Month: May 2020

New Attendance Law in Spain & other Startups News

At Itnig, we know it’s hard to keep up with all the news and updates flying around. What’s new? Well, there have been some changes in Spain. We have some news considering what’s happening in the Spanish Ecosystem. Are you aware of the latest time and attendance law?

It has come to action on the 12th of May 2019 giving the obligation to businesses to track the attendance and time spent at work of every single employee; to find out more considering this law, you can take a look here.

We published an article on the blog of itnig, where we discuss why this law will kill the innovation in Spain and Europe; you can take a look right here! Also, Factorial developed a free feature that companies can directly download to be compliant with the law.

Ok, so now that we are updated on legal news, we should maybe check out our podcasts of the month. You will not be disappointed as we are welcoming 5 guests this month for 5 explosive podcasts.

Startup Inside Stories Podcast

#86 : Roger Casals, from Plazah

This week Bernat Farrero (CEO Itnig) and Jordi Romero (CEO Factorial) discuss with Roger Casals (PasswordBank, Symantec and now Plazah).

Roger started his first company in 1999, Powerdata, after self-teaching to program in C. He dedicated himself to solving company’s management problems and started different businesses that were sold later on. One day, when explaining his Product to a customer, he found himself with another issue leading him to develop Password Bank (a software centralising all passwords compatible with any platform).

Password Bank obtained 1M€ of private investment with Inveready among others. This amount was multiplied several times with Spanish public financing rounds. He moved to the USA because that’s where he found his “5 ps”: Potential customers, investors, partners, competitors, suppliers. At the beginning it was costing him a lot, until he realised that as a small foreign startup, he did not meet any of the characteristics to sell to any big American Company.

After much frustrations and complications he ended up selling it to Symantec, for 25 times his Revenue, and became it’s executive. Roger explains the problems of international taxation, tells us about the functioning of companies in Delaware, price competitiveness in technology between USA and Spain and his experience with government loans. His latest project is Plazah, a Marketplace recommendation where any company can sell products with direct sales from its own users.

#87 : Pablo Villalba, from 8fit

In this week’s podcast, the product-focused serial entrepreneur Pablo Villalba shares with us his story. 

Discover how he launched RedBooth, and grew this communication and collaboration platform to a 7-digits yearly revenue business.

Find out how the MVP of the 8fit was originally a basic Google Doc sheet and how grew into a multi-million users App bringing tens of millions of dollars of yearly revenue. 

Find out about the Product-focused innovation and the Challenges that hide behind the scale of an innovative business.

#88 : Eduardo Manchón, from Mailtrack 

In this week’s episode of Startup Inside Stories, Bernat Farrero (CEO @itnig), Jordi Romero (CEO @Factorial) discuss with Eduardo Manchón the CEO @Mailtrack and founder of Panoramio, one of the first exits to big tech companies produced in Spain. He is also a self-proclaimed grandpa in the Spanish startup ecosystem.

He studied psychology and focused on learning human sciences, which combined to his nerd roots brought him to human computer interaction, he learnt Nielsen principles and before he knew Ubaldo Huerta (previous guest in our podcast) hired him to work on his startup Loquo. There he learnt everything to start his own bootstrapped company, Panoramio, in 2003 with cofounders Cuenca and Florido, each working from their home.

Panoramio was the origin of geolocalized photo-sharing in Google Earth initially and Google Maps later on. After some ups and downs in the collaboration, Google finally made an offer to acquire the company paying from “1M to 5M per Kg of founder” on the 31st of May 2007. He worked at Google Switzerland while the “vesting period” lasted and then went back to live sabatically at his hometown.

In 2013 he joined Mailtrack initially leading Product and becoming the CEO afterwards. Mailtrack is an email notification SaaS with tens of thousands of paying users. The company was cofounded by Nacho González (also previous guest in the podcast), who later left to start Hireflix, his last venture.

#89 :  Tyson Kallberg, from Asana

In this week’s podcast (in English) we talk to Tyson Kallberg, head of design at Asana, about how he ended up in the company, how the founders Dustin and Justin left Facebook to start it and the growth the company has experienced since he started working there.

