Month: May 2020

Student loans are both a trillion-dollar debt category and also one of the most popular mini-verticals out there in fintech startup investing right now. There are dozens if not hundreds of companies in the space, and they all mostly do one of two things: either they help students think through their student loan options before choosing one … Continue reading LeverEdge wants to get you and your friends a volume discount on student loans Continue Reading →

Google  is rolling out a series of updates aimed at helping local businesses adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to serve their customers across Google Maps and Search. Since the outbreak, Google has made it possible for businesses to communicate to customers things like their revised operating hours or temporary closures, among other things. Now, … Continue reading Google expands tools to help businesses impacted by COVID-19 Continue Reading →

Newly released documents show U.S. immigration authorities have used a secretive cell phone snooping technology hundreds of times across the U.S. in the past three years. The documents, obtained through a public records lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and seen by TechCrunch, show that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployed cell site simulators — … Continue reading ICE used ‘stingray’ cell phone snooping tech hundreds of times since 2017 Continue Reading →

Kentik, the company once known as CloudHelix, today announced that it has raised a $23.5 million growth funding round led by Vistara Capital Partners, with existing investors August Capital, Third Point Ventures, DCVC and Tahoma Ventures also participating. With this round, Kentik  has now raised a total of $61.7 million. The company’s platform allows enterprises to monitor … Continue reading Kentik raises $23.5M for its network intelligence platform Continue Reading →

Companies spend inordinate amounts of time and money building data warehouses and moving data from enterprise applications. But once they get the data in, how do they get specific information like product data back out and distribute it to business operations, which can use it to better understand customers? That’s where Census comes in. It builds a … Continue reading Census raises $4.3M seed to put product info in cloud data warehouses to work Continue Reading →

Toro’s founders started at Uber helping monitor the data quality in the company’s vast data catalogs, and they wanted to put that experience to work for a more general audience. Today, the company announced a $4 million seed round. The round was co-led by Costanoa Ventures  and Point72 Ventures, with help from a number of individual investors. Company … Continue reading Toro snags $4M seed investment to monitor data quality Continue Reading →

Massachusetts-based smart home company Savant Systems this morning announced a deal to acquire GE Lighting. The division has existed as part of General Electric since 1911, with its origins reaching back even further to Thomas Edison’s work in the space. Today’s GE Lighting portfolio still largely revolves around bulbs, with some push into more modern corners of … Continue reading Smart home company Savant set to acquire GE Lighting Continue Reading →