Volvo Trucks released teaser images Wednesday of the electric trucks it plans to bring to California next year as part of a demonstration project, the latest truck manufacturer to publicize its electric plans in the state. The attraction to California is no accident. The state has set aggressive targets to improve air quality and reduce […]

Alibaba has reshuffled the leadership at Lazada, its e-commerce firm in Southeast Asia, after CEO Lucy Peng — an original Alibaba co-founder — stepped down to be replaced by Lazada executive president Pierre Poignant after just nine months in the role. Alibaba owns more than 90 percent of Lazada but it has been involved in the business […]

Last week we did a deep dive on how Pokémon GO’s new (and long overdue) player-versus-player battle system would work. The only thing we didn’t know at the time was when, exactly, it would actually start rolling out. The answer: tonight. Just a few days ago, Niantic started shipping an update to the app that […]

Thibault Schrepel Contributor Share on Twitter Thibault Schrepel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Economic Law at Utrecht University and a reviewer at the Stanford Journal of Blockchain Law & Policy. While statements and position papers from most central banks were generally skeptical of cryptocurrencies, the times may be changing. Earlier this […]

TNB Aura, a recent arrival to Southeast Asia’s VC scene, announced today that it has closed a maiden fund at SG$31.1million, or around US$22.65 million, to bring a more private equity-like approach to investing in startups in the region. The fund was launched in 2016 and it is a joint effort between Australia-based venture fund Aura […]

Fintech startup Revolut is now officially a bank. While the startup initially expected to get its European banking license during the first half of 2018, the company has finally come out of the regulatory tunnel with a license in hand. As expected, Revolut applied for a license through the Bank of Lithuania and is leveraging […]

It's been just over a month since Rocket Lab's inaugural (and long-delayed) commercial launch, "It's Business Time," and it's about to take another customer to space: NASA. Tonight's 8PM scheduled launch will take 10 small satellites to orbit as part of NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) XIX mission.

Stratim, the mobility services company formerly known as Zirx, is suing its co-founder and now-former COO Shmulik Fishman for breach of fiduciary duties, civil conversion, criminal conversion, theft, criminal mischief, deception, unjust enrichment and fraud. The lawsuit’s co-plaintiff is Adesa, a subsidiary of KAR Auction Services, which acquired Stratim earlier this year. Stratim powers fleet management […]

Lucasfilm has released an initial cast list for “The Mandalorian,” the live-action Star Wars series that Jon Favreau is creating for the upcoming streaming service Disney+. Pedro Pascal, who had a brief-but-glorious run on “Game of Thrones” as Oberyn Martell, will star in the title role — Lucasfilm describes his character as “a lone Mandalorian […]

During the first two weeks of Scoot’s operations of shared, electric scooters in San Francisco, more than 200 scooters were either stolen or damaged beyond repair, Scoot CEO Michael Keating wrote in a blog post. As a temporary fix, Scoot attached cable locks to some of its scooters in San Francisco. Now, the company is […]

Founded in 1990 by CEO Bahram Akradi, Minnesota-based Life Time used to be known as a premier health club that operated large gyms mainly in affluent suburbs in Midwestern and Southern states. Its success was memorialized in 2015 when two leading private equity firms, Leonard Green & Partners and TPG Capital, led a $4-billion deal […]

When in July of last year, SoftBank’s Vision Fund led a whopping $200 million round in the Silicon Valley startup Plenty, investors behind a competing indoor farming startup across the country, New York-based Bowery, were left reeling. Just one month earlier, they’d closed on a round that brought Bowery’s total funding to $31 million. As […]

Revolutionary products succeed when they deliver value to their users. The fact that a product creates a behavior shift is not enough. It must create value to overcome the initial skepticism.

Epic Games unveiled plans for a new developer framework for online services. This framework will let other game developers add cross-platform support into their games. The SDK will be free and roll out in multiple parts over 2019. Fortnite has been one of the best examples of cross-platform gameplay. A single player can install Fortnite […]