We discuss how important the fact of starting a business in SF is, compared to other cities in the world, the work culture in the Bay Area, and why he thinks Asana’s culture is different to others.

We obviously talk about design, and Tyson shares with us how Asana’s design team is structured and the challenges of keeping the hierarchy as flat as possible while growing fast. We talk about their roadmap and how the different teams join efforts to drive it together.

Tyson finally gives us his thoughts on what a product manager does or at least should do.

#90 : Vicens Marti, from Tangelo Games

In this week’s episode, Bernat Farrero (CEO @itnig) and Juan Rodriguez (CEO @camaloon) discuss the life of Vicens Martí, entrepreneur and executive of many companies.

Vicens defines himself as sector agnostic, he thinks that business is business and there is no such thing as “this industry is different”. After being entrepreneur in the hospitality industry, playing different roles at Cirsa, AMC and Port Aventura, he went on to become one of the initial executives who started Vueling and brought it to the IPO. He learnt a lot from this process and specially from its founder Carlos Muñoz.

After a short period as CEO of the family-owned Custo Barcelona, he then was convinced by Carlos Blanco to lead Akamon and accepted the challenge for 5 years until he brought it to the 28M$ exit to a Canadian company. He keeps involved as the CEO of the acquiring company, then renamed to Tangelo Games.

Vicens thinks he can play a crucial role and “bring agency” to the places where he gets involved and have a rich personal life at the same time. He is now President at El Row, which makes over 30M€ and 5M in EBITDA by organizing electronic music shows. He especially enjoys this sector as he is a big fan of electronic music. As a bonus, he tells us the experience of participating in the Burning man annual festival.

May Startup News & Updates

Last week the IPOs season continued, and also new gigantic private rounds. These are exciting times for many Internet industries, but also for the fans of good coffee like we are at Itnig (soon we’ll share some related news of our own! 😉). Luckin Coffee, a Chinese coffeeshop chain that opened only in 2017 went public in Nasdaq last week, raising 561M$ in the public market on top of the 550M$ previously raised in venture capital. The goal of this ambitious 3b$ priced retailer is to replace the giant 96b$ Starbucks in China with new 2.500 locations, all opening this year. Boom! Yes, that’s the pace in which China intends to replace western brands (hello, Apple)!

Also, Softbank strikes back in Europe with the 484M$ monster round in the German Atrapalo-like travel and leisure booking platform, GetYourGuide. Lastly, but not least, Glovo will have now a harder time competing after the biggest operations company in the world, Amazon, invested 575M$ in Deliveroo to compete against the leader in last mile food delivery service, Uber Eats. People wonders if the service will integrate with Amazon Prime or if Amazon will build the new AWS for cloud kitchens (or ghost kitchens)… as we said, exciting times ahead!

One of the biggest recent success stories in Europe is undeniably the money transfer startup Transferwise. The company has recently announced a $292 million in secondary share sale which won’t bring fresh money but will make some of their initial shareholders and employees pretty happy. Reports claim that this round has made 33 new millionaires. We might be seeing a wave of great Estonian startups coming up soon !

This month was also very positive for the cloud-based identity platform for developers Auth0 as they raised $103 million to become a unicorn. And we lost the count. Unicorns don’t seem to be so rare in recent times and some start to question if the real unicorns are actually the profitable startups (like Transferwise seems to be).

New Funding for Startups

This week the European Funding Rounds have been led by the United Kingdom, followed by Spain, Germany and Switzerland. Here is what has been happening :

🇪🇸 SPAIN

The Madrid based startup  Playtomic has raised €6M and is leading the funding round of country, followed by the  Barcelona based startup Holded that  has secured €6M during their Serie A funding round. Finally, the video-based insurtech solution Bdeo has raised €1M 

On the Spanish territory the Famous Barcelona-based delivery app Glovo has raised €150M in Series D funding by the venture capital Lakestar.

