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Symend eyes global markets with $54 million CAD Series B extension led by Inovia (BETAKIT)
Fuelled by growing demand for its customer engagement platform for financially at-risk customers, Calgary-based Symend has secured a Series B extension to satisfy telecommunications and financial institutions globally.
Netflix plans to open an office in Canada and grow its relationship with its creators (THE TORONTO STAR)
Netflix plans to open an office in Canada in what the streaming giant calls “a big first step” toward content creation in this country.
Inside the making of Facebook’s Supreme Court (THE NEW YORKER)
The company has created a board that can overrule even Mark Zuckerberg. Soon it will decide whether to allow Trump back on Facebook.
Reddit raises $250 million in Series E funding (TECHCRUNCH)
This is Reddit’s 16th year of operation, and the company has raised around $800 million to date, including a Tencent-led $300 million Series D in February, 2019.
Gaming company LEAF debuts on TSX following $159 million acquisition of East Side Games (BETAKIT)
The acquisition of East Side Games was conditional upon LEAF obtaining approval from the TSX to list the LEAF shares for trading.
Signal and Telegram downloads surge, passing Facebook chat tools (FORTUNE)
The growth in downloads for Signal has been especially pronounced, shooting from around 1.2 million a year ago to nearly 30 million by late January.
Facebook meets Apple in clash of the tech titans — ‘We need to inflict pain’ (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
Animosity between CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook erupts over privacy and dueling visions of internet.
Rewind acquires GitHub backup service BackHub (BETAKIT)
Ottawa-based cloud backup startup Rewind has acquired Berlin’s BackHub, as Rewind looks to expand the reach of its “backup-as-a-service” business.
Facebook scaling down political content as part of new test in Canada (MOBILESYRUP)
The test is rolling out to a small number of users in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia.
Ride to nowhere (REST OF WORLD)
If ride-hailing giants Grab and Gojek come together, the new quasi-monopoly in Southeast Asia would have little incentive to improve working conditions.
Briza raises $10.2 million CAD to address growing demand for insurance carrier APIs (BETAKIT)
The “commercial insurance-as-a-service API” startup plans to use the capital to double the size of its engineering team and more than triple the number of API integrations that it offers from insurance carriers.
TikTok sale to Oracle, Walmart is shelved as Biden reviews security (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
In a new development, the Biden administration asked to delay the government’s appeal of a federal district court judge’s December injunction against the TikTok ban.
Facebook is said to be building a product to compete with Clubhouse (NEW YORK TIMES)
The social network, which has a history of cloning its competitors, has started working on an audio chat product.
