Daily Crunch - Taboola acquires Outbrain

Happy Thursday

The two big content recommendation companies consolidate, Microsoft unveils a whole bunch of new hardware and startups take the stage at Disrupt SF.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for October 3, 2019.

Publisher adtech startups Taboola and