Techmeme
- Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange Rain Financial raises a $110M Series B co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins (Brandy Betz/CoinDesk) January 18, 2022Brandy Betz / CoinDesk: Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange Rain Financial raises a $110M Series B co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins — Kleiner Perkins co-led the funding round, which will go toward geographic expansion. — Bahrain-based cryptocurrency exchange Rain Financial has raised $110 million …
- Despite high hopes, AI in health care hasn't been effective because medical data is more complex and scarce than web data, resulting in misleading results (Tom Simonite/Wired) January 18, 2022Tom Simonite / Wired: Despite high hopes, AI in health care hasn't been effective because medical data is more complex and scarce than web data, resulting in misleading results — Medical information is more complex and less available than the web data that many algorithms were trained on, so results can be misleading.
- South Korean startup flex, which makes tools for automating HR processes and workflows, raises a $32M Series B led by Greenoaks at a $287M valuation (Kate Park/TechCrunch) January 18, 2022Kate Park / TechCrunch: South Korean startup flex, which makes tools for automating HR processes and workflows, raises a $32M Series B led by Greenoaks at a $287M valuation — South Korea-based human resources management platform flex announced today it has closed a $32 million Series B round at a valuation of $298 million.
- Tech Oversight Project, mainly funded by Pierre Omidyar and Chris Hughes's organizations, launches Tuesday to push for Big Tech antitrust regulations (Cat Zakrzewski/Washington Post) January 18, 2022Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post: Tech Oversight Project, mainly funded by Pierre Omidyar and Chris Hughes's organizations, launches Tuesday to push for Big Tech antitrust regulations — Organizations with ties to eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes are the primary funders of the Tech Oversight Project
- Samsung unveils 4nm Exynos 2200, its new SoC with Xclipse GPU based on AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, offering features such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing (Cho Mu-Hyun/ZDNet) January 18, 2022Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet: Samsung unveils 4nm Exynos 2200, its new SoC with Xclipse GPU based on AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, offering features such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing — The processor packs Samsung's own Xclipse GPU based on AMD RDNA 2 architecture that the South Korean company says will offer a console-level gaming experience in […]
- How Netflix succeeded in South Korea, including by developing ideas considered too risky for broadcasters and licensing local content overseas (Bloomberg) January 18, 2022Bloomberg: How Netflix succeeded in South Korea, including by developing ideas considered too risky for broadcasters and licensing local content overseas — It took “Squid Game” just four weeks this past fall to become the most-watched Netflix Inc. show ever released in any language.
- Autonomous driving startup Wayve, which relies on machine learning to teach a car how to drive instead of hardware like lidar sensors, raises a $200M Series B (Sam Shead/CNBC) January 18, 2022Sam Shead / CNBC: Autonomous driving startup Wayve, which relies on machine learning to teach a car how to drive instead of hardware like lidar sensors, raises a $200M Series B — - Wayve did not disclose the new valuation but it's likely to be in excess of $1 billion, which would make it a […]
- Paris-based Spendesk, which offers spend management software to SMBs, raises $114M at a $1.5B valuation, after raising the same amount in July 2021 (Benoit Berthelot/Bloomberg) January 18, 2022Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg: Paris-based Spendesk, which offers spend management software to SMBs, raises $114M at a $1.5B valuation, after raising the same amount in July 2021 — Financial technology company Spendesk said it's raised another 100 million euros ($114 million) of funding, six months after a raise of the same amount …
- India-based agritech startup Arya, which helps farmers in South Asia store and sell their produce and secure credit, raises a $46M Series C and $14M as debt (Manish Singh/TechCrunch) January 18, 2022Manish Singh / TechCrunch: India-based agritech startup Arya, which helps farmers in South Asia store and sell their produce and secure credit, raises a $46M Series C and $14M as debt — Indian agritech startup Arya, which reaches hundreds of thousands of farmers in the South Asian market and helps them store and sell …
- Social Capital founder and CEO Chamath Palihapitiya says the "ugly truth" is "nobody cares about what's happening" to Uyghurs in China, himself included (Ashley Rodriguez/Insider) January 17, 2022Ashley Rodriguez / Insider: Social Capital founder and CEO Chamath Palihapitiya says the “ugly truth” is “nobody cares about what's happening” to Uyghurs in China, himself included — - Chamath Palihapitiya said “nobody cares about what's happening” to Uyghur Muslims in China.
- Game publishers' plans to add NFTs to games have sparked a fierce backlash from gamers, who have long resented the growing number of micro transactions in games (New York Times) January 17, 2022New York Times: Game publishers' plans to add NFTs to games have sparked a fierce backlash from gamers, who have long resented the growing number of micro transactions in games — Game publishers are offering NFTs, but skeptical gamers smell a moneymaking scheme and are fighting back.
- Apple clarifies it will still collect a commission from Dutch developers using third-party payments; Google will too in South Korea, just lowering its fee by 4% (Eric Benjamin Seufert/Mobile Dev Memo) January 17, 2022Eric Benjamin Seufert / Mobile Dev Memo: Apple clarifies it will still collect a commission from Dutch developers using third-party payments; Google will too in South Korea, just lowering its fee by 4% — On December 24th of last year, the Netherlands' competition regulator, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) …
- BitPay says Bitcoin use by its merchants fell to ~65% of crypto payments, down from 92% in 2020, as Ether purchases rose to 15% and stablecoins grew to 13% (Olga Kharif/Bloomberg) January 17, 2022Olga Kharif / Bloomberg: BitPay says Bitcoin use by its merchants fell to ~65% of crypto payments, down from 92% in 2020, as Ether purchases rose to 15% and stablecoins grew to 13% — Consumers and businesses are increasingly starting to use digital tokens other than Bitcoin for purchases, according to BitPay Inc. …
- Istanbul-based Spyke, which builds multiplayer social games, raises a $55M seed from Griffin Gaming Partners, the largest Turkish seed round yet (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch) January 17, 2022Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Istanbul-based Spyke, which builds multiplayer social games, raises a $55M seed from Griffin Gaming Partners, the largest Turkish seed round yet — Istanbul has become a city to watch when it comes to casual gaming startups, boosted by the likes of Peak (acquired by Zynga for $1.8 billion) …
- Activision Blizzard says 37 employees have "exited" and 44 have been disciplined since July as part of its investigation over workplace misconduct allegations (Kirsten Grind/Wall Street Journal) January 17, 2022Kirsten Grind / Wall Street Journal: Activision Blizzard says 37 employees have “exited” and 44 have been disciplined since July as part of its investigation over workplace misconduct allegations — Company's actions have come in the wake of pressure from investors, business partners and employees to address complaints over its handling of misconduct issues