Almost 18M€ raised in Spain:

• Kompyte, the technological SaaS startup for pricing intelligence, with current headquarters in San-Francisco, raised 2,67M€ from CaixaCapitalRisc, Adara and Swanlaab
• Psious, the VR treatment for mental disorders, raised 8M€ in a funding round co-led by Sabadell, Asabys and Caixa Capital Risc.
• Rentals United raised 3,8M€ from Stella EOC Capital and Howzat Partners.
• Hubtype’s chatbots raised 1M€ from K Fund.
• Zinklar raised 1M€ from Caixa Capital Risc, Inbeready and Sabadell.
• Muroexe DTC brand raised 1M€ from Unknown investors and want to raise more from friends (¿?).
• Guesser raised 1,1M€ as a Seed Round to bet on market predictions.

🇬🇧 UNITED KINGDOM

In the United Kingdom, the week has been rich in investment starting by the investment of €17.4M for ButternutBox, which is a fresh food delivery service for dogs; surprising right? 💸🐶 Closely followed by Wheely, the luxury ride hailing startup that secured €13.4M in Serie B Funding. Finally, two London-based Startups Muso raised €4M to address digital piracy and Sythesia has raised €2.8M

In the United Kingdom, it is the London-based payment solution platform Checkout.com that leads this week’s investment with the raise of€269M in Serie A Investment, followed by the funding of FutureLearn with €58.6M from SEEKGROUP. We can also note smaller investments such as; Pharmaseal International closing a funding round of €1.1M and the video-based hiring platform startup Tempo raising €2.05M.

🇩🇪 GERMANY 

In Germany, the startup Rum has received €10M from SAP

In Germany, it is the Berlin based digital freight forwarder Freighthub that leads the national investment round with the raise of €26.8M in Series B fundingfollowed by the 7-Figures SeedFunding of the miRdetect which developped a detection method of testicular cancer

🇨🇭 SWITZERLAND

The Zurich Based startup RosieReality raised €2M to build AR games for kids

🇫🇷 FRANCE

To finish the week, the Paris-based trucking marketplace Fretlink that raised €25M in Series B Funding. 

Other news in Europe this month:

• The employee experience provider platform Perkbox has raised €15.6M in equity funding to expand their reach and launch new features in the next months. This round was led by Drapers Spirit.
• Rfrnz has raised 7-figures funding round to advance their growth and develop their product. This round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), UnternehmerTUM Initiative for Industrial Innovators and two other investors. 
• The planning and booking service platform Tourlane, offering customized and exclusive trips has raised  €41.8M in Series C Funding. This round was led by Sequoia and Spark Capital assisted by the participation of DN Capital and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures.
• The talent acquisition platform HeyJobs has raised €10.6M in Series A funding to expand their developments efforts and grow the AI intelligence app allowing them to find talents. This round was led by Notion Capital,Creathor Ventures, GFC, and Heartcore Capital.
• London-based Deliveroo gets a 575M$ from Amazon, that add to the other 1b$ that the company had previously raised (initially from Index and Accel).
• Berlin-based GetYourGuide raises 484M$ from Softbank that add to the other 170M raised before (with Battery and Spark).
• Paris-based DNAScript raises 34M€ to boost DNA Production in a way that has never done before.
• DocPlanner, the polish-company that acquired the Spanish Doctoralia in 2016 strikes back raising 80M€ from Goldman Sachs and One Peak Partners.
• The expense managmenent fintech Pleo raises 56M$. It was started by Founders, a fellow startup studio in Denmark, and less than one year ago raised 16M$ from our co-investors and friends Creandum.
• Finish-based Wirepas raises 14,4M to build iOT in a massive scale.
• Dublin-based Glofox raises 10M$ to keep expanding their gym management SaaS.
• Impossible Foods raised 300M from Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Serena Williams, Kate Perry and UBS.
• Nextdoor raises 123M$ from Riverwood in their series F at a reported 2,1b$ valuation.
• Fastly, Luckin did their IPO and Fiverr filed for IPO too. Fiverr, the israel-based marketplace for freelance services, raised 111M so far (Bessemer, Accel), sold 75M last year and lost 36M. 
• On-demand food delivery startup DoorDash raises $600 million, and now the company is worth $12.6 billion
• Money transfer startup TransferWise gets $292 million in secondary share sale making 33 new millionaires
• The Beijing-based online travel startup Mafengwo raises $250 million for online travel
• Cloud-based identity platform for developers Auth0 is raising $103 million to become a unicorn
• London-based social impact fintech startup Wagestream raises €46 million for its service to end payday poverty
• UK-based enterprise decision-making platform PROWLER.io raises €21.5 million Series B round at €90 million valuation
• Finnish PropTech startup Kodit.io raises €12 million gives homeowners a stress-free way to quickly sell their homes for a fair price
• Hamburg-based BIO-LUTIONS raises €8.3 million from Delivery Hero for its ecological alternatives to single-use plastics
• French startup Dawex raises €5 million to accelerate the development of the Data Economy
• Intelligent mobility startup Immense Simulations raises €4.1 million in Series A funding
• Barcelona-based startup Ona Therapeutics raises €1,5 million developing an anti-metastasic medicine
• The crediting startup Nemuru raises €1 million to increase its technological systems
• Tiller Systems acquires the restaurant AI software Beesniss

