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The NIO ES8. image: NIO Chinese electric car maker NIO just reported its financial results for the third quarter of this year, indicating $257 million in revenue but with a $357 million loss in the period. The company delivered 4,799 vehicles in the third quarter, compared to 3,553 deliveries in the preceding quarter. In reaction to the earnings reports, NIO's shares are up more than 50%, trading for $4.17 apiece as of writing. According to Yahoo Finance , NIO's quarterly results surpassed analyst expectations, with revenue projections for the third quarter having hovered at around $231 million. NIO's $257 million in revenue happens to have beat that by a significant margin, but still amid steep losses. NIO has been losing lots of money as it spends to gain ground as a newer entrant to the electric car market. The company was founded just five years ago and has delivered approximately 30,000 vehicles since inception, a significant number but a much smaller am

ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman (left) and Founder/Executive Chairman Payal Kadakia (right). image: ClassPass According to a Reuters report , fitness subscription startup ClassPass is seeking to raise $285 million in new funding that could push its valuation above $1 billion. Citing a securities filing obtained from analytics firm Lagniappe Labs,  Reuters reports ClassPass will issue 22.7 million 'Series E' shares as part of the funding. A valuation above $1 billion would be a significant boost for ClassPass, which last raised funding at a valuation hovering around $536 million, according to  Prime Unicorn Index . The company's last funding was an $85 million Series D led by Temasek last year, an investment that brought its total funding to north of $200 million. New York-based ClassPass offers monthly subscription plans that provide access to more than 30,000 fitness studios and gyms globally. It's also partnered with large employers like Google, Southwest A

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick. Photograph by Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm Tech Uber has announced the departure of co-founder Travis Kalanick from its board, effective on the 31st of December. The company's announcement says Kalanick is leaving to "focus on his new business and philanthropic endeavors", the business part likely being CloudKitchens, a shared kitchen space provider he took over after his previous resignation as Uber's CEO. Kalanick's departure happens to come after he unloaded more than 90% of his shares in Uber, which went public just this year. His sell-off began early November up until the past few days. Currently, Kalanick holds about 5.8 million shares, substantially down from the 22.6 million shares he held before the sell-off. Kalanick, who co-founded Uber alongside Garrett Camp, held the position of CEO for a long-time, a position that saw him become the poster-child for the company. However, mounting controversies from

The Rivian R1T. image: Rivian Not long after raising $500 million from Ford and an additional $350 million from Cox Automotive, electric car startup Rivian has announced $1.3 billion in new funding led by T. Rowe Price, with participation from BlackRock and existing investors Ford and Amazon. The additional investment is the fourth Rivian has raised this year, and comes a few months after Amazon announced it'll purchase 100,000 vehicles from the company  as part of plans to make its delivery fleet run on renewable energy. The additional investment brings the total raised by Rivian this year to a whooping $2.85 billion. In a statement, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe praised the investment as demonstrating "confidence in our team, products, technology and strategy". With the investment, Rivian now stands as one of the top-most financed electric car upstarts in what seems like a crowded market. Rivian plans to begin selling vehicles next year, which may ex

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch Uber has been ordered to cease its ride-hailing operations in Colombia by the country's Superintendency of Industry and Commerce, a regulatory agency in charge of regulating business practices. The Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC) cites violated competition rules as the reason for the order. Notably, this is Uber's third regulatory ban in the span of a month, the other two being in London and Germany. The city of London suspended Uber's operating license for the second time just few weeks ago, while a Germany court ban  came just this week. In a statement, Colombia's SIC said Uber amassed “a significant advantage in the market” by offering transport services for individuals via its app, and ordered the company's ride-hailing services “through the use of the Uber application to cease immediately.” Uber on the other hand said in a statement that it doesn't a

F5 Networks CEO François Locoh-Donou image: F5 Networks F5 Networks has announced it's acquiring Shape Security, a Santa Clara-based fraud detection startup, for around $1 billion in cash. The announcement happens to come just three months after Shape Security raised funding at a $1 billion pre-money valuation. F5's acquisition is expected to be close in the first quarter of next year. Shape Security as a company has raised $183 million in total funding. Its backers include top tier VCs such as Kleiner Perkins, Norwest Ventures Partners, HPE Growth, and Focus Ventures. Shape Security develops fraud detection software adopted by large enterprises to protect their online applications. Banks make up a substantial portion of its customer base, as fraud detection and prevention stands crucial to the online banking process. Altogether, Shape Security claims its fraud detection software detects and blocks up to 2 billion fraudulent or unwanted transactions daily. Shape S

