Savvy Games Group has agreed to acquire mobile game publisher and developer Scopely for $4.9 billion. The deal is the latest sign of consolidation in gaming — and mobile gaming in particular — and it further cements the push by Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group to expand in the game industry. Read more here.
It’s no secret that the country that’s most responsible for ransomware attacks is Russia. The threat of ransomware attacks on U.S. businesses and critical infrastructure recently took an ominous turn when a prominent Russian ransomware group named Conti — threatened to attack any nation or organization retaliating against Moscow for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Now, a groundbreaking new report titled Ransomware: A Technology Pandemic on the Brink, from New …
“We are facing a technology pandemic on the brink,” according to a new report from blockchain analytics firm Elementus, which relates that ransomware gangs made over $1 billion in 2021, far higher than earlier estimates. Max Galka, Elementus’ CEO, said most ransomware attacks are now perpetrated by a few large groups based in Russia and other former Soviet republics, which Elementus warns are “becoming more agile, dangerous, and defiant every year.” …
LinkedIn has 810 million users, yet a study found that 34% of the information on its site was fake. Eric Ly, a cofounder of KarmaCheck, wants to solve this with faster background checks. It raised $15 million in its Series A, led by Velvet Sea Ventures, and is now valued at $90 million. LinkedIn, a social network for professionals, has been successful at getting people to share their professional and educational history. But …
Mike Lazerow, who sold his last startup to Salesforce for $700 million, is now investing heavily in NFT startups. Here’s why he says the tech will change every industry. Mike Lazerow may be well known in the tech industry as the founder of the adtech startup Buddy Media, which sold to Salesforce for $700 million in 2012, and for his long string of successful angel investments, from BuzzFeed to Scopely. But …
The startup tells TechCrunch it has closed a $170 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins with participation from Katie Haun’s new fund and Lightspeed partner Nicole Quinn. This comes on the heels of a Series A round co-led by 01A and Velvet Sea Ventures that closed this past July. The raise adds three new members to the board, including Haun, a16z’s Arianna Simpson and Kleiner …
Outer space is increasingly crowded with both satellites and debris. When they collide, it can cause catastrophic damage to millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. California-based LeoLabs is creating radars to track satellites, space junk, and other objects in space for government agencies and other businesses. The company is an excellent example of how private industry has disrupted areas previously occupied by the government, said Anderson. Read more.
LeoLabs is pleased to announce that we will provide our Launch and Early Orbit tracking service to SpaceX’s customers as part of their SmallSat Rideshare Program. Drawing on the success of providing this service to satellite operators on the Transporter-1 mission, LeoLabs will provide this support to users for the next six Transporter missions plus multiple smaller rideshares. Read more here.
After three years of building and proving this new market, SuperRare’s thrilled to announce their $9 million Series A financing round from top-tier investors. The round was led by Velvet Sea Ventures and 1confirmation with participation from Version1, Collaborative Fund, Shrug Capital, Third Kind, The LAO, SamsungNext, BlockTower, AndArt Agency, Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, Qinwen Wang, Andrew Stienwold, Scott Belsky, Mark Cuban, Marc Benioff, Naval Ravikant, and …
The pandemic upended the way people shop for their everyday needs, including groceries. Online grocery sales in the U.S. are expected to reach 21.5% of the total grocery sales by 2025, after leaping from 3.4% pre-pandemic to 10.2% as of 2020. One business riding this wave is Mercato, an online grocery platform that helps smaller grocers and specialty food stores get online quickly. After helping grow its merchant sales by 1,300% in 2020, …