Random Tech News

• Alphabet’s drone company cleared to deliver in the US
• You might be surprised with the evolution of the top programming languages in use over the years.
• These are the the week’s IPO (Uber, Slack) and massive investment news.
• Quantum tech is not only used by The Avengers, but could make hard drives faster and allow more capcity in less space.
• A diesel Mercedes C 220 emits less CO2 than a Tesla Model 3.
• YouTube, the secret weapon that killed IE6.
• 3D printing hearts with patient’s own tissue and bioink.
• Stay tuned for this year’s Google I/O. Here is what to expect from it.
• Jeff Bezos wants to colonize the moon by 2024.
• This is everything Google announced at the Google I/O 2019.
• New material that makes batteries charge faster discovered by mistake.
• TikTok, the apparently harmless Chinese-owned app that is quietly taking over the world. 
• A robot that picks and harvests fruits better than humans.
• Gmail keeps track of all your purchases and it’s not easy to delete.
• [No spoilers] Now that it’s over, take a look at Game Of Thrones’ staggering numbers.
• Telegram founder attacks WhatsApp saying it will never be safe.
• Voice fakes are soon going to be something to be careful with by looking at how this speech synth can recreate a person’s voice, or how Google’s Translatron can translate speech into other languages without altering the voice.
• Minecraft + AR = Minecraft Earth. A “Pokémon Go”-ish version of Microsoft’s Minecraft is coming this summer.
• Google will stop doing business with Huawei, following new episode in the US-China trade war.
• Nearly 90,000 developers answered this survey from Stackoverflow.
• Huawei has trademarked its ‘Hongmeng’ operating system.
• How fragmented is Android?
• Visual evolution of EV sales from 2012.
• Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug.
• This self-made millionaire invented a ‘gun’ that shoots salt at flies.
• How to avoid traffic jams, by The Boring Company.
• Samsung’s AI generates talking deepfakes from a single image.

Those are the May 2019 startup news!

At Itnig, we write a weekly newsletter where we keep our community updated on everything related to startups, tech news, fundings, and we share our weekly podcast!
Subscribe and keep up with the startup universe, or feel free to come back for more startup news of the month here!

Challenges with Xavi Sans (Orain Technologies) & Startups News

At Itnig, we know it’s hard to keep up with all the startups news and updates flying around. We are quite delighted about this month’s podcasts. If you’re interested and passionate about tech, Xavi Sans, CEO of Orain Technologies, is having a talk about his company and their challenges on our weekly podcast.

Orain converts vending and self-service machines into intelligent devices (“smart”) offering a communication interface to consumers via chatbots; using their own phones as a modem. They are connecting machines to the Internet while allowing them to keep their database synchronized.

