Business

500 Startups continues to feel the impact of a sexual harassment scandal involving its co-founder and former managing partner Dave McClure. Two weeks after the closure of its Canada-based fund, its maiden venture in Australia is getting the chop before it even began. The U.S. firm doesn’t have a dedicated …

A young startup in India wants to makes autonomous driving technology more widely available for truck operators, especially those outside of the U.S., by lower the cost significantly. The concept of self-driving trucks sat in the background for some time as the vision of autonomous cars ferrying consumers from A …

A month after committing to help WeWork enter Japan, SoftBank is lending a hand to another global unicorn with its sights set on the country. Today, it announced a tie-in that will bring Ofo’s dock-less bike rental service to Japanese soil. Ofo, which has raised more than $1 billion from …

Iflix, an Asia-based startup providing Netflix-like streaming services in emerging markets, has landed $133 million in fresh funding to accelerate its business. The investment was led by U.S. media conglomerate Hearst, which counts BuzzFeed, Vice and Roku among its investment portfolio. The group was joined by another new backer EDBI — the …

Uber is in the spotlight for shady operations once again after a report revealed that the U.S. ride-hailing giant knowingly leased cars that were subject to a recall to drivers in Singapore. A Wall Street Journal report exposed the events which took place in 2016 and centered around the Honda Vezel, one of …

Etsy went ahead and DIYed its Q2 2017 earnings report this afternoon and fortunately things turned out fairly well for the company. Etsy announced revenue of $101.69 million with earnings per share of 10 cents. The finance gods prognosticated revenue of $101.14 million and a loss of $0.01 per share, …

I’ll admit, when WanderJaunt co-founder Michael Chen told me he wanted to build a hotel chain, like the Westin, from the ground up on Airbnb, I wasn’t sure what to think. There are already dozens of property management startups for short-term rentals (Vacayo, Guesty etc. And besides, isn’t the commercial dominance …

Asian streaming company M17 Entertainment, which recently merged with Singapore-based dating startup Paktor, has closed a $40 million Series A round. This new funding will be used to increase M17’s roster of streaming talent — the company agrees contracts with its streamers and celebs, much like a talent agency — …

Another season, another group of startups presenting as part of 500 Startups’ 21st demo day. This time around, 29 companies pitched on stage at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. We noticed strong trends in healthcare focused businesses as well as startups tackling international markets out of the gate. …

Ritual Vitamins has raised $10.5 million in Series A venture funding to attract talent, scale the business and build in-house technology for customer experience and support. Ritual first launched as a Disrupt NY Battlefield 2016 contestant with interest and angel funding from Upfront Ventures, FF Angel, Rivet Ventures and Troy Carter. Ritual has since raised a …