Top startup news for today, Thursday, January 17, 2019

Good morning! Here are some of the top technology startup news stories for today, Thursday, January 17.

Co-working marketplace startup Truss bags $15 million in Series A-2 funding. Truss, a marketplace for office, coworking, retail and industrial leases for small businesses, has raised $15 million in Series A-2 funding to expand into more markets and grow its team. The round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Navitas Capital, Hyde Park Angels, Hyde Park Venture Partners and Jeff Boyd, former CEO of Priceline and managing director of Brothers Brook. Robert “Bob” Mylod, former Priceline executive and Redfin’s chairman, will join the board of directors. Founded in 2016 by Andrew Bokor, Bobby Goodman, Marshall Hudes, and Thomas L. Smith, Truss helps small and medium sized business owners find, tour and lease space. Truss provides small and medium businesses with a marketplace to find, lease and tour office, industrial and retail space. The business owner can search for the space from their own computers or mobile devices. Truss, which also offers dedicated brokers who act as the point person throughout the process, manages more than 300 million square feet in Chicago, Boston, South Florida, D.C., Maryland, Northern Virginia, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.

Tesla launches the first home charging station that can be mounted or plugged into a wall outlet; priced at $500. As we reported yesterday, Tesla unveiled a new Wall Connector, a home and office charging solution with an existing NEMA 14-50 outlet. The new Wall Connector offers a 25 percent faster charge compared to the Gen 2 Mobile Connector, according to information on the product information page. The Connector uses an existing NEMA 14-50 outlet for an easy installation. No electrician required. You simply mount your Wall Connector to a wall or post and plug in.

Global communications platform startup Lionbridge Acquires Japan’s Gengo. Lionbridge, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based global communications platform startup has acquired Japan’s edge technology startup Gengo for an undisclosed sum. Based in Tokyo, Japan and founded in 2008, Gengo is a global, people-powered translation platform enabling everyone to read and publish across languages. It provides crowdsourcing, machine learning and localization services to global customers. Led by John Fennelly, CEO, Lionbridge leverages 500,000 linguistic experts to enable largest companies to expand their businesses on the global stage by providing machine learning data to make their platforms and products smarter and create content for a variety of industries.

Israeli startup Foretellix bags $14 million Series A to enable safe autonomous vehicles with its GigaScale intelligent verification. Fortellix is a Tel-Aviv, Israel-based startup addressing the very large ‘GigaScale’ challenge of verifying autonomous vehicles, has completed a $14 million Series A funding to accelerate the development, customer programs and deployment of its coverage driven verification solution. The company has now raised over $16 million since inception. Founded in 2017 by Yoav Hollander, Foretellix is developing a comprehensive verification framework for Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS), with an emphasis on Autonomous Vehicles (AVs).

Entertainment-focused streaming TV service Philo to launch a co-viewing feature for watching with friends. Philo, a San Francisco, California-based startup that offers an entertainment-focused streaming service nationwide, launches a new feature that will allow viewers to watch shows together in real-time. according to a report from TechCrunch. Inspired by Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of electronic television, Philo was created to build a better TV experience. Philo provides live TV & on-demand with unlimited recording. Philo started in the college market as a laboratory for creating a next-generation TV platform. Backers include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Rho Ventures, Xfund, Home Box Office Inc. (HBO), Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments, WME, and CBC New Media Group. Philo charges its subscribers $16 per month for 43 entertainment and lifestyle channels. Larger bundle with 56 channels will set you back for just $20.

Coinbase acquires API data management startup Blockspring. Currently valued at $8 billion, Coinbase announced today it has acquired API data management startup Blockspring for an undisclosed amount. Under the acquisition agreement, Blockspring will still remain as a separate independent company. Blockspring made the the announcement this week on its blog page. Coinbase has since confirmed the deal. “Today, we want to share some news about the next chapter for Blockspring – the Blockspring team is joining Coinbase. Importantly, Blockspring will continue to operate as an independent company and our products will continue to operate for current and new customers as they always have,” Blockspring said. The company further noted: “Joining Coinbase was a no-brainer for a number reasons including its commitment to establishing an open financial system and the strength of its engineering team, led by Tim Wagner (formerly of AWS Lambda).”