Frederic Lardinois
TechCrunch
Portland, OR, United States
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Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
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Recent articles by Frederic:
Amazon details its low-bandwidth Sidewalk neighborhood network, coming to Echo and Tile devices soon –
Last year, Amazon announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol it developed to help connect smart devices inside and — maybe even more importantly — outside of your home. Sidewalk, which is somewhat akin to a mesh network that, with the right amount of access points, could easily cover a whole neighborhood, […] → Read More
Language learning service Babbel says it has now sold over 10M subscriptions –
Babbel, the popular Berlin-based online language learning service, today announced that it has now sold a total of 10 million subscriptions to its service. For a language learning service, that’s quite a substantial number, especially given that Babbel doesn’t really offer a free tier. In part, the company’s march to 10 million subscriptions was accelerated […] → Read More
Cloudflare’s Michelle Zatlyn on getting funding for crazy ideas –
It’s not easy getting funding for any startup, but when Cloudflare launched at one of our early events ten years ago, most investors sure thought its idea was a bit out there. Today, Cloudflare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn joined us at our virtual Disrupt event to talk with our enterprise reporter Ron Miller about those early […] → Read More
Mozilla shutters Firefox Send and Notes –
Mozilla today announced that it will shutter two products: Firefox Send, the free file transfer service it already put on hiatus in July, and Firefox Notes, its note-taking extension and mobile app. Firefox Send launched in March 2019. At the time, Mozilla described it as a file-sharing tool with a focus on privacy. That privacy […] → Read More
ServiceNow updates its workflow automation platform –
ServiceNow today announced the latest release of its workflow automation platform. With this, the company is emphasizing a number of new solutions for specific verticals, including for telcos and financial services organizations. This focus on verticals extends the company’s previous efforts to branch out beyond the core IT management capabilities that defined its business during […] → Read More
Atlassian launches a $50M venture fund to invest in its ecosystem –
Atlassian today announced the launch of Atlassian Ventures, a new $50 million fund that will invest into startups — and even more established companies — that are building products in the overall Atlassian ecosystem. “As more and more customers transition to our cloud products, we are committed to supporting their journey by fostering a robust […] → Read More
Pure Storage acquires data service platform Portworx for $370M –
Pure Storage, the public enterprise data storage company, today announced that it has acquired Portworx, a well-funded startup that provides a cloud-native storage and data-management platform based on Kubernetes, for $370 million in cash. This marks Pure Storage’s largest acquisition to date and shows how important this market for multi-cloud data services has become. Current […] → Read More
Latent AI makes edge AI workloads more efficient –
Latent AI, a startup that was spun out of SRI International, makes it easier to run AI workloads at the edge by dynamically managing workloads as necessary. Using its proprietary compression and compilation process, Latent AI promises to compress library files by 10x and run them with 5x lower latency than other systems, all while […] → Read More
Google launches new AI-powered meeting room hardware –
Google today announced the Google Meet Series One, a new video conferencing hardware suite for meeting rooms. Built in collaboration with Lenovo, the Series One uses high-end cameras and microphones and then marries them with Google’s AI smarts thanks to using Google’s own Coral M.2 accelerator modules with the company’s Edge TPUs. Previous Google Meet […] → Read More
ZenHub’s new automation tools improve developer hand-offs in GitHub –
ZenHub, the popular project management solution for GitHub users, today announced the launch of its new features for automating hand-offs between teams. The idea behind Automated Workflows, as it is called, is to remove some of the manual busywork of updating multiple boards across teams when a new patch is ready to go to testing, […] → Read More
Data virtualization service Varada raises $12M –
Varada, a Tel Aviv-based startup that focuses on making it easier for businesses to query data across services, today announced that it has raised a $12 million Series A round led by Israeli early-stage fund MizMaa Ventures, with participation by Gefen Capital. “If you look at the storage aspect for big data, there’s always innovation, […] → Read More
IBM publishes its quantum roadmap, says it will have a 1,000-qubit machine in 2023 –
IBM today, for the first time, published its road map for the future of its quantum computing hardware. There is a lot to digest here, but the most important news in the short term is that the company believes it is on its way to building a quantum processor with more than 1,000 qubits — […] → Read More
Courier raises $10.1M Series A to help developers integrate multi-channel notifications –
Courier is an API platform with a no-code twist that helps developers add multi-channel user notifications to their applications. The company today announced that it has raised a $10.1 million Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Matrix Partners, Twilio and Slack Fund also participated in this round. Previously, the company raised a […] → Read More
Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features –
The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation. Thrive Capital led the round, with additional funding by existing investors Benchmark, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital and CRV, as well as new investor D1 Capital. With this, […] → Read More
Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features –
The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation. Thrive Capital led the round, with additional funding by existing investors Benchmark, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital and CRV, as well as new investor D1 Capital. With this, […] → Read More
Unity launches its Cloud Content Delivery service for game developers –
Unity, the company behind the popular real-time 3D engine, today officially launched its Cloud Content Delivery service. This new service, which is engine-agnostic, combines a content delivery network and backend-as-a-service platform to help developers distribute and update their games. The idea here is to offer Unity developers — and those using other game engines — […] → Read More
Dgraph launches Slash GraphQL, a GraphQL-native database Backend-as-a-Service –
Dgraph Labs, the startup behind the popular eponymous graph database, today announced the launch of its Slash GraphQL service. Slash GraphQL is a fully managed GraphQL backend service that is, of course, powered by Dgraph. As Manish Jain, Dgraph’s CEO and founder (and one of the engineers behind Google’s massive graph database infrastructure), told me, […] → Read More
Q-CTRL and Quantum Machines team up to accelerate quantum computing –
Q-CTRL and Quantum Machines, two of the better-known startups in the quantum control ecosystem, today announced a new partnership that will see Quantum Machines integrate Q-CTRL‘s quantum firmware into Quantum Machines’ Quantum Orchestration hardware and software solution. Building quantum computers takes so much specialized knowledge that it’s no surprise that we are now seeing some […] → Read More
Android 11 has arrived –
Google today announced the launch of Android 11, the latest version of its mobile operating system. After a slightly longer public preview, users who own a select number of Pixel devices (starting with the Pixel 2), OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO or realme phones will now see the update roll out to their phones in the coming […] → Read More
PopSQL raises $3.4M seed round for its collaborative SQL editor –
PopSQL, a startup that builds a collaborative SQL editor for teams, today announced that it has raised a $3.4 million seed round led by Google’s AI-focused Gradient Ventures fund. Other participants include Y Combinator and FundersClub, as well as angel investors Max Mullen, the co-founder of Instacart; Calvin French-Owen, the CTO of Segment; and Guillermo […] → Read More