Flying taxi startup Blade is helping Silicon Valley CEOs bypass traffic

Blade, backed by Lerer Hippeau and Airbus, has begun chauffering the Bay Area’s elite.

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Grab launches SME loans and micro-insurance in Southeast Asia

In its latest move beyond ride-hailing, Southeast Asia’s Grab has started to offer financing to SMEs and micro-insurance to its drivers. The launch comes just weeks after Grab raised $1.5 billion from the Vision Fund as part of a larger $5 billion Series H funding round that’ll be used to battle rival Go-Jek, which is […]

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Airbnb, Automattic and Pinterest top rank of most acquisitive unicorns

It takes a lot more than a good idea and the right timing to build a billion-dollar company. Talent, focus, operational effectiveness and a healthy dose of luck all play a part.

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Drivetime trivia app turns your daily commute into a gameshow

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Drivetime commuter trivia app
$Free download on App Store or Google Play
The Good

Interactive without being distracting • Designed knowing you are at the wheel • You might actually learn something • Available to play anytime

The Bad

Limited content with a focus on current events • For heavy drivers • only 30 minutes of trivia per day • Meant for solo • adult drivers • so doesn’t work well for carpooling • passengers • or young kids • Can be hard for app to pick up your answers in noisy car situations

The Bottom Line

For commuters looking for something to do while driving, this makes the time go by much faster. For hardcore trivia fans, this is another way to get your fix. It’s tailored to a driving experience, so it’s a slower pace with a bit more banter and background info than usual. Once you’ve opened the app and pressed play, you don’t have to look at or touch the screen again.

Read more…More about Games, Reviews, Review, Commuting, and Trivia

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Lyft reportedly plans to debut on Nasdaq next month

Ride-hailing company Lyft plans to file its initial public offering in March, possibly beating rival Uber to the milestone. Two reports, one from Reuters, the other from WSJ, indicate Lyft plans to list its shares on Nasdaq next month. The WSJ, citing unnamed sources, reported Lyft may make the filing public as early as next […]

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Uber fixes bug that exposed third-party app secrets

Uber has fixed a bug that allowed access to the secret developer tokens of any app that integrated with the ride-sharing service, according to the security researchers who discovered the flaw. In a blog post, Anand Prakash and Manisha Sangwan explained that a vulnerable developer endpoint on Uber’s back-end systems — since locked down — […]

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China’s Didi reportedly lost a staggering $1.6 billion in 2018

China’s largest car-hailing company is facing relentless pressure from all fronts. Beijing-based Didi Chuxing reportedly lost a staggering 10.9 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in 2018, according to financial data that Chinese news site 36Kr obtained. For some context, Uber posted a net loss of $939 million on a pro forma basis and an EBITA loss at $527 million during […]

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Southeast Asia’s Grab is adding Netflix-like video streaming to its ride-hailing app

Grab is Southeast Asia’s top ride-hailing firm thanks to its acquisition of Uber’s local business last year. Its biggest competitor gone, the company is on a push to go beyond transport and become an everyday ‘super app’ and that strategy just embraced video streaming today. That’s because Grab is integrating video-on-demand service HOOQ — a […]

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Ola, Uber’s India rival, invests $100M in scooter rental startup Vogo

We’re familiar with Uber cozying up to scooter startups — it has bought one and invested in another — but over in India, the U.S. firm’s key rival is hatching a major alliance of its own it invested $100 million in scooter rental startup Vogo. Ola first invested back in August when Vogo raised an undisclosed Series […]

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BMW’s premium ride-hailing service is now live in China

BMW has joined a handful of automakers to compete with transportation upstart Didi Chuxing, which bought Uber’s Chinese business in 2016. Last Friday, the German luxury carmaker launched a premium ride-hailing service in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan Province with over 14 million people. The new offer is part of BMW’s ReachNow carsharing brand that kicked […]

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Nigerian logistics startup Kobo360 raises $6M, expands in Africa

Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor SimbaPay launches Kenya to China payment service over WeChat Africa’s agtech wave gets $10 million richer as Twiga Foods raises more capital Nigerian trucking logistics startup Kobo360 has raised $6 million […]

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Grab invests $100M into India’s OYO to expand its budget hotel service in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab has made its most ambitious investment to date after it backed India-headquartered budget hotel network OYO to the tune of $100 million. The investment was part of a $1 billion Series E round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund that closed back in September. The deal was first made public via a […]

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