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Cover Genius tops FT ranking with insurtech platform

The Australian company was borne out of an online travel business that had a problem to solve




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Australia’s biggest pension fund says investors will withdraw billions

Executive points to ‘heaps of liquidity’ as members get access to cash due to coronavirus




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Imperial foxtrot: my brush with Japanese royalty

Jurek Martin recalls unlikely encounters with an ancient dynasty, from dance floor to tennis court




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Construction confusion as UK working instructions published then withdrawn

Mixed messages follow industry protests over 2-metre distance ruling




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Brexit solved with the sword of Damocles

The UK is being belligerent, the EU inflexible. But a deal can be done this year




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Investors make big bets on silver closing giant gap with gold

For some analysts the industrial metal looks cheap, even given the Covid-19 slowdown




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How are you coping without your cleaner?

James Max, the FT columnist, takes questions from readers about the misery of household chores




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London market passes first post-Brexit test with £1.3bn listing

Smart meter group’s IPO boosts hopes of fundraising uptick after lacklustre 2019




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Vale ex-CEO charged with homicide over dam disaster

Brazilian prosecutors also accuse miner and safety group of environmental crimes




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Vale launches New York front in bitter battle with Beny Steinmetz

Brazilian group alleges tycoon’s family-controlled mining arm fraudulently funnelled $500m into Manhattan real estate




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Retired customers find it harder to break up with their bank  

Finding a good credit card deal when you’re older is more difficult




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Penalties slashed on Lifetime Isa withdrawals

Treasury reduces charge for removing cash from tax-free accounts for under-40s




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As Europe slowly unlocks, e-scooter startups, like Helbiz, are wooing with offers

At the start of the year, it looked like Europe would be in for a “Summer E-Scooters / E-Bike War,” as both regional startups and U.S.-backed unicorns vied for the pockets of city commuters. Consolidation came when German startup Circ was taken over by U.S. competitor Bird at the start of the year. Still on […]




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Runa Capital closes Fund III at $157M, with an added focus on quantum computing

VC fund Runa Capital was launched with $135 million in 2010, and is perhaps best known for its investment into NGINX, which powers many web sites today. In more recent years it has participated or led investments into startups such as Zipdrug ($10.8 million); Rollbar this year ($11 million); and Monedo (for €20 million). HQ’d […]




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US stock market rally confuses liquidity with solvency

Many zombie companies will fail, no matter how much is sprayed around by the Fed




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Public trust in CEOs ‘evaporates’; building back better with UK social housing; EM green bonds take off

Your guide to the investment and business revolution you can’t afford to ignore




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Discover is Facebook’s new effort to help people access websites for free — but with limits

Facebook has a new connectivity app called Discover to help those who can’t afford to get online access information on the web. The service, available through mobile web and Android app, allows users to visit any website in text format (no video, images, audio and other elements that eat up large amounts of data) and […]




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Facebook’s redesign goes live with simplified navigation and dark mode

After months of testing, Facebook’s redesign is finally official. Announced last year at F8, the more minimalist approach to its desktop design has been rolled out in waves. In March, the company added an option to try out the new version. Users could switch back and leave feedback for why they had done so. This […]




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Factorial raises $16M to take on the HR world with a platform for SMBs

A startup that’s hoping to be a contender in the very large and fragmented market of human resources software has captured the eye of a big investor out of the US and become its first investment in Spain. Barcelona-based Factorial, which is building an all-in-one HR automation platform aimed at small and medium businesses that manages […]




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Spotify Q1 beats on sales of $2B with monthly active users up 31% to 286M

The coronavirus may be decimating some corners of the economy, but the impact on the digital music, as evidenced by the world’s biggest music streaming company, appears to be minimal. Today Spotify reported its earnings for Q1 with revenues of €1.848 billion ($2 billion at today’s rates) and an inching into a positive net income […]




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China’s Kingsoft Cloud tests US market with biggest IPO in months

First New York listing by a Chinese company since Luckin Coffee debacle




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Pluto TV expands with addition of CBS Sports HQ, new deals with TiVo and Verizon

Free streaming service Pluto TV is expanding. The company has today gained access to streaming sports network CBS Sports HQ as a result of the ViacomCBS merger. It has also forged new distribution deals with Verizon and TiVo, both of which were detailed this week. The free streamer had been acquired by Viacom for $340 […]




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TiVo enters the streaming market with a $50 Android TV-powered device, TiVo Stream 4K

TiVo today is launching a new device, its would-be Fire TV Stick competitor known as the TiVo Stream 4K. First announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, this $50 Android TV-powered HDMI dongle is TiVo’s attempt to insert itself into the streaming media device market. The new dongle arrives at a time when TiVo […]




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Will Covid-19 repatriation leave us with a large tax bill?

