What Telsia is cooking up: One thing that I appreciate about Tesla is how risk-friendly it is. While many traditional carmakers are hedging their EV bets by making more hybrid vehicles, Tesla is forging ahead with self-driving taxis and a shot at even cheaper electric vehicles. TechCrunch has good reporting on what we know about the company’s plans so far. Read More
Glance to bring ads to Android lockscreens in the U.S.: You might not have heard of Glance if you don’t live in Southeast Asia. It’s essentially an Android service that works with the lockscreen to show news and media content, and can be used to drive attention to other apps. With hundreds of millions of users in India and other countries, Glance is now coming to the United States. Read More
Madica ramps up investment cadence in Africa: U.S. investor Flourish Ventures’ program to back African startups through its subsidiary, Madica, is picking up pace. Annie Njanja reports that the group is looking to boost its pace to 10 deals per year for a total of 30. Read More
Parloa wants to bring its AI service to the States: Voice-first conversational AI could become a big market, and Parloa wants to own a big piece of it. The German company just raised a bunch of money, and it is targeting the U.S. with an office in New York. Read More
India’s Kotak is in deep water: Kotak Mahindra Bank was told by India’s central bank to immediately cease onboarding new customers via its online and mobile banking channels, and to stop issuing fresh credit cards. That’s a big deal since Kotak is one of the country’s biggest banks, and it’s also a partner to many fintech companies. Read More
