News

October 7, 2021 ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Formula One title contender Max Verstappen played down the pressure of fighting Lewis Hamilton for the championship and said on Thursday that the outcome would not change his life either way. The 24-year-old Red Bull driver is two points adrift of Mercedes’ seven times world champion, and 100-times race […]

October 7, 2021 By Joseph Menn and Christopher Bing SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The suspected Russian hackers who used SolarWinds and Microsoft software to burrow into U.S. federal agencies emerged with information about counter-intelligence investigations, policy on sanctioning Russian individuals and the country’s response to COVID-19, people involved in the investigation told Reuters. The hacks […]

October 7, 2021 By John Revill ZURICH (Reuters) -Sika can overcome rising raw material costs globally and uncertainty in China linked to debt concerns at developer China Evergrande to reach its 2021 goals, Chief Executive Thomas Hasler said on Thursday. The Swiss construction chemicals maker expects to increase its sales when measured in local currencies […]

October 7, 2021 By David Henry (Reuters) – The largest U.S. lenders are expected to report moderately higher third-quarter profits next week as pandemic-related accounting adjustments that had doubled their earnings earlier this year taper off and business starts to return to normal. Analysts, on average, expect JPMorgan Chase & Co, the country’s largest lender, […]

October 7, 2021 By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union’s executive called for an investigation on Thursday into illegal migrant pushbacks after a report by German media outlets Der Spiegel and ARD documented what they said were Greek and Croatian officials carrying out such operations. The joint report said Greek and Croatian special forces […]

October 7, 2021 MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has charged the chief executive of a leading Russian cybersecurity company with treason, local news agencies cited sources as saying on Thursday. Ilya Sachkov, founder and CEO of Group-IB, was arrested last week and put in custody for two months. Law enforcement officers searched his firm’s Moscow offices. […]

When you think about service meshes, a somewhat esoteric cloud native tool designed to stitch different microservices together, you might not think it’s the most lucrative side of the Kubernetes led cloud native market, but you would be wrong. Today, Solo.io, a Cambridge, Massachusetts service mesh startup, announced a $135 million Series C at a […]

Sequoia is one of the most sought-after VC firms in the world, and predictably, it sees plenty of startups competing for its attention. In a recent episode of TechCrunch Live (formerly Extra Crunch Live), Sequoia partner Stephanie Zhan and Nick Fajt, founder and CEO of social gaming platform Rec Room, explained what the venture capital […]

The rise of privacy-oriented financial blockchain projects are going to be crucial if “DeFi” (decentralized finance) is to have any kind of future. We have come to expect privacy in our “normal” financial lives, so we will expect it in the blockchain and Crypto world, whatever some might claim. We saw murmurs of that starting […]

October 7, 2021 (Reuters) – Airing his sweaty tennis shoes outside a California hotel room has landed Andy Murray in trouble at home after the shoes were stolen – along with his wedding ring tied to one of the laces. Murray, who married Kim Sears in 2015, has played with his wedding ring attached to […]

October 7, 2021 (Reuters) – Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare, who was provisionally banned after testing positive for human growth hormone before the Tokyo Olympics, has been hit with three separate anti-doping charges, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Thursday. Okagbare, who won silver in the long jump at Beijing 2008, had competed in the […]

October 7, 2021 DUBLIN (Reuters) -Ireland has received assurances that if it agrees to a new global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% it can maintain its 12.5% rate for firms with annual turnover below 750 million euros ($867 million), Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said. Irish ministers are due to meet on Thursday to […]

October 7, 2021 By Wilfredo Pineda and Nelson Renteria EL ZONTE, El Salvador (Reuters) – A growing number of El Salvadorans have experimented with bitcoin since the country became the first to adopt it as legal tender last month, with a couple of million dollars sent daily by migrants using the cryptocurrency. But only a […]

October 7, 2021 By Nick Carey LONDON (Reuters) – German automotive industry supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG will invest in British autonomous vehicle software startup Oxbotica to jointly develop driving systems for pod-like shuttles which will be able to transport people and goods. ZF is taking a 5% stake in Oxford-based Oxbotica and will take a […]

October 7, 2021 By Ritvik Carvalho LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar held close to a 14-month high against the euro on Thursday, as a surge in energy prices raised the risk for the U.S. Federal Reserve to act sooner to normalise policy. The U.S. currency was slightly lower at $1.1563 per euro after strengthening to […]

October 7, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s competition regulator has scrapped its action against Ryanair and British Airways over their failure to offer refunds to passengers prevented from flying by COVID-19 restrictions, saying the legal position was unclear. During pandemic lockdowns, instead of offering refunds to those legally unable to fly, IAG-owned British Airways offered vouchers […]

Cord, a startup that offers a single API to add Slack-like collaboration features to any app, has bagged $17.5 million in Series A funding. The round — which is pegged to fund product development, including by hiring engineers, designers and product managers — was led by European VC Index. Other investors participating include NFX and […]

PideDirecto, a Mexico-based company, is developing a platform that enables local businesses in Latin America to sell directly to their consumers and deliver orders in less than 30 minutes. Hussein Fawzi and Ronni Samir launched the company with Anders Steiner and Antonio Nacoud in September 2020. Fawzi, Samir and Nacoud knew each other from Iraq […]

Luxury wholesale marketplace The Main Tab is redesigning its platform following a $1 million pre-seed raise earlier this year from serial entrepreneur Jason Bright, who is now the company’s CTO. The New York-based company is poised to launch the new website and app this fall with about 200 retailers, but has a waiting list of […]

Freelance marketplace Fiverr announced this morning that it’s acquiring Seattle-based online learning company CreativeLive for an undisclosed amount. CreativeLive is an entrepreneurial learning platform where users can attend courses on video, photography, design, business, marketing and more. Fiverr, which is an online marketplace that connects businesses with on-demand freelancers, says that the ability to gain […]