Author Archives: Ammar Ibrahim

 Robin, which pitched a combined “Uber for lawn care” and robotic-lawnmower-as-a-service at Disrupt SF’s Startup Battlefield last year, is making some big changes. It quietly sold the first part to Porch earlier this year, and is now focused on expanding the robot service nationwide via a franchising plan. (And they’re going to be on Shark Tank.) Read More

 Bandwidth, a company that helps businesses with voice and text communication, debuted on the Nasdaq on Friday, going up about 6 percent on its first day of trading. After pricing its IPO at the bottom of the expected range at $20 per share, the company closed Friday at $21.19, or up about 6 percent. Read More

 ByteDance is a name that is about to become very familiar to everyone in international tech circles. Really it should already be. It is valued at $20 billion and its flagship Toutiao news reader app is one of China’s fastest growing internet services with 120 million daily users. It is in the process of raising a $2 billion funding round and revenue for this year is reportedly forecast… Read More

 As Apple continues to work on ever-smaller but more powerful computing devices, it has acquired a startup focusing on nanotechnology, and specifically as it relates to image sensors. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Apple has picked up InVisage Technologies, a startup that develops solutions to improve imaging capabilities on space-constrained devices, like smartphones.
An Apple… Read More

 Yotpo, a platform that lets companies gather content from their customers in the form of reviews, Q&As, photos and videos, mainly for use in marketing, has closed $51 million in Series D funding. Read More

 Airbnb continues to be an ecosystem in its own right, with a number of startups building a business by making the lives of hosts easier and potentially more lucrative. One such company is London-based Hostmaker, an upmarket Airbnb management service, which today is announcing $15 million in Series B funding.
The round is led by Sansiri, one of Thailand’s largest premium real estate… Read More

 Ink, a Nebraska-based startup focused on revamping on-campus printing, has raised $7M from VTF Capital, SQN Venture Partners, Invest Nebraska and NE Angeles. This brings total funding to $15M, with previous participation from advisors Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Greg Silverman of Warner Brothers. If you’re a college student or recent graduate, you already understand exactly how frustrating… Read More

 Tech IPOs have been picking up lately and one lesser-known semiconductor company, Aquantia, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange today.
The company raised $61 million in its offering, after pricing shares at $9.00. It closed the day of trading at $9.51.
The San Jose, California-based company describes itself as “a leader in the design, development and marketing of advanced… Read More

 Going from food delivery to data integration might seem like an unlikely progression for a startup team, but it was a natural fit for Hevo Data’s founders. Manish Jethani and Sourabh Agarwal previously launched SpoonJoy, an on-demand restaurant delivery app in India. The challenges they encountered while analyzing data in order to improve SpoonJoy’s service inspired them to create… Read More

 VMware announced today that it was acquiring VeloCloud, a startup that focuses on cloud-based wide area networks (WAN), those networks that span a broad area across data centers or regions. The companies did not reveal the purchase price. The news confirms a report that The Information first reported this story yesterday. The company appears to be an excellent fit as one of the primary use… Read More