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As people spend less time out in the world and more time daydreaming about when a vaccine will arrive, lifestyle shoes are only gaining traction. One obvious beneficiary is Allbirds , the San Francisco-based maker of comfortable, sustainable kicks that launched in 2016 and quickly became a favorite in Silicon Valley circles before taking off elsewhere. Though the company saw its business slow this year because of the pandemic, its products are now available to purchase in 35 countries and its 20 brick-and-mortar stores are sprinkled throughout the U.S. and Europe, with another outpost in Tokyo and several shops in China. Investors clearly see room for more growth. Allbirds just closed on $100 million in Series E funding at roughly the same $1.6 billion valuation it was assigned after closing on $27 million in Series D funding earlier this year, and blank-check companies have been calling, says cofounder and CEO Joey Zwillinger. He talked with us earlier this week in a chat that h

The Economic Times : Indian startups blame Google for “unfair exploitation” of Play Store's monopoly after Google began to enforce its in-app purchasing policy with 30% commission   —  Tech giant says companies have multiple store options, can also use websites  —  Indian startups are up in arms … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3n31xVM

Google, which reaches more internet users than any other firm in India and commands 99% of the nation’s smartphone market, has stumbled upon an odd challenge in the world’s second largest internet market: Scores of top local entrepreneurs. Dozens of top startups and firms in India are working to form an alliance and toying with the idea of launching an app store to cut their reliance on Google, five people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The list of entrepreneurs include high-profile names such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma, co-founder and chief executive of Paytm (India’s most valuable startup ), Deep Kalra of travel ticketing firm MakeMyTrip, and executives from PolicyBazaar, Sharechat and many other firms. The growing list of founders expressed deep concerns about Google’s “monopolistic” hold on India, and discussed what they alleged was unfair and inconsistent enforcement of Play Store’s guidelines in the country. The conversations, which began in recent weeks, escalate

Karissa Bell / Engadget : Facebook says, as part of its recent crackdown on QAnon and “militia” movements, it has removed 6,500 groups belonging to 300 organizations   —  Facebook has removed more than 6,500 pages and groups associated with “militarized social movements,” since the company announced … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3n65VU1

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC : Facebook says it will ban Facebook and Instagram ads that seek to delegitimize the outcome of an election, including calling specific voting methods fraudulent   —  - Facebook on Wednesday announced that it will not allow any ads on its service that seek to delegitimize the outcome of an election … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2SfWS4O

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Google introduces a new Android feature called Hold for Me, which uses Assistant to monitor held phone calls and notify the user when taken off hold   —  Google has been pushing forward the capabilities of what a smartphone can do when it comes to one of the device's most basic — if these days often overlooked — features: phone calls. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2HOxi4Z

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC : Baidu's Smart Living Group division, which focuses on voice assistants and smart devices, raises an undisclosed sum at a $2.9B valuation   —  - Chinese internet giant Baidu has raised an undisclosed sum of money for its business division focused on voice assistants and smart devices. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/3kWnHak

Workforces are getting more global, and people who work day in, day out for organizations don’t always sit day in, day out in a single office, in a single country, to get a job done. Today, one of the startups building HR to help companies provision services for and manage those global workers better is announcing a funding round to capitalise on a surge in business that it has seen in the last year — spurred in no small part by the global health pandemic, the impact it’s had on travel and the way it has focused the minds of companies to get their cloud services and workforce management in order. Papaya Global , an Israeli startup that provides cloud-based payroll, as well as hiring, onboarding and compliance services for organizations that employ full-time, part-time, or contractors outside of their home country, has raised $40 million in a Series B round of funding led by Scale Venture Partners. Workday Ventures — the corporate investment arm of the HR company — Access Industries (v

For more than 20 years , Salesforce has been selling cloud business software, but it has also used the same platform to build ways to track other elements besides sales, marketing and service information including Work.com, the platform it created earlier this year to help companies develop and organize a safe way to begin returning to work during the pandemic. Today, the company announced it was putting that same platform to work to help distribute and track a vaccine whenever it becomes available along with related materials like syringes that will be needed to administer it. The plan is to use Salesforce tools to solve logistical problems around distributing the vaccine, as well as data to understand where it could be needed most and the efficacy of the drug, according to Bill Patterson, EVP and general manager for CRM applications at Salesforce. “The next wave of the virus phasing, if you will, will be [when] a vaccine is on the horizon, and we begin planning the logistics. Can

Business travel SaaS startup,  TravelPerk , has launched an open API-based platform — letting its customers and partners build custom integration and apps. The initial APIs covers HR and expense management use-cases but more are set to be added as usage and demand grows. “Applications we’ve seen being built on the platform already include HR functionality (think BambooHR), expense management systems, company payment cards, financial reporting, and ERP,” says co-founder and CEO Avi Meir, discussing the launch. Longer term he says the hope is the platform generates “a huge range” of additional functionality for customers to draw on. “Many of our customers are tech companies full of developers, so we’re confident that if we give them the tools it will be boundless what they can create,” he adds. “In fact, we’re working with one customer already who is using our API to build a custom approvals process because they need a more complex system than the standard offering.” TravelPerk ha

In what began as a kind of funny, savvy marketing stunt that has since gained traction, a nearly three-year-old, Santa Monica-based startup that sells water from the Austrian Alps under the brand Liquid Death , has raised $23 million in Series B funding. Backers in the round include an unnamed family office; Convivialité Ventures, which is Pernod Ricard Group’s venture arm; the musician known as Fat Mike; and earlier backer Velvet Sea Ventures. The company, originally incubated with the help of the L.A.-based startup studio Science, has now raised a little more than $34 million altogether. We talked with Liquid Death founder Mike Cessario, who was formerly a West Coast agency exec, not long after he launched the company to the public, and he argued at the time that canned water could give sugary energy drinks like Rockstar, Monster and Red Bull a run for their money if it was also named like a heavy metal act. Indeed, our favorite part of the product has long been its promise to