Smart diabetes management service Livongo Health raises $52.5M and looks to new markets

 Glen Tullman doesn’t like it when someone tells him he’s sick when he’s feeling fine. It’s something he thinks his customers probably don’t want to hear, either. Tullman runs a startup called Livongo Health, which offers a blood glucose monitor accompanied with a service designed to intervene and help coach people through managing diabetes. Livongo Health helps… Read More

Microsoft Teams: better than Slack in almost every way, as long as you pay

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joins Microsoft’s board

 LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman announced today that he’s joined the board of directors at Microsoft. This follows Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn last year. When the deal closed, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said the company’s day-to-day operations would “essentially remain unchanged,” but he also noted a number of areas (like integrating… Read More

Teams, Microsoft’s Slack rival, opens to all Office 365 users

 After unveiling a limited preview of Teams in November last year, Microsoft is now rolling out its collaboration and communication platform, positioned as a rival to Slack, more widely: Teams is now available, and free, for all 85 million monthly active users of Office 365, Microsoft’s suite of cloud services and apps as a web app and native apps for Windows, iOS and Android. Read More

Zenefits founder Parker Conrad takes another crack at HR onboarding

 Parker Conrad’s last venture at Zenefits didn’t end so well with his departure as CEO and the company having to re-orient itself. But he’s once again starting a company that will figure out how to build an employee system of record and management, starting off with smoothing out the process of on-boarding employees and focusing on other major life events for those… Read More

Baker raises $3.5 million to become a “Salesforce for pot”

 As the legal cannabis industry grows in the U.S., competition for customers is heating up. Now, a startup called Baker Technologies Inc. has raised $3.5 million to become a “salesforce for pot.” Investors in the new round included Michael Lazerow, Base Ventures, XG Ventures, Poseidon Asset Management, Phyto Partners, the founders of Outside Lands, and several other angel… Read More

Identity management software provider Okta files for today’s second $100M IPO

 It looks like Snap’s (at least perceived) successful IPO has officially opened the window: following Yext officially filing for an IPO this afternoon, identity management software company Okta just dropped its official filing for an IPO. After much hand-wringing about whether or not 2017 would avoid last year’s fate of an IPO drought, we’ve seen three IPOs all within the span… Read More