We are returning to the UK from the US following the virus outbreak




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Autotech Ventures raises more than $150 million with an eye on ground transportation startups

Autotech Ventures popped on the scene three years ago with a $120 million debut fund and a plan to invest in early-stage ground transportation startups. Now, with investments in 26 startups and a handful of exits, including Xnor.ai, DeepScale and Frontier Car Group, the venture firm is back with a new, bigger fund and the […]




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Smartwatch shipments grew during the first quarter of 2020, with Apple Watch still in first place

Despite the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, global smartwatch shipments continued to grow during the first three months of the year, driven by online sales, says a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics. Shipments grew 20% annually to reach 13.7 million units in the first quarter of 2020, up from 11.4 million units […]




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Adobe celebrates Photoshop’s 30th anniversary with new desktop and mobile features

Adobe’s Photoshop celebrates its 30th birthday today. Over that time, the app has pretty much become synonymous with photo editing and there will surely be plenty of retrospectives. But to look ahead, Adobe also today announced a number of updates to both the desktop and mobile Photoshop experiences. The marquee feature here is probably the […]




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iPads become more laptop-like with the arrival of full mouse and trackpad support

Apple just dumped a bunch of hardware news online via press release. That’s just the world we live in right now. We’ll probably be seeing a whole lot of this in the coming weeks and months, as companies adjust to the new online reality. Along with a new MacBook Air and update to the Mac […]




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Review: 100,000 miles and one week with an iPad Pro

For the past eighteen months, the iPad Pro has been my only machine away from home, and until recently, I was away from home a lot, traveling domestically and internationally to event locations around the world or our offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Every moment of every day that I wasn’t at […]




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Apple said to be planning fall iPhone refresh with iPad Pro-like design

Apple is readying a new iPhone for fall to replace the iPhone 11 Pro this fall, Bloomberg reports, as well as follow-ups to the iPhone 11, a new smaller HomePod and a locator tag accessory. The top-end iPhone 11 Pro successors at least will have a new industrial design that more closely resembles the iPad […]




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With the coronavirus, usually distinct conspiracy groups turn to a shared interest

The coronavirus pandemic’s global presence and ubiquity in everyday life is a perfect storm for misinformation, as conspiracy theorists from different corners of the web converge on a shared news topic—the only topic, at the moment. From the earliest days of the crisis, everyone from pro-Trump QAnon conspiracists to left-leaning purveyors of dubious home remedies […]




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UK Budget sides with small businesses, with a caveat

The chancellor need beware that policies introduced in a crisis are hard to end later




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Confluent lands another big round with $250M Series E on $4.5B valuation

The pandemic may feel all-encompassing at the moment, but Confluent announced a $250 million Series E today, showing that major investment continues in spite of the dire economic situation at the moment. The company is now valued at $4.5 billion. Today’s round follows last year’s $125 million Series D. At that point the company was […]




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Nvidia’s top scientist develops open-source ventilator that can be built with $400 in readily available parts

Nvidia Chief Scientist Bill Dally has released an open-source ventilator hardware design he developed in order to address the shortage resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic. The mechanical ventilator design developed by Dally can be assembled quickly, using off-the-shelf parts with a total cost of around $400 — making it an accessible and affordable alternative […]




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Smartwatch shipments grew during the first quarter of 2020, with Apple Watch still in first place

Despite the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, global smartwatch shipments continued to grow during the first three months of the year, driven by online sales, says a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics. Shipments grew 20% annually to reach 13.7 million units in the first quarter of 2020, up from 11.4 million units […]




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Apple introduces new $399 iPhone SE with Touch ID and 4.7″ screen

