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Panorays, which offers an automated cybersecurity lifecycle management platform, raises $15M Series A led by Oak HC/FT
Kustomer, an omnichannel CRM platform for enterprise customer service, raises $60M Series E led by Coatue, bringing its total raised to ~$173M
Expedia CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill are stepping down, with day-to-day work taken up by Chairman Barry Diller, after a disagreement over strategy
SEC filing: Sequoia Capital has raised nearly $1B for later-stage US investments and ~$2.4B for venture and growth deals in China
Language learning app Duolingo raises $30M Series F from Alphabet's CapitalG at a $1.5B valuation, more than double the valuation from its 2017 Series E
Sources: Facebook's NPE team is exploring the creation of apps for podcasts, travel, workplace services, and newsletters, although these may never be released
Flow, which helps companies build a cross-border e-commerce business, raises $37M Series B led by New Enterprise Associates
Google says Focus mode, a Digital Wellbeing feature for Android that mutes notifications, is rolling out to Android 9 and 10 users
Nintendo says it has partnered with Tencent to sell the Switch in China, starting on December 10 for ~$300
Instagram says it will now require birthdates from new users, in order to improve safety features for minors and better target ads for age-restricted products
reuters.com · 6 days ago
Huawei's reputation in China, once unimpeachable, has been dented by a labor dispute over severance pay with an employee, who was recently freed from jail
Interviews show how the Census Bureau's decision to outsource the tech behind the 2020 census has led to costly problems and made it vulnerable to hacking
A further 21 women are suing Lyft, alleging they were raped or sexually assaulted by drivers, following 14 women who filed a similar complaint in September
YouTube claims users spend 70% less time on "borderline" content, like conspiracies, since it tweaked recommendations in January but fails to offer more details
Highspot, makers of an AI-powered platform to optimize sales, raises $75M Series D extension, bringing Series D total to $135M and total raised to ~$200M
OneConnect, a tech-as-a-service platform for financial SMBs, launches US IPO of up to $504M in a down round, after raising $650M last year from SoftBank and SBI
Firefox 71 arrives with Picture-in-Picture support on Windows for all video sites, Enhanced Tracking Protection and Lockwise password manager improvements, more
Mozilla removes four Firefox extensions made by Avast and AVG after reports that they were harvesting user data and browsing histories
Xiaomi launches Mi Credit in India, a digital lending platform that offers users credit between ~$70 and ~$1,400, in partnership with ZestMoney, others
Postmates shuts Mexico City office laying off employees; sources say at least several dozen have been laid off including people across its offices in the US
Amazon unveils Local Zones, small data centers far from main AWS regions, general availability of Outposts, and a Verizon partnership for low latency 5G gear
Larry Page steps down as Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai to lead both Alphabet and Google
Salesforce reports Q3 revenue of $4.5B, up 33% YoY and a net loss of $109M, beating analyst estimates, but issues disappointing Q4 guidance
Mexico-based Konfio, a financial services platform which provides unsecured working capital to SMBs, raises $100M led by SoftBank
Leadership change at Alphabet is unlikely to mean much to Google employees or users, since Larry Page has not been focused on Alphabet's core business for years
Bitfinex says it will support deposits and withdrawals on the Lightning Network beginning December 3, one of the first major exchanges to do so
Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 865, a new flagship processor that lacks integrated 5G, and unveils a less powerful Snapdragon 765 processor with integrated 5G
Researchers: flaw in fully patched Android devices lets malware spoof legit apps, like banking ones, to steal info; 36 apps on Play, now removed, exploited it
Amazon debuts AI-powered Fraud Detector to find anomalies in transactions, an enterprise search tool, and CodeGuru to spot computationally expensive code
venturebeat.com · 6 days ago