The company faces a huge but highly atomized market with many possible verticals to conquer. Their business model is a SaaS, paying the companies that sell the machine’s products.

Orain has a double challenge in its ‘Go To Market operation’ through the engagement of the companies and users. They now have 20 employees and are pursuing both objectives and growth. He mentioned that their growth rate corresponds to 300% a month and that in the last year they closed 400k€ turnover between Spain and Italy.

The business-funded itself in a first phase, and at the end of 2017 closed a round of 1M€ with business angels and a vending machine plastic cups manufacturer. Xavi is currently preparing another much larger round to continue growing.

What about other successful businesses and their stories? Let’s move on to three other podcasts where you’ll learn about VR technologies, WeFitter and B2B. Finally, you will discover the great project and enterprise Bound4Blue, a tech product which is having a great environmental impact.

Startup Inside Stories Podcast

#82: Jordi Valls, from Mentor-VR

Jordi Valls claims that VR technologies are in its sweetest moment. Among other aspects, its market acceleration is caused by the hardware improvements and reductions in costs, with devices like the Oculus VR Gothat can be purchased for as little as 219€. Jordi anticipates that Oculus was a very visionary acquisition by Facebook with the potential to become even bigger than Facebook itself.

Today gaming is the main application we see on VR and Sony is the current vendor leader. However, there have been some new companies using it for therapies, training, and many other uses. In the b2b space Mentor VR is one of these new models, inspired by the American STRIVR that used VR to train over Walmart’s 1M employees. They plan to start as an agency that records and prepares the 3D videos and productize it along the way.

Jordi finishes by telling us his previous adventures as an entrepreneur, its stay in Palo Alto to found 1sleeve (customized iPad cases), then Startup Embassy (apartments for entrepreneurs), to come back to Spain to work for a packaging company and then move to Menorca to lead a “startup deacceleration program” called Menorca Millennials.

#83: Carlos Rodés, founder of WeFitter.

Wefitter was founded in 2014. applied to Itnig’s “acceleration program” (when it still existed). They did not enter as it was too early for the team. At this time, he also lost his CTO. Carlos shares with the frustration and importance of having a good CTO to boost a startup on the Internet, which Wefitter did not get.

After long existential debates between B2b and B2c, a recurring theme in the stories of Itnig podcasts, WeFitter opted for the B2b. Its model is the sale of the sports information of its users to companies and insurers. Carlos debates with Jordi and Bernat how to evangelize in a market that is not yet ready (insurers). Bernat cites the models to Google performance, but also Marfeel and Red Points as a formula to explain new ways to solve problems.

One of the key elements of Wefitter’s story is the number of accelerators he’s been through. It passed through Seedrocket (Barcelona), H-Farm + Technogym (Italy), 500 startups (San Francisco), Articstartup (Finland) and Katapult Accelerator (Norway). Carlos jokes that being accelerated becomes a lifestyle and that he takes more learning into the next project than those that can be achieved in an MBA.

#85: José Miguel Bermúdez, from Bound4Blue

In this week’s podcast, Pau Fernandez (CFO of Quipu and Factorial), and Dan Kragt (CEO of Quipu) discuss with José Miguel Bermúdez, CEO of Bound4Blue.

José explains about being passionate about sailing and aeronautics all his life. He co-founded in April 2015, his company Bound4Blue. Boats use a lot of energy and resources that hurt the environment and the income statements of naval companies; Bound4Blue provides boats tailored complementary rigid wingsail technology. Their product uses the power of the wind to provide maritime transport with a solution to decrease emission levels and fuel consumption.

He explains that the combustibles of the boats are extremely dangerous for the environment, as well as dirty and of very low quality. Bound4Blue’s products could be applicable to 80% of the world’s fleet, representing more than 50.000 boats. Their technology is adaptable to existing boats and can be implemented to the design of new ones. The concept is not new, as the wind has been used since the beginning of ages; all Bound4Blue as done is to industrialize and transform it into promising technology.

