Top tech startup news stories you need to know this Friday, March 9

Good morning! Here are some of the top tech startup news stories today Friday, March 9.

Co-living Startup HubHaus Raises $10 Million To Take The Hassle Out Of Finding Roommates. HubHaus announced yesterday that it has raised a Series A round of $10 million in funding from Social Capital, bringing its total funding to around $11.5 million to expand beyond California. Two years after launch, the company now has more than 400 people living in 70 properties throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Founded in early 2016 to solve the challenges of co-living management and make it easy for professionals to find community in shared housing.

$9 billion Stripe just bought a payments startup backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s venture-capital firm, Innovation Endeavors. Stripe, the $9 billion payments processing startup, has acquired point-of-sale (POS) software developer Index. According to Business Insider, Index’s software will be integrated with Stripe’s offerings, allowing customers’ physical and digital payments data to be stored in one place. The integration will allow Stripe to focus on signing on larger companies that also have deep pockets.

Bowery Valuation has raised $5 million to automate the clunky real estate appraisal process. Commercial appraisal startup, Bowery Valuation, has raised $5 million in seed funding, including from Cushman & Wakefield, to bring commercial real estate appraisals into the digital age. Commercial real estate appraisal is currently an $8 billion market.

Overstock Venture subsidiary invests $3 million in blockchain payments startup, Bitt.  Bitt, a Barbados-based blockchain payment startup, has announced a $3 million investment from Overstock’s venture capital subsidiary, Medici Ventures. As part of the new deal, Medici Ventures has agreed to buy additional 8.6 percent stake in Bitt, following a previous $4 million invested by the blockchain VC firm in 2016.

Tesla and Uber lose top executives. The two companies lost the chief accounting officer and its chief controller left in the same week. The company lost its chief financial officer last year. Over at Uber, the head of product is heading for the exits. However, the ride-hailing company had a replacement lined up: Amazon Vice President Assaf Ronen.

Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator’s first Bristol-based cohort pitch to top UK investors.  Four startups from Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator‘s (Oracle SCA) first-ever cohort pitched to a room full of senior leaders and influencers in tech, top UK investors and entrepreneurs in Bristol yesterday.

UK’s banking startup BABB raises $20m for blockchain banking accounts. Bank Account Based Blockchain (BABB), a UK-based blockchain banking startup, has raised $20m in its initial coin offering (ICO) to launch a blockchain banking accounts by the end of this year.

Home-automation startup Picostone is reinventing switchboards, remotes. India-based home-automation startup Picostone Technology Pvt. Ltd has rolled out two smart home devices, Basic and Polar, that aim to kill all switchboards and remotes. The Wi-Fi-capable Basic replace the need to physically manipulate the switches by sitting behind the switchboard and letting the user control.

Waymo and Google launch a self-driving truck pilot in Atlanta. Waymo just announced on Medium today that it’s launching a self-driving truck pilot starting next week. “Waymo will launch a pilot in Atlanta where our self-driving trucks will carry cargo bound for Google’s data centers,” the company said

New beauty startup called PRÊTE gives you access unlimited blowouts from best salons in your city. PRÊTE is a new beauty startup with a membership-based app where you get access to unlimited blowouts from salons in your city. All you have to do is to download the app from the app store and have access to the best salons. The idea is similar to ClassPass or HotelTonight for blowouts. The startup just launched in New York City this week.