Glovo co-founder Sacha Michaud Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch Glovo, a popular on-demand delivery service that currently operates in 26 countries, has raised 150 million euros ($167 million) in Series E funding led by Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, with participation from existing investors Delivery Hero, Lakestar and Drake Enterprises. The funding values Glovo at more than $1 billion, marking it as the second Spanish startup, the other being Cabify, known to have crossed the valuation milestone. As per Glovo CEO Oscar Pierre, the new funding will be put towards growing the company's headcount, with plans to hire 300 new engineers and developers by mid-next year. Barcelona-based Glovo also wants to make use of the new capital to expand into new markets, as it has consistently done since its founding in 2015. The new funding happens to come less than a year after Glovo's last known funding, which was a $169 million Series D rai

image: Lime Lime has announced  the launch of a weekly subscription service for frequent riders of its e-scooters and bikes, first in cities across the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, followed by a roll-out in additional global markets by early January. The new service, dubbed LimePass , offers weekly unlimited scooter unlocks for a flat fee of $5. The idea behind such is to let frequent riders cut down on costs by out-rightly purchasing seven-day unlocks to Lime's shared scooters and bikes for a flat fee, as opposed to paying separately for several rides that would be taken over a week. For context, unlocks for Lime scooters and bikes costs $1 to its customers, who still have to pay per-minute rates to keep riding. One might wonder, and reasonably so, that paying Lime separately for unlocks taken over a week would amount to more revenue for the company than paying a flat free of $5 for unlimited unlocks for a weekly period. However there's quite a catch, being that se

Habana Labs co-founder and chairman Avigdor Willenz.  image: Habana Labs Intel has announced  it has acquired Habana Labs, an Israel-based startup that makes AI chips. The semiconductor giant is paying roughly $2 billion for Habana, one year after leading a $75 million Series B investment in the company. The acquisition represents another score for Habana co-founder and chairman Avigdor Willenz, a serial entrepreneur who previously founded and led Galileo Technology ( acquired for $2.7 billion by Marvell Technologies) and Annapurna Labs ( acquired for $350 million by Amazon). Unsurprisingly, both companies were chip makers, crowning Willenz as a whizz in the chip-making sector with sequential successful exits. Prior to this acquisition, Habana had raised $120 million in funding from investors including Intel Capital, Battery Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and WRV Capital. As of November last year (when it last raised funding), Tel Aviv-based Habana had just over 120

image: Uber According to a report from TechCrunch , Uber has entered advanced stages of negotiations to sell its Indian food delivery arm, UberEats India, to competitor Zomato as it looks to reduce global spending. TechCrunch reports the negotiations currently values UberEats India at around $400 million, and could involve Uber investing between $150 million to $200 million in Zomato to be finalized. Rumors of Uber looking to offload its Indian food delivery arm are not new, with the company having been reported to have discussed selling UberEats India to another Indian food delivery competitor, Swiggy , early this year. Indian news outlet Times of India first reported about Uber and Zomato's negotiations last month. The negotiations happen to come at a time Zomato is looking to raise up to $600 million in new funding, as made known by its CEO Deepinder Goyal . Uber looking to sell its Indian food delivery arm doesn't sound startling, as the company faces significa

Vin Diesel image: Gage Skidmore on Flickr Japanese game studio Bandai Namco has announced  a new title to be released next year that'll be based on the popular Fast & Furious movie franchise. The new game, dubbed  Fast & Furious Crossroads , is described as a "team-based, vehicular-heist action game", and'll feature Fast & Furious stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson, reprising their movie roles as Dom, Letty, and Roman. Also featured in the game are The Walking Dead 's Sonequa Martin-Green and John Wick:   Chapter 3 's Asia Kate Dillon. Fast & Furious Crossroads , scheduled to launch May next year, will be available on the PS4, Xbox One and PC. Unsurprisingly, the ninth installment of the Fast & Furious movie franchise is scheduled to launch on the same month as the newly announced game. Launching  Fast & Furious Crossroads  the same month as the movie, which conventionally draws huge viewers, would likel

