Amazon accounts in order to track your online purchases and find your e-receipts, then price check those items to see if you got the best deal. If it finds a lower price, Earny will request a refund on your behalf and the difference (minus the… Read MoreSean Parker’s Airtime acquires WebRTC video chat wizards vLine
It takes some serious engineering magic to build low-latency group mobile video chat and simultaneous content viewing. That’s why Sean Parker’s recently relaunched video chat room app Airtime acquired vLine, which offered video chat infrastructure to SaaS companies. Founded in 2010, vLine was backed with $1.5 million from Kleiner Perkins and Harrison Metal. vLine’s team will… Read MoreLauncher lets you create iOS widgets that display or hide based on day, time or location
You may remember Launcher as the once-banned iOS widget that Apple booted from the App Store after its approval, then months later allowed back in. The problem Apple had with the app, seemingly, is that its sole existence was to be a widget provider — the app by itself didn’t offer any standalone functionality beyond widget configuration. Today, Launcher is out with its… Read MoreYouTube VP Matt Glotzbach graduates to CEO role at Quizlet
Quizlet, the makers of popular web and mobile study tools, hired a new CEO, Matt Glotzbach, former Vice President of Product Management at YouTube. Glotzbach led the creation of YouTube’s music subscription service, and fan-funding business platforms. But Quizlet will not be his first education-focused initiative. A 12-year Google veteran, he was part of the founding team of Google apps… Read MoreFintech doesn’t just disrupt banks, it makes them platforms
It’s easy to move your money between banks. What’s annoying is moving your apps. There’s been a recent explosion of fintech products in spaces like stock trading, wealth management, payments, loans, remittance and insurance. It’s been fueled by a massive uptick in venture investment in private fintech companies, which hit $19 billion in 2015 according to CB Insights. Read MoreDrawbridge raises $25M as it takes its cross-device tech beyond advertising
Drawbridge, a startup that helps businesses identify when a single person is using multiple devices, has raised $25 million in Series C funding. Every time I write about Drawbridge, I’m contractually obligated to mention that the company is backed by two of the best-known venture capital firms, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. For this round, Drawbridge went back… Read MoreCraig Wright backs out and won’t prove that he is bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto
Satoshi Nakamoto, 2016 edition, might not be Craig Wright after all. Just a couple of days after claiming that he was the creator of bitcoin, the Australian entrepreneur updated his website with a note that says that he won’t share the proof that he’s Satoshi Nakamoto. Read More- CRUNCH NETWORK
The most common marketing mistake startups make
I’ve seen the same basic marketing mistake play out at some of the best software companies in the world: If your marketing team needs help from engineering to update their website (publish new posts, edit copy, upload images, etc.), then they have been set up to fail. Read More Engagio launches PlayMaker to turn B2B marketing insights into action items
Engagio, the B2B marketing platform built by Marketo founder Jon Miller, is about a year old and performing well. The company has 36 clients and is operating at $675,000 in recurring annual revenue. But now is no time for the company to rest on its laurels. Today, Engagio is introducing a new product into the mix called PlayMaker. For the past year, Engagio has been offering insights and… Read More- CRUNCH NETWORK
HarperCollins inexplicably turns to Bookshout to offer ebook downloads
If there’s one thing readers love it’s extra reading apps on their iOS and Android devices. A few years ago there were about a dozen – apps for long-form writing, apps for books, apps that let publishers monetize (not really) by offering their own downloads. Now there’s Kindle. And, we learn today in a press release from HarperCollins, Bookshout. HarperCollins… Read More
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