Earlier this week DiDi Chuxing and SoftBank plowed $2 billion into Grab, the largest ride-hailing company in Southeast Asia, valuing it at around $6bn. “Markets everywhere are still at infancy stage with…
Cape Town is Battling its Nation’s Economic Woes to Become Africa’s Tech Capital
South Africa is suffering an economic crisis. Growth has slowed to 0.3%, its slowest since 2009, and unemployment is at a 14-year high of 27.7%. Manufacturing and agricultural job markets have shrunk.…
Can SoundCloud Suddenly Find a Revenue Stream? Probably Not
Alex Ljung, SoundCloud’s embattled CEO, has struck an odd chord in recent days. The empire he built from scratch in 2008 is collapsing around him: Last week the Berlin-headquartered streaming service fired…
DocuSign’s Signature Growth
Technology is making the world smaller. In our personal lives, we can speak face-to-face with people on the other side of the planet, we can share data and files with friends and…
Payments, Bureaucracy and Brain Drains: Cairo Stands at a Startup Crossroads
When Willie Elamien first showed up in Cairo in 2014, the city’s startup scene was very different than it is now. There was hardly any government support. People rarely saw entrepreneurialism as…
Esports are at an Inflection of Digital Media and Modern Culture
Last Friday Red Herring attended the ESL One esports event in Cologne, Germany. Thousands packed out the city’s Lanxess Arena, roaring whenever an impressive kill was made during the three-day Counter Strike: Global Offensive…
Istanbul Continues to Grow as a Global Startup Hub – Despite its Sultan’s Power Grab
These are strange times in Turkey. In 2015 President Recep Tayyip Erdogan barely clung onto power in an unconvincing election victory, just two years after popular protesters swept through Turkey from Istanbul’s…
Jalisco’s Tech Boom: “The New US Government is Helping Mexico”
Read the daily news and you’d be forgiven for thinking US-Mexico relations are at a nadir. When it comes to some sectors, however, that isn’t the case. Jalisco State, on Mexico’s Pacific…
Silicon Valley’s Bro Culture: More Female Venture Capitalists, Fewer Empty Apologies
Last week it was Travis Kalanick, today it’s Justin Caldbeck, the Binary Capital investor who resigned after six women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment–most of which occurred in the context of…
Yesss! How Axel and Boris Aren’t Your Average German Tech Investors
According to Axel and Boris’ LinkedIn account (they share one), they are based in Berlin, Copenhagen, Liechtenstein, Stockholm and Monterrey. Neither are they merely entrepreneurs, but ‘visionaries’, keen to inject their particular…