Peter Thiel, Palantir co-founder and chairman. Photograph by Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media, on Flickr . Palantir has secured a new contract from the U.S. Army that involves the latter committing to spend $111 million next year on services from the former. The new deal deepens ties between Palantir, a data analytics company co-founded by tech veteran Peter Thiel, and the U.S. Army, coming several months after Palantir secured an earlier contract to deploy a complex battlefield intelligence system for the U.S. Army. As reported by the Washington Post , the value of that contract in its entirety could amount to more than $800 million. Palantir's new contract was first reported by Bloomberg , which said it will represent about 10% of Palantir's revenue next year. According to Bloomberg , the deal is a first step in what could be a four-year running $440 million contract for Palantir. The contract involves Palantir providing software to connect human resources, suppl

image: Courtesy of Apple Public filings in the U.K. indicates Apple has acquired Spectral Edge, a U.K.-based camera startup that applies machine learning to improve the quality of images. The filings indicate Apple now controls Spectral Edge, evidenced by the appointment of one of its corporate lawyers, Peter Denwood, as a director at the company while its other advisers and board members were terminated. Apple conventionally doesn't announce acquisitions but is known to purchase startups regularly, evidenced by a recent  statement from CEO Tim Cook that Apple acquires a company every two to three weeks on average. Most of its known acquisitions, usually of small startups, were dug up from regulatory filings similar to that of Spectral Edge, a recent example being Apple's purchase of digital marketing startup DataTiger . How much Apple paid for Spectral Edge could not be determined but for a hint, the U.K.-based startup raised $8.1 million in total funding accordi

image: CuriosityStream CuriosityStream, a streaming service founded by former Discovery chairman John Hendricks, has announced it has eclipsed 10.5 million subscribers, the count not including registrants who are under free trial. The announcement happens to come at a time media houses are debuting individual streaming services to better control their content and compete with streaming incumbent Netflix. CuriosityStream happens to have drawn a high number of subscribers while being quite low-key in comparison to other newer streaming services. The streaming service, which focuses on subjects like science and nature, attributes its subscriber growth to bundled partnerships with already established cable distributors, a playbook newer streaming services can draw from. CuriosityStream has established partnerships with cable distributors across several countries, for example Altice USA and Suddenlink in the U.S., Airtel in India, and Multichoice’s DStv across Africa. The partner

An Uber self-driving car prototype image: Uber According to a report from The Information , Uber is in advanced talks to acquire the team behind Foresight, a San Jose-based startup that develops simulation software for self-driving car prototypes. The report made no mention of the deal terms. Foresight is quite the low-key startup, with its website  containing substantial information on its core product but minuscule information about its team. Even Crunchbase  spots little information about the company, with no mention of any investment or its team. However, Foresight's website mentions its CEO by name of Chang Yuan. A simple search led to a LinkedIn profile  that indicates Yuan formerly worked at the likes of Microsoft, Lenovo, Amazon and Apple. His LinkedIn profile indicates he spent more than two years at Apple before leaving to start Foresight two years ago. An acquisition, or moreover an acqui-hire, after two years doesn't sound far-fetched. Uber pulled a si

TikTok chief Alex Zhu Photograph by Stefen Chow/Fortune Brainstorm Tech International As first reported by the Washington Post , TikTok chief Alex Zhu is set to make a trip to Washington to meet with U.S. lawmakers in an effort to tackle concerns of privacy, security and censorship risks emanating from the app's Chinese origins. Such trip would indicate efforts by TikTok to maintain its spike in popularity at a time when U.S.-China relationships are strained and U.S. officials are cautious about Chinese companies gaining foothold in U.S. markets where domestic companies have long dominated. Such a trip could also see TikTok's head Zhu, who is based out of Shanghai, face some of the app's biggest critics, in the form of U.S. lawmakers. The Washington Post reports Zhu has sought a meeting with senators Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley, each of whom have questioned TikTok's independence from Chinese influence. Zhu is also said to be planning to meet w

Chime co-founder and CEO Chris Britt Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch As first reported by CNBC , Chime, a San Francisco-based digital bank, has raised $500 million in Series E funding that values it at $5.8 billion, a significant increase from a $1.5 billion valuation when it raised funding just nine months ago. DST Global, which led the previous round that valued Chime at $1.5 billion, is said to have led the $500 million Series E. According to CNBC, Chime CEO Chris Britt plans on putting the new capital towards developments of new products and doubling the company's workforce by the end of next year. $500 million in a single round marks the biggest single equity investment known so far for a digital bank, surpassing a previous record set by Nubank when it raised $400 million in July. This round included, Chime's total funding since inception now stands at $809 million, according to Crunchbase data . A near quadruple in valuation in the

(Beginning from left) JFrog Founders Shlomi Ben Haim, Fred Simon, and Yoav Landman image: JFrog According to a  Bloomberg report , JFrog, a San Francisco-based company that makes software for software developers, has hired JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley to lead an initial public offering that's aimed for next year. Bloomberg reports JFrog could seek a valuation of $2 billion or more for its listing, compared to a $1 billion+ valuation when it raised funding last year. Founded in 2008, JFrog makes software used by software developers to deploy and manage software. The company's flagship product is known as "Artifactory", being a repository manager that supports several software package formats. JFrog also offers security, distribution, and pipelining software for developers. The company has attracted more than 4,500 customers so far, including top tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix. According to Crunchbase data , JFrog has raise