José explains that fuel can represent over 50% of the costs of a trip and a solution like Bound4Blue’s can represent a big boost in the margins. José also explains how they design, install (with the actual production outsourced) and maintain the installations. Therefore they can have a margin on the setup of the sails and on the recurring revenue they can charge to their clients

José underlines that the maritime sector is very conservative and that the real challenge is to prove the positive impact their product would have on the industry and the environment. He mentions that some other well-known companies are working on the development of technologies in this sector; such as Airbus, working on the development of technological kites to pull boats.

To finish the discussion, José concludes that maritime transport is viable and that it’s all about modernizing it and giving it time to adapt to technology. In the future, he sees Bound4Blue the leader of this technology type.

April Startup News & Updates

• Find out about the 60+ investors you’ll meet at this year’s EU-Startups Summit in Barcelona!
• How the crisis damaged the Spanish upward mobility?
• Spain is attracting plenty of UK’s investors but very few companies
• Gibraltar is satisfied with the tax treaty post Brexit that could remove it from Spain’s blacklist
• Spain’s minimum wage just jumped. What does it mean?
• You can now access Glovo in more than 100 cities worldwide
• The Battle for the Legalization of Cannabis: an Industry that could soon be worth €50 Billion.
• Nadia Calvino commented that the rise of minimum wages will not impact job creation
• Madrid is hustling to compete with the other European Startup Hubs
• Startup Laws: the A to Z by Techcrunch
• From Startup to Unicorn, How Meero is on its way achievement
• The 5 International Events that will help you get funding for your ideas!
• Meet the 10 fastest growing companies in Europe
• Europe’s New Copyright Law that could spook many Startups
• Who made it on the list of the 1st Global Gastronomy Startup competition?
• Samsung Electronics sees the lowest quarterly profit in more than two years
•  Making Startup’s Stock Options  Better Deals for your Employees

New Funding for Startups

Local 

• Barcelona’s based Biotech Startup SOM has raised 7€ Million Euros
• Streamloots Valentia Based startup raised 800k from Samaipata
• Semaipata is preparing a European VC fund of 100€ Million
• Red Point raised €33.8 Million in Funding

Motors

• The Chinese rival of Tesla Xpeng looks for at least 444.73€ million funding and may try a US IPO
• Cooltra is aiming to raise 50€ Million in Debt to increase sales

Fintech

• Airwallex raises 88.95€ M in Series C Funding
• The Amsterdam based online based pension bank  Brand New Day raises 25€ million from existing investors
•  Matador Raises 8.01€M in Seed Financing
• Dutch startup Go Lemon is raising €700k for its Apple subscription service

Health

• Tioga Medical closed Series A with €13 Million
• Osimis Belgian Startup raised €2.3 Million for its collaborative medical imagining software
• Inanovate secured €2.7 Million during Serie C Funding

Other

• How Rewire Raises 10.67€M in Series A Funding
• Elicio Therapeutics Raises 26.68€M in Financing
• The German AI startup Teraki raises €2 million and launches DevCenter for customers
• Nashville based TN-based Music Creation startup Artiphon Raises 1.78€ Million in Seed Funding
• DFW Capital Partners closed Fifth round at €320M
• Segment raised $175M in Series D Funding
• Kurly Raised €78.3M in Series D Funding
• Nauta Capital launches a new €55M fund to invest in later stage portfolio companies
• Nauta Capital Launched €55M Sidecar Fund 
• Rippling raised €40M in Serie A Funding 
• Tonal Raises €40M in Series C Funding
• Deepwatch raised $23M in Series A Funding
• Inscripta raised €17.8M in Series C funding
• Hometalk raised €13.3M in funding
• OpenGamma Raised €8.9M in Funding
• Amsterdam-based Close raises €3 million for its event engagement app
• Rollbox, Spanish payroll startup acquired by Personio
• Madrid-based startup Movo closed a €20 million Series A funding round
• Personal Finance startup Fintonic raised €19M 
• Madrid-based car-sharing startup Eccocar raised €495k
• LumApps raised €24M in Series B Funding
• Mintos marketplace reaches €2B in loans and launches an initiative to protect the Baltic Sea
• Clicpiso has raised €8M in venture debt from Grupo LaFinca
• Cobee raised €375k from Encomenda Smart Capital, Banc Sabadell, Lanai Partners and Abac Nest
• Beringea raised €73M across two funds
• Cytora Secured €28M in Series B Funding
• Salary Finance raised €28M in Series C Funding
• Bankin’ raises €20 million Series B
• Zencargo raised €18M in Series A funding
• Weengs, a logistics startup for e-commerce, raised €7.5M
• Porto-based startup SWORD Health raises €7M to scale in the US
• Skoove raised €3M in Funding
• Credit Kudos raised €2.5M in funding
• Howamigoing raised €1M in seed funding

