Top tech startup news stories you need to know this Thursday, May 24

Good morning! Here are some of the top tech startup news stories for today, Thursday, May 24.

Coinbase buys Ethereum startup Paradex, rebrands GDAX as Coinbase Pro. Heavily funded cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has purchased Ethereum startup Paradex for undisclosed terms, in a deal announced today. After raising more than $225 million from Graylock Partners and others, the U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange that helps connect more than 20 million cryptocurrency buyers and sellers plans to use Paradex to provide a new batch of services. With the acquisition, Coinbase announced Wednesday that it is launching a new version of its GDAX platform called Coinbase Pro. Paradex.io website displays a message that it has  been acquired by Coinbase.

Impossible Foods is a new startup wants to help the planet with meatless burgers.  Impossible Foods is a California-based startup that wants to bring fake meat to the masses. Its signature product, the Impossible Burger, is made with ingredients including wheat, potatoes and coconut oil. Founded in 2011, the startup now supplies meatless products to more than 1,500 restaurants in the United States and for the first time last month, the company expanded into Hong Kong.

Ex-Coinbase employee Preethi Kasireddy’s startup TruStory, raised $3 million to identify ICO scams before they happen. Los Angeles-based TruStory, a stealth-mode startup led by Preethi Kasireddy, has raised $3M in a seed funding round to help vet information on cryptocurrency and other areas, the company disclosed on Wednesday. The seed funding was led by True Ventures with participation from other investors. Kasireddy–a blockchain engineer, previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Andreessen Horowitz–left Silicon Valley for Los Angeles last year. TruStory is a platform for users to discover and validate claims that people make online, whether in a blog post, whitepaper, website, or social media post.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly opens criminal investigation into bitcoin price manipulation. DOJ has opened a criminal probe into the possibility that traders are manipulating the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to a report from Bloomberg. The price of bitcoin fell on the news to $7,339, and was down more than 6 percent, according to bitcoin exchange Coinbase. The investigation is still in early stages but people familiar with the story said that, the probe is aimed at disclosing illegal practices that can affect prices, which include flooding or spoofing the market with fraud orders to deceive other traders into selling or buying.

Sustainable startup TreeHouse raise $7.5 million in equity funding from investors. TreeHouse has raised an additional $7.5 million, almost exactly one year after raising $7.6 million from investors. The funding was disclosed as part of SEC filing with the state. The environmentally friendly home improvement store chain scored about $2.4 million in April. CEO Jason Ballard started TreeHouse in 2011 in the Westgate Shopping Center in South Austin.

Facebook users worldwide are being asked to review their privacy settings as GDPR looms.  The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe will come into force on May 25 2018. It changes how businesses and public sector organisations can handle the information of their customers customers. To that effect, Facebook is telling all users to review their privacy settings, including information they share on their profiles and facial recognition preferences. The alert is related to a European regulation called GDPR that gives users more control over what personal data is shared through online platforms.

Uber finally made a profit, sort of. The ride-hailing unicorn startup reported a profit of $2.5 billion profit during the first three months of this year, technically. However, the profit was after accounting for the value of selling its Southeast Asian business to Grab and its Russian business to Yandex. But it’s a different story without those windfalls. Without these sales, Uber had a loss of $312 million before interest, taxes and other expenses in the quarter, cutting those losses in half compared to the first three months of 2017.

Tencent leads $50m round in content aggregator app NewsDog. NewsDog, a startup that claims to be India’s smartest news and media app, has raised a whopping $50m investment led by Chinese internet giant Tencent with participation from California-based venture capital firm DHVC, Chinese VC company Legend Capital.  Hong Kong-based app developer Dotc United Group also participated in the funding round.

Careem the ride-hailing app and Uber’s Middle East ‘in talks to raise $500 million. Careem, the ride-hailing app which operates across the Middle East, is reportedly looking to raise $500m in funding. According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the company is in talks with investors to raise the money as a precursor to a possible initial public offering (IPO). The round could value Careem at as much as $1.5 billion.