🦠 Hackers Turn to Covid
What’s happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍 Twitter gets hacked, Monzo shoots for revenue and Europe gets its first decacorn.
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The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
11 tech & startup stories in 131 seconds.
🤓Twitter Got Hacked! In a highly coordinated hack, Twitter accounts from Elon Musk, Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos and a handful of other VIPs were hacked! Each account tweeted asking for Bitcoin donations, promising to double all donations made. Read more here.
🤫Remember YikYak? The anonymous messaging app shut down in 2017 shortly after it was valued at $400m. Take a peak at this great video that details its fall from grace.
💳 Monzo Plus! The UK challenger bank has launched Monzo Plus, a premium account costing £5 per month. Worth the cash? Users will receive ‘virtual’ debit cards, custom transaction categorisations, free credit scoring and third party bank account aggregation. Find out more, and see the new pictures of the new Monzo Plus card here.
🔒Password Please! ‘Logging in’ is big business. Don’t believe us? Auth0, the platform that offers a suite of authentication and login features, has raised $120m at a $1.9bn valuation. Find out more here.
Covid-War 💉 Several Western countries have accused Russian hackers of attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine research. Two groups known as ‘APT29’ and ‘Cozy Bear’ have been singled out. This shows not only the beginning of a global competition to find the vaccine but also an increased willingness to publicly accuse foreign powers of cyberattacks.
💰 Steal From The Rich! Robinhood, the Silicon Valley based investing app, has raised $320m at an $8.6bn valuation. Get the detail here.
Google 2.0? 🔎Former head of Google’s $115bn advertising arm, Sridhar Ramaswamy, has launched a new search engine called Neeva. He believes ads results in a sub-par experience with sponsored ads pushed to the top. The main difference? Neeva won’t show ads or collect/profit from user data but instead, it’ll charge a subscription fee to users.
🦅 InstaTok? Instagram has confirmed it’ll launch Reels, a feature to compete with TikTok, in early August in the US. Its clear that the vultures are beginning to circle TikTok, with Snapchat and Youtube also working on similar test features. Get the full scoop here.
🤖 Mythical Decacorn This week, Romanian founded startup, UI Path raised $225m at a $10.2bn valuation, making it the first European startup to be valued at $10bn+. They provide ‘Robotic Process Automation’ (RPA) to allow businesses to automate processes. Founded in 2005, they’ve now gained 7000 customers and raised a total of $1.2bn. IPO coming soon.
No Slacking In this unique interview, the founder of Slack, explains how the business grew from $0 to $1bn in revenue 💸 It’s worth reading.
Mirror Mirror on the Wall 🎽 Active-wear company, Lululemon, has purchased home exercise company Mirror for $500m. Seen as a competitor to the increasingly popular Peloton, it reflects a bet on the post-covid world of exercise.
A Positive Spin
We don’t need to tell you about what’s going on in the world this week; but we do want to highlight companies, startups and technology that’s being used to positive effect people and movements across the globe today.
💰Techcrunch has put together a curated list of 400 investors who are committed to being a startups’ first investor - one of the hardest things to find for any founder.
Bonus: The US and China have competed in many ways, including startups. Check out this list of how both countries have mirrored each other when it comes to tech 🇨🇳🇺🇸
Why need a favour! 🙏🙏🙏
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