Random Tech News

• Laptops to Stay in Bags as TSA Brings New Technology to Airports.
• Is remote work the future?
• Apple’s AirPower wireless charger is cancelled.
• Everything Apple announced in last week’s event and how their card works.
• McDonald’s wants to use machine learning to serve fast food.
• Article 13 will wreck the internet because Swedish MEPs accidentally pushed the wrong voting button.
• Streaming become live and bidirectional.
• An all “A” url lengthener.
• 200 key players making Barcelona one of the most important innovation hubs in Europe.
• Bitcoin surges, hitting $5,000 for the first time this year.
• Tesla Model 3 = 60% Of US Electric Vehicle Market.
• Prince Harry and Meghan took my Instagram name.
• How the Tech Giants Make Their Billions.
• How Japan’s new imperial era broke the internet in a very tiny way.
• Justice Department warns Academy over potentially excluding Netflix.
• Netflix confirms it killed AirPlay support.
• Why so many people type ‘lol’ with a straight face.
• TikTok’s next ambitious goal is to discover future music stars.
• Amazon will launch thousands of satellites to provide internet around the world.
• Google patches ads into Android TV home screens without warning.
• Linus Torvalds, says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are ‘a disease’.
• Bitcoin mining ban considered by China’s economic planner.
• 40 years of console wars, spellbindingly charted for your viewing pleasure.
• Why airlines make flights longer on purpose.
• The creation of the algorithm that made the first black hole image possible was led by MIT grad student Katie Bouman.
• Coinbase launches crypto Visa debit card in the UK, rest of Europe coming soon
• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos challenges rival retailers to raise their minimum wages, too.
• Tinder becomes the top-grossing, non-game app in Q1 2019, ending Netflix’s reign.
• Scott Kelly Spent a Year in Orbit. His Body Is Not Quite the Same.
• YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content.
• Google’s remote work employee survey.
• Here’s who will die on ‘Game of Thrones’ according to AI.
• Data tells us that investors love a good story.
• Spy on your smart home with this open source research tool.
• Use Deep Learning to Automatically Colorize Black and White Photos.
• Cars dominate cities today. Barcelona has set out to change that.
• New Wikileaks File Dump.
• We might be regulating the web, too fast!
• The Biggest Bias in Tech no one talks about!
• The Pull Back from World’s records high in VC
• 360Learning raised €36.5M SeriesB
• Pinterest prices IPO at $19 per share, valuation tops 10B. 
• Uber raised $1B for its self driving unit
• 27 European startups that reached the unicorn status.
• Salesforce is buying MapAnything a startup that raised $84M.
• Qualcomm and Apple agree to drop all litigation.
• India asks Google and Apple to ban TikTok — because ‘porn’.
• Researchers report high performance solid-state sodium-ion battery.
• 3 Awesome Visualization Techniques for every dataset.
• Pixel takes way better Aurora photos than iPhone X.
• Why Alan Turing Wanted AI Agents to Make Mistakes.
• Facebook now says its password leak affected ‘millions’ of Instagram users.
• The drones and robots that helped save Notre Dame.
• Sony shares some details about the PlayStation 5.
• The Game Boy turns 30.

Those are the April 2019 startups news!

At Itnig, we write a weekly newsletter where we keep our community updated on everything related to startups, tech news, fundings, and we share our weekly podcast!
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