Top tech startup news for today, Friday, July 19, 2019

Good morning! Below are some of the top tech startup news for today, Friday, July 19, 2019.

Patreon closes $60 million in Series D funding round for expansion. Patreon, a San Francisco, CA-based membership services company, has secured $60 million in Series D funding round  to continue to expand operations and its business reach as well as to continue development of its platform to add new currencies, payment methods and languages. The round, which brought total amount raised by Patreon to date to $166 million, was led by Glade Brook Capital, with participation from existing investors. Co-founded by CEO Jack Conte and Sam Yam, Patreon provides a membership platform for creators to establish ongoing and predictable monthly revenue through membership. Patreon’s solution is currently used by over 100,000 creators, supported by 3M+ active patrons.

More than 50 multionational companies reportedly pull production out of China due to trade war with the United States. As the trade war between the US and China drags on with no certain end in sight, companies, mostly tech, are no longer sitting around for a resolution. According to a report from CNBC, more than 50 multinational companies including Apple, Nintendo and Dell are rushing to move their production out of China to escape American tariffs. The trade war also seems to be taking a toll on the Chinese economy where growth slowed to its weakest rate in at least 27 years.

Submittable raises $10 million in Series B Funding to accelerate investment in artificial intelligence. Submittable, a Missoula, Montana-based application review and opportunity marketplace, has secured $10 million in Series B funding  to further accelerate ongoing investment in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered matching, review technology and mobile apps connecting more opportunity-seekers with organizations of all sizes. The round was led by Next Coast Ventures with participation from returning investors True Ventures, Next Frontier Capital and Flywheel Ventures. Launched in 2010 and graduated from Y Combinator’s accelerator program, Submittable has allowed over 10,000 organizations to accept, review and rank more than 20 million digital submissions and applications from over three million users.

The US mobile market to grow to $224 billion driven by 5G developments. The United States mobile market is expected to grow to $224 billion by 2024, according to a new report from data analytics firm GlobalData. The increase is due to rise in the adoption of smartphones and emerging 5G technology. “Market penetration and traffic data consumption are set to increase with 97% of the US population expected to own a smartphone by the end of 2024,” Ivan Maldonado, Technology Analyst at GlobalData, said. 5G technologies have been a major focus point for development among the majority of US mobile carriers. This should also drive smartphone sales as 5G-enabled handsets will be needed to use the network. The average smartphone usage per month is estimated to increase from 12GB to 37GB per month in 2019.

Particl Activates RingCT and Bulletproofs to Advance Blockchain Privacy. Particl, the open-source and decentralized privacy platform, has announced the activation of RingCT and Bulletproofs to its mainnet. With this hardfork, Particl’s already rigorous privacy protocol has been strengthened even further, giving users the ability to send completely untraceable currency transactions at a fairly low cost. Originally made popular by the open-source cryptocurrency Monero, the RingCT privacy protocol fully anonymizes the transacting amounts and participants of any transaction made using the protocol and makes financial data mining ineffective. Supported by cryptography, RingCT provides very strong privacy and plausible deniability that is supported by cryptography.

Fitness startup Pivot launches out of stealth with $17 million funding to introduce smart at-home weight training fitness platform. Pivot, a next-generation at-home smart fitness solution startup that is aiming to revolutionize the fitness market space, has secured $17 million in Series A funding led by DCM with participation from Bling Capital, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Signal Fire and Y-Combinator. DCM Partner Kyle Lui will be joining Pivot’s Board of Directors. The funds will be used to expand recruitment across engineering and operations teams as the company prepares for its consumer launch in Fall 2019. Using 3D sensors, Pivot tracks your motion in real time, allowing trainers to provide targeted feedback as you work out. Pivot is the complete hardware and software solution for at-home fitness and has been in the works for the past four years.

Twitch leads live streaming apps with 2.7 billion hours of views. Twitch, the live video streaming app continues its online domination with over 2.7 billion hours of live streaming content, according to the new State of Stream report from StreamElements. The total time spent watching live streams came in at 72.2%, which was 4x more than the hours spent viewing live content on YouTube. Approximately 75% of Twitch’s views went to the top 5,000 streamers on the app (2 billion views). The majority of top five streaming channels were using Twitch to produce videos, monetise and engage users.