Apple has dropped a new iPhone SE on the market today. It’s a 4.7” iPhone with a physical home button, Touch ID, a single rear-facing camera and the A13 Bionic chip on board. With a $399 starting price point, the new SE is aimed squarely at new iPhone users or first-time smartphone buyers, but could […]




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Discover is Facebook’s new effort to help people access websites for free — but with limits

Facebook has a new connectivity app called Discover to help those who can’t afford to get online access information on the web. The service, available through mobile web and Android app, allows users to visit any website in text format (no video, images, audio and other elements that eat up large amounts of data) and […]




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Google’s Duo video chat app gets a family mode with doodles and masks

Google today launched an update to its Duo video chat app (which you definitely shouldn’t confuse with Hangouts or Google Meet, Google’s other video, audio and text chat apps). There are plenty of jokes to be made about Google’s plethora of chat options, but Duo is trying to be a bit different from Hangouts and […]




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Run on toilets leaves Japanese lavatory makers flush with orders

Producers overwhelmed as supply chain disruption fuels fears of shortages




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Saudi Arabia shows Asia focus with renewed oil price discounts

Kingdom offers crude to US at a premium but shows reluctance to lose Asian market share




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Franklin Templeton tussles with India regulator after freezing funds

US asset manager apologises following comments by company’s president over debt rules




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GitHub gets a built-in IDE with Codespaces, discussion forums and more

Under different circumstances, GitHub would be hosting its Satellite conference in Paris this week. Like so many other events, GitHub decided to switch Satellite to a virtual event, but that isn’t stopping the Microsoft-owned company from announcing quite a bit of news this week. The highlight of GitHub’s announcement is surely the launch of GitHub […]




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Elder Care Startup Honor Makes Contractors Full-Time Workers With Equity

Honor, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed company focused on caring for seniors as Baby Boomers tip over into retirement, is making its contractor workforce into a full-time one. The care workers, called CarePros within the company, will have the potential for stock options. “I really don’t want two classes of people in our company. Everyone is in it […]




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With voter verification, Brigade becomes a more legitimate platform for political debate

Kim-Mai Cutler Contributor Kim-Mai Cutler is an operating partner for Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture firm and was previously a journalist covering technology, finance and policy issues at TechCrunch -- best-known for her long-form work on the Bay Area. More posts by this contributor The outlook for Bay Area startup space in 2017 OpenVote launches […]




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How to lose the technology race with China

Donald Trump’s all-guns-blazing approach is a sure way to a lose-lose break with Beijing




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Acast partners with JioSaavn, one of India’s largest streaming audio services

Acast, a podcast monetization and distribution platform, announced a new partnership with JioSaavn, one of the largest streaming audio services in India. The agreement mean JioSaavn will distribute content from Acast and have access to its technology for podcasters. JioSaavn, which claims 104 million monthly active users, is the second-largest streaming audio service in India […]




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Biloba lets you chat with a doctor if you have questions about your children

Meet Biloba, a French startup that wants to leverage tech to make it easier to keep your children healthy. The company recently launched a new mobile app that lets you chat with a doctor whenever you want between 8 AM and 8 PM. This way, if you have questions about your kids, you can get […]




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Streaming service Hooq shuts down, ends partnerships with Disney’s Hotstar, Grab and others

Hooq, a five-year-old on-demand video streaming service that aimed to become “Netflix for Southeast Asia,” has shut down weeks after filing for liquidation and terminated its partnerships with Disney’s Hotstar, ride-hailing giant Grab, and Indonesia’s VideoMax. Hooq Digital, a joint venture among Singapore telecom group Singtel (majority owner), Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros Entertainment, discontinued […]




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Data dashboard startup Count raises $2.4M from LocalGlobe, with Global Founders Capital

Early-stage companies often have trouble dealing with the amount of data that can run through the organization, especially as it grows. Large sums are spent on data software, dislocated data, dealing with data pipelines. All of which involve data warehousing, cleaning tools and a visualization platform. Count is a startup that is an attempt to […]




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Relive the heady days of crypto with the ‘Crypto Rush’ documentary

When Liliana Pertenava decided to go all-in on crypto by investing $2,000 in a mining rig in 2017, she went so far down the crypto rabbit-hole she decided to make a documentary about it. If you’re locked-down and looking for something to watch, you could do worse than sit down and watch “Crypto Rush,” which […]