Signal tests payments in the UK using MobileCoin
Encrypted chat app Signal is adding payments to the services it provides, a long-expected move and one the company is taking its time on. A U.K.-only beta program will allow users to trade the cryptocurrency MobileCoin quickly, easily, and most importantly, privately. If you’re in...
Holler raises $36M to power ‘conversational media’ in your favorite apps
Holler, described by founder and CEO Travis Montaque as “a conversational media company,” just announced that it’s raised $36 million in Series B funding. You may not know what conversational media is, but there’s a decent chance you’ve used Holler’s technology. For example, if you’ve...
Snapcommerce raises $85M to make over your mobile shopping experience
People are not only shopping digitally more than ever, they’re also shopping using their mobile phones more than ever. And for mobile-first companies like Snapcommerce, this is good news. Snapcommerce, formerly known as SnapTravel, has raised $85 million in what the company is describing as...
Cappuccino lets you share short, intimate audio stories with your friends
You might call Cappuccino the anti-Clubhouse, but the company has been iterating on its app concept for a couple of years — its CEO doesn’t have any strong opinions on Clubhouse. And it’s true that Cappuccino is an interesting social app on its own. It...
Twilio to become minority owner in Syniverse Technologies with $750M investment
Syniverse Technologies, a company that helps mobile providers move communications across public and private networks, announced an extensive partnership with Twilio this morning. Under the agreement, Twilio is investing up to $750 million to become a minority owner in the company. The idea behind the...
Yelp puts trust and safety in the spotlight
Yelp released its very first trust and safety report this week, with the goal of explaining the work that it does to crack down on fraudulent and otherwise inaccurate or unhelpful content. With focus on local business reviews and information, you might think Yelp would...
Chinese mobile games are gaining ground in the US
Over the past year, the coronavirus crisis has spurred app usage in the United States as people stay indoors to limit contact with others. Mobile games particularly have enjoyed a boom, and among them, games from Chinese studios are gaining popularity. Games released on the...
BigCommerce customers can now sell on Walmart’s online marketplace
BigCommerce has partnered with Walmart to allow its customers to sell on the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer’s ecommerce marketplace, it announced this morning. Shares of Austin-based BigCommerce rose sharply in pre-market trading after the news, gaining around 10% before the bell. Walmart, best-known for in-person shopping,...
Emotive raises $50M to make text marketing more conversational
While more businesses are turning to text messages as a marketing channel, Emotive CEO Brain Zatulove argued that most marketers are just treating it as another “newsletter blast.” “The reason the channel performs so well is it’s not saturated,” Zatulove said. But that’s changing, and...
IronSource acquires video and playable ad platform Luna Labs
Mobile advertising company ironSource is announcing its second acquisition of the year — Luna Labs, a startup that that’s built a platform allowing app developers to create and manage video and playable ads. When I first wrote about the startup in 2019, its main selling...
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