TheHighFlyers helps you join the mile-high chat club
When friends Eli Byers, Chad Fegley, Amrita Chawla, and Mari Lliguicota fly they’re usually bored. They spend a lot of time in the air and they wanted something that would make the miles go by faster. Their solution? TheHighFlyers.club. This clever Disrupt hackathon hack lets you see when you’re passing cool stuff outside of the plane and even chat with other people on the flight. Read MoreDiagnose your plant’s health with your smartphone camera and Plantbot
There’s plenty of information online to help people figure out whether their plants are healthy and what they need to do to make them better. But they can be distributed far across the Internet and sometimes hard to find, and aren’t necessarily available on demand, according to MartĂn Capeletto. That’s why the team, a bunch of plant nuts (though they wouldn’t tell… Read MoreApp platform Kinetise aims to bring app building to the enterprise
Kinetise, an app building platform and Disrupt hackathon favorite, aims to democratize the the the process of creating native mobile apps for iOS and Android in the enterprise. Using a drag-and-drop interface, the system essentially lets you build and deploy native apps, visually. In this way, non-developers are able to create and deploy mobile apps. The company originally focused on selling… Read MoreRebecca Minkoff’s Fashion Week show uses augmented reality to help real women shop the look live
Not only is augmented reality helping us capture all the PokĂ©mon, it’s also made its way to Rebecca Minkoff’s fall preview show at Fashion Week this Saturday. About 350 fashion-forward individuals will get an up-close look at the new line in person, but those not able to snag a ticket can feel like they are right there with a 360 live experience provided at the show. And… Read MoreFord backs massive bike-share expansion in the San Francisco Bay Area
At a press conference in San Francisco today, Ford Motor Co. president and CEO Mark Fields announced that the company had both acquired a rideshare startup called Chariot and made a significant investment in expanding the region’s bike-share program. Ford’s sponsorship will see the Bay Area’s supply of shareable bikes expand from 700 to 7,000 by 2018, with 1,350 bikes going… Read MoreRover is closing a $40M round that values the pet-sitting startup at nearly $300M
Seattle-based Rover is in the process of closing a $40 million round of funding, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. The Series E round would value Rover at nearly $300 million, and it comes from existing investors Menlo Ventures, Madrona Venture Group and Foundry Group. The company had previously raised more than $50 million. When we reached out to Rover for comment, a… Read MoreBeeswax raises $11M for customizable adtech
Beeswax, a startup founded by a trio of former Google ad executives, has raised $11 million in Series A funding. The company offers what it calls a bidder-as-a-service — a set of customizable technologies that allows customers to participate in real-time bidding for ad inventory. Beeswax’s offerings include access to inventory, bidding algorithms and analytics, but CEO Ari… Read MorePeak Design and building a company on the Kickstarter platform
Most startups toil away in stealth mode on new products with an Apple-esque fear of news leaking before its time. Peak Design decided to go to the other extreme, building a company in full view of its audience — and in the face of its competitors. Eschewing traditional investors in favor of a series of Kickstarter campaigns, I decided to take a closer look at how the team makes it work. Read MoreRestaurant tech startup Salido raises $2M
Salido, a startup that describes itself as “the restaurant operating system,” is announcing that it has raised $2 million in additional funding. This round from strategic investors doubles the $2 million in seed funding that Salido announced last year. Phil Suarez, who partnered with French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten to launch well-known restaurants including ABC Kitchen and… Read More
Blackstorm raises $33.5M to help developers get their apps everywhere beyond the App Store
Managing the App Store can be one of the most difficult experiences for new developers. Getting noticed is hard, the experience isn’t that great, and now Apple is allowing search ads. And to make things more interesting, there’s a lot of interest in different platforms beyond traditional apps — including messaging bots. Eventually, there will have to be a way to… Read MoreDigit, a simple app to help you save, launches Android app
Whether you’re working out of a dorm room or running a billion-dollar company, a little pivot can go a long way. At their worst, pivots can derail a company’s success, but at their best, they demonstrate a company is still attuned to its user base — no matter how big it gets. Digit, a fintech service that helps people save, launched a year and a half ago with the… Read MoreYala’s new chatbot knows the best time to post to social networks
Need to post content to multiple social networks at the same time? A new chatbot called Yala wants to help. The bot, live now on Slack with Facebook Messenger support coming soon, not only does the work of posting for you, it’s also intelligent enough to know when to post. That is, Yala uses algorithms and machine learning to determine the best time to post in order to increase… Read MoreVideoBlocks wants stock media to keep it real, launches “The Authentic Collection”
VideoBlocks, the stock media company that gives subscribers unlimited access to its catalog of images, videos and audio clips for an annual subscription, wants stock media to look less whitewashed and more like the real deal. But no stock media marketplace can purge every image that reflects “conventional” beauty or caters to other stereotypes. (Those images have their time… Read MoreNew AirMap feature helps drones avoid manned aircraft
A Santa Monica-based startup called AirMap today launched a feature that gives drone operators real time traffic alerts whenever manned aircraft such as helicopters, crop dusters or low-flying passenger planes, are about to enter into their air space. The company’s systems, generally, let drone makers and developers of drone apps give users maps and guidance as to where they’re… Read MoreYour Facebook friends can actually cheer you up
A study (conveniently co-written by Facebook) has found that “personal interactions on Facebook can have a major impact on a person’s feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life just as much as getting married or having a baby.” That’s right: it seems that clicking “Like” on a picture of someone’s soup is akin to the eternal bond of love that… Read MoreCamarilla, like Path but better, lets you share with up to 15 friends
Remember Path? Even though targeting early tech adopters was potentially the wrong ‘path’ for that company, the idea of a close-friends-only social network isn’t a bad one at all. Enter Camarilla. Camarilla is a social network that lets you share photos with only 15 people at a time. Moreover, those posts are not public, but are rather sent as a direct message to each… Read MoreMercedes-Benz and Matternet unveil vans that launch delivery drones
Mercedes-Benz Vans and drone tech startup Matternet have created a concept car, or as they’re calling it a Vision Van, that could change the way small packages are delivered across short distances. The Vision Van’s rooftop serves as a launch and landing pad for Matternet’s new, Matternet M2 drones. The Matternet M2 drones, which are autonomous, can pick up and carry a… Read MoreOui Open merges with Storefront to become a global pop-up store marketplace
French startup Oui Open, also known as PopupImmo, is merging with its American competitor Storefront for an undisclosed amount of money. The two entities will soon provide a global marketplace of pop-up stores so that brands can open a bunch of stores on multiple continents using the same service. From what I understand, Oui Open is merging with Storefront but keeping the Storefront inventory… Read More
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