Douglas Leone, Sequoia Capital's managing partner. Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch Gong, a San Francisco-based "revenue intelligence" startup, has announced $65 million in Series C funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Battery Ventures, Cisco Investments, Norwest Venture Partners, NextWorld Capital, Wing Venture Capital, and cyber-security veteran Shlomo Kramer. All aforementioned investors excluding Sequoia were already previous investors in Gong. The funding brings the total raised by Gong to $134 million. The San Francisco-based company says it'll use the capital to invest in its product, engineering, and go-to-market teams. Under the terms of the funding, Sequoia partner Carl Eschenbach, who previously served as President and COO of VMWare for more than a decade, will join Gong's board. This marks an addition to other board seats he holds at top tech companies like Workday, Zoom, Snowflake Computing and Palo A

A rendering of Lucid's Arizona factory image: Lucid Motors Lucid Motors, an electric car startup that secured a $1 billion investment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund last year, has officially flagged off construction of a $700 million factory in the state of Arizona. The factory, chosen after a search spanning 13 U.S. states and more than 60 sites, is where Lucid intends to produce its first car, the Lucid Air . The first phase of the construction will cost Lucid more than $300 million, an investment that's expected to get it ready to begin producing the Lucid Air. The aforementioned $700 million figure is what Lucid expects to put towards full completion of the factory. Lucid held an official event to celebrate the start of construction of its electric vehicle facility. Attendees at the event included executives of the company and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, alongside officials of the state. Lucid says the factory is expected to create 4,800 dir

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari image: Chatham House on Flickr Nigeria's central bank plans to license more payment providers to operate in its jurisdiction in an effort to improve the financial-inclusion rate of its citizens to 80% by the end of next year from about 60% currently, the country's Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said in a statement on Friday. “The provision of licenses to several players will help support innovation and competition as all parties work to increase their customer base,” he said in a speech delivered in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. “Nigerians in underserved locations will have access to cost effective payment services, cash-in and cash-out facilities, and savings products.” Emefiele said. Such measures come as Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and biggest economy , sees a push in digital banking services thanks to the rise of some relatively new payments services and new solutions from already existing banks alike.

image: Deliveroo Raif Jacobs, the chief financial officer of U.K. food delivery startup Deliveroo, has left the company after just a year on the job, adding to a substantial number of executive departures at Deliveroo. Jacobs left the company early October, around the same time frame the U.K.'s competition watchdog launched an investigation into a big Amazon investment in Deliveroo. The investment in concern was a $575 million investment led by Amazon, with participation from Greenoaks, T. Rowe Price, and Fidelity. The funding process got paused by regulators in July, with a formal investigation launched several months later. The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stipulated that Amazon's large investment may lead to a future merger with  Deliveroo, and said it was considering whether such a situation may "result in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services." A deadline of

Hilary Schneider image: Wag Wag, a Softbank-backed on-demand dog walking startup, has announced  a departure of its current CEO, Hilary Schneider, who took on the role just last year, as at the time of a $300 million investment from the Softbank Vision Fund. Schneider is stepping down effective November 29, to be replaced by Garrett Smallwood, who is being promoted from a VP position. Smallwood is joining Wag's board as part of his transition to the CEO role. Schneider's departure represents the third time Wag is going through a CEO change since its founding in 2015. Schneider, who has been Wag's CEO for just short of two years, replaced co-founder Joshua Viner when she took on the role. Smallwood is now replacing her, as she heads on to a CEO role at photography company Shutterfly . Prior to Wag, Schneider served as CEO at LifeLock, an identity theft protection company acquired by Symantec for $2.3 billion in March 2017. The CEO change at Wag comes on t

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi image: World Economic Forum / Faruk Pinjo via CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license Uber has lost its license to operate in the city of London, marking the second time in just over two years that such situation is occurring. The London license cease, announced on Monday, was due to Uber's app not being “fit and proper” in regards to passenger safety, London's transportation regulator said. The decision to not renew the license comes at the end of a two-month probationary extension period that was added to a prior 15-month running license. Uber was required by Transport for London (TfL), London's transportation regulator, to address issues regarding checks on drivers, insurance and safety, but seems to have not satisfied TfL, which said it had identified “pattern of failures” in regards to those requirements. The transportation regulator cited a case where a change to Uber's systems allowed unauthorized drivers to upload their photos to other dr