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Zheping Huang / Bloomberg : Alibaba debuts AliExpress Connect, a service to pair influencers with brands and merchants, hoping to attract 100,000+ creators this year with a focus on Europe   —  - AliExpress Connect links social media darlings with merchants  — Model replicates China success of Taobao's live-streaming app from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3clsk9h

The Indian government has rejected Flipkart’s proposal to enter the food retail business in a setback for Walmart, which owns majority of the Indian e-commerce firm and which recently counted its business in Asia’s third-largest economy as one of the worst impacted by the global coronavirus pandemic. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), a wing of the nation’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, told Flipkart, which competes with Amazon India, that its proposed plan to enter the food retail business violates regulatory guidelines. Flipkart’s proposed food retail business, called Flipkart FarmerMart, cannot be structured on a 100% foreign direct investment, the Indian agency said. Rajneesh Kumar, chief corporate affairs officer at Flipkart, told TechCrunch that the company was evaluating the agency’s response and intended to re-apply. “At Flipkart, we believe that technology and innovation driven marketplace can add significant value to our country’s

Beam, a Singapore-headquartered micromobility firm that offers shared e-scooters, has raised $26 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its footprint in Korea, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Sequoia India and Hana Ventures led the two-and-a-half-year-old startup’s Series A financing round, while several more investors from Asia Pacific region participated, Beam said without disclosing their names. The startup has raised $32.4 million to date, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. Beam , like Bounce and Yulu in India , offers electric scooters in the aforementioned five markets. Electric and gasoline scooters have become popular in several Asian nations and elsewhere as people look for alternative transportation mediums to move around faster and at less cost. While these vehicles make inroads into various markets, it’s also not uncommon to find these scooters abandoned carelessly in the streets. Beam said unlike other startups, it incentivizes its riders th

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch : Tia Health, the developer of a network of digital wellness apps, clinics, and telehealth services focused on women's health, raises $24M Series A   —  Tia Health, the developer of a network of digital wellness apps, clinics and telehealth services designed to treat women's health holistically … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3gHUe2w

Ben Thompson / Stratechery : Facebook Shops integration with Shopify is good for Shopify merchants, but using Facebook Checkout limits the upside of Shopify's own payments offering   —  In the month since I wrote The Anti-Amazon Alliance, there has been two significant announcements from two of the principals in that alliance: from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3doQtwQ

Taylor Soper / GeekWire : A look at recent statements by tech companies, including Amazon, T-Mobile, Microsoft, and others, regarding racism in America   —  Comments Share 70 Tweet Share Reddit Email  —  Seattle tech giants Amazon and Microsoft issued statements this weekend in response to the outrage and protests … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3gHGJQo

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg : Tim Cook, in a memo to staff addressing racism in US, says Apple will give to non-profits like Equal Justice Initiative, match staff donations 2-to-1 in June   —  - Tim Cook writes letter to employees after George Floyd killing  — Apple donating to equal justice, human rights groups, CEO says from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2ZU1Jxr

Kim Lyons / The Verge : YouTube says it will donate $1M to the Center for Policing Equity, a nonprofit think tank that works with police departments to change discriminatory practices   —  The nonprofit works with police departments to address discriminatory behavior  —  YouTube says it will donate $1 million … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2XPONG2

Mark Kleinman / Sky News : London-based freight forwarding and supply chain finance startup Beacon raises $15M Series A with investors including 8VC and Jeff Bezos   —  The Amazon chief is taking a stake in Beacon, a digital freight-forwarding and supply chain finance firm, Sky News learns.  —  City editor @MarkKleinmanSky from Techmeme https://ift.tt/36LXcyB

Louise Matsakis / Wired : Some Walmart staff claim AI-based tech used in stores to prevent shoplifting misidentifies innocuous behavior as theft and often fails to flag actual stealing   —  The retailer denies there is any widespread issue with the software, but a group expressed frustration—and public health concerns. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3dkTvCr

Stitcher Blog : Stitcher releases its first podcasting report, with 10 years of data trends; a pandemic update shows a dip in listening at commute times and a lunchtime rise   —  What a decade of industry growth looks like from the app perspective.  —  It's been over a decade since we launched the Stitcher app. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2Xh0Ihb

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation.  Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox . Hi and welcome back to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B. I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. The mobility world got busy this week. Really. busy. This is gonna be a long one, buckle up. Take a look at the most recent survey we conducted with a bunch of venture capitalists about mobility and what areas interest them most. We talked to Ernestine Fu with Alsop Louie Partners, Stonly Baptiste and Shaun Abrahamson with Urban Us, Shahin Farshchi with Lux Capital, Kate Schox with Trucks VC and Jeff Peters of Autotech Ventures. Reach out and email me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, criticisms, offer up opinions or tips. You can also send a direct message to me at Twitter — @kirstenk

As tech companies like Twitter and Facebook gear up for longer-term remote work solutions, the future of work is becoming one of the more exciting opportunities in venture capital, Charles River Ventures general partner Saar Gur told TechCrunch. And as loneliness mounts with shelter-in-place orders implemented in various forms across the world, investors are looking for products and services that foster true connection among a distributed workforce, as well as a distributed society. But the future of work doesn’t just entail spinning up home offices. It also involves gig workers, freelancers, hiring tools, tools for workplace organizing and automation. The last couple of years have particularly brought tech organizing to the forefront. Whether it was the Google walkout in 2018 or gig workers’ ongoing actions against companies like Uber, Lyft and Instacart for better pay and protections, there are many opportunities to help workers better organize and achieve their goals. Below, we

Mike Allen / Axios : Sources: President Trump and Mark Zuckerberg had a phone conversation on Friday that was described by both sides as productive   —  In the week that President Trump took on social media, Axios has learned that he had a call Friday with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that was described by both sides as productive. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/300mrvs

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ‘Endeavor’ successfully docked with the International Space Station as planned on Sunday morning, marking another key milestone during this historic Commercial Crew demonstration mission it’s conducting with NASA. On board Crew Dragon were NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, the test pilots selected to be the first ever humans to fly on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, and the first people ever to make the trip to orbit aboard a spacecraft built by a private company. The docking process was handled completely autonomously by Crew Dragon itself, which is designed by SpaceX to operate on autopilot from the moment of launch throughout the course of the entire mission. The spacecraft is able to dock with a newer automated international docking adapter installed on the ISS, unlike the original cargo version of Dragon, which required manual capture by the robotic Canadarm 2 controlled by astronauts on the station. The updated cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon are desig