Author: Jordan Crook

Juul launches a pilot program that tracks how Juul devices get in the hands of minors Juul Labs is today launching a pilot for its new Track & Trace program, which is meant to use data to identify exactly how Juul devices wind up in the hands of minors. Juul vaporizers all have a serial number down at the bottom, by the Juul logo. However, it wasn’t until recently that Juul had the capability to track those serial numbers through every step of the process, from manufacture to distribution to…

Lemonade picks up 0 million Series D led by SoftBank Group Lemonade, the insurance startup founded by Daniel Schreiber and Shai Wininger, has today announced a $300 million Series D financing led by the SoftBank Group, with participation from Allianz, General Catalyst, GV, OurCrowd and Thrive Capital. Lemonade uses an AI-powered bot to digitize the insurance buying experience for renters and home owners. Users simply download the app and answer a few questions before getting a quote, which starts at $5/month but can surely go up based on a number…

Democratic senators question Juul about its Altria deal Eleven democratic senators, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), have penned a letter to Juul Labs, asking a series of questions around the product’s marketing, its effectiveness as a tool to help people quit smoking combustible cigarettes, sales figures and, perhaps most importantly, more information on the deal that gave Altria a minority stake in Juul Labs. “The corporate marriage between two companies that have been the most prolific at marketing highly addictive nicotine products to children is alarming from a public…

Home buying and selling platform Perch raises 0M in debt and equity Perch, a home-buying and selling platform, has raised $220 million in a combination of equity ($20M) to fund operations and debt ($200M) to finance home purchasing. The equity investment was led by existing investors FirstMark Capital, with participation from Accomplice and Juxtapose. Perch declined to disclose the debt lender in the deal. Perch was founded in September of 2017 by Court Cunningham and Phil DeGisi. The premise of Perch is to focus on the largest segment of home…

The best and worst April Fools’ jokes from around the web The tech world sure does love a good prank. While some sat out on April Fools’, a number of big tech companies embraced the opportunity to waste time this way. So without any further ado, here are the April Fools’ pranks from around the web: The good 1) Google Tulip Google Tulip, in my humble opinion, is Google’s best April Fools’ joke this year. It’s a product that lets you communicate with tulips (they’re making progress with cacti, which…

All the videos from Apple’s big media event Video served as both form and function today at Apple’s media event, and the company wasn’t stingy with classic Apple event videos. Ranging from previews of new services like Apple Arcade to a look at the artists creating content for Apple TV +, the videos should give folks who missed the livestream a quick look at what’s next out of Apple services. As with most events, today’s kicked off with a teaser video: The first product Apple announced was Apple News+, which…

Epic Games CEO says Apex Legends hasn’t made a dent in Fortnite In the wake of Apex Legends, which has briskly grown to 50 million players, many have wondered whether Fortnite has felt the impact. But Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told GamesBeat that Apex hasn’t really made a dent. Without being asked about Apex Legends, Sweeney said “an Apex Legends worth” of players have come over to Fortnite. “We’re very close to hitting 250 million Fortnite players,” said Sweeney. “Since Apex Legends came out, we’ve gained an Apex Legends…

YC-backed Basement is a social network for close friends only The past few years have been a bit of a dark age for budding social media startups. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap and messenger apps took up all the time of their users, leaving little room for yet another social media platform. But the tide is shifting. Privacy scandals have shaken some users’ faith giants like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and users have grown fatigued by the constant onslaught of #content. Basement, a YC-backed startup, is looking to give users a…

Apex Legends is prepping for a big Battle Pass launch Apex Legends surprised the gaming world two months ago, bringing a new, frenetic dynamic to the Battle Royale genre of games that has already attracted 50 million players. That first huge milestone didn’t come at a cheap price — EA reportedly paid Ninja $1 million to stream the game. But now the question concerns whether or not Respawn can keep and convert their new, voracious legion of players. Luckily for Respawn, Fortnite has paved the way when it comes to…

ProdPerfect gets .6 million to automate QA testing for web apps ProdPerfect, a New York-based startup focused on automating QA testing for web apps, has announced the close of a $2.6 million Seed round co-led by Eniac Ventures and Fika Ventures, with participation from Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. ProdPerfect started when cofounder and CEO Dan Wilding was VP of engineering at WeSpire, where he saw firsthand the pain points associated with web application QA testing. Whereas there were all kinds of product analytics tools for product engineers, the same data wasn’t…