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Anna Baydakova / CoinDesk : Sources: Chinese importers in Russia buy ~$30M worth of tether, a USD pegged crypto coin, every day, to send large sums of money back home   —  The Takeaway  —  Chinese importers in Russia are buying up to $30 million a day of tether (USDT) from Moscow's over-the-counter trading desks. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2MtxlDp

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch : Lightricks, which makes the popular selfie editing app Facetune, raises $135M Series C led by Goldman Sachs at a post-money valuation of $1B   —  Facetune, a photo editing app that empowers users to cover their gray hairs, refine their jaw lines, and reshape their noses … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2ZlpWd5

Globally, millions of cameras are in deployed by companies and organizations every year. All you have to do is look up. Yes, there they are! But the petabytes of data collected by these cameras really only become useful after something untoward has occurred. They can very rarely influence an action in “real-time”. Trueface is a US-based computer vision company that turns camera data into so-called ‘actionable data’ using machine learning and AI by employing partners who can perform facial recognition, threat detection, age and ethnicity detection, license plate recognition, emotion analysis as well as object detection. That means, for instance, recognising a gun, as it’s pulled in a dime store. Yes folks, welcome to your brave new world. The company has now raised $3.7M from Lavrock Ventures, Scout Ventures, and Advantage Ventures to scale the team growing partnerships and market share. Trueface claims it can identify enterprises’ employees for access to a building, detect a weapo...

Visa is pitching a new way for startups in the fintech space to get to market faster by using its rails and a group of pre-approved partners. The Fast Track program, a variant of an investment commitment and ecosystem of services the company has already launched in other geographies around the world, comes to the U.S. without an investment commitment, but with a pre-defined list of partners that will help new financial services startups launch more quickly, the company said. Chiefly, the process makes it easier to integrate with Visa . It’s an attempt to put the payment processor’s network, VisaNet, at the center of a vast array of services ranging from payroll to business to business payments and online banking, online lending, and even digital wallets. “There’s about $17 trillion in cash and checks today that hasn’t gone digital and $20 trillion in business to business that’s happening over wires and check… those are all opportunities for Visa,” says Terry Angelos, a former finte...

Facetune, a photo editing app that empowers users to cover their gray hairs, refine their jaw lines, and reshape their noses, was first introduced around six years ago, and it quickly climbed to the top of the download charts, becoming Apple’s most popular paid app of 2017. Despite stiff competition , it has remaining highly popular , too. That staying power hasn’t been lost Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing, Insight Partners or ClalTech, which just gave Facetune’s parent company, Lightricks , $135 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $1 billion. The investment firms — two of which led a $60 million round in the company less than a year ago —  are getting much more than Facetune in the deal. Lightricks, based in Tel Aviv, has 260 employees supporting six products across three divisions, including Facetune, whose second version was rolled out this year; Enlight, a line of mobile photography and editing tools that aims to make photo editing more acces...

Station F is the world’s biggest startup campus and it’s based in Paris. Director Roxanne Varza first unveiled Station F at TechCrunch Disrupt back in December 2016. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Station F director Roxanne Varza is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to give us an update and tell us about future plans. If you aren’t familiar with Station F, it starts with a beautiful building. Originally built in 1929, it is now classified as a historical monument. But now, it’s also a high-tech building and a cornerstone of the French tech ecosystem. Varza has managed to create a community of entrepreneurs, VC funds and big tech companies that work, share knowledge and collaborate. In addition to Station F’s own Founders Program and Fighters Program, you can become a Station F member by joining a partner program. Facebook, Naver (Line), Ubisoft, Microsoft and plenty of others all run their own incubator from Station F. And it’s been working really well as there ar...

Nairobi based internet hardware and service startup BRCK and Egyptian ride-hail venture Swvl are partnering to bring WiFI and online entertainment to on-demand bus service in Kenya. BRCK will install its routers on Swvl vehicles in Kenya and run its Moja service, which offers free public WiFi—internet, music, and entertainment—subsidized by commercial partners. Founded in Cairo in 2017, Swvl is a mass transit service that has positioned itself as an Uber for shared buses. “Think ride hailing, but with a bus…and instead of the vehicle coming to you…you go to the bus, and the bus picks you up at a certain point and time,” Swvl’s general manager for Kenya, Shivachi Muleji, told TechCrunch via email. The company raised a $42 million Series B round in June , with intent to expand in Africa, Swvl CEO Mostafa Kandil said in an interview . In Kenya, BRCK has installed 15 of its units in Swvl buses and looks to offer its Moja WiFi service in 700 by 2020, BRCK’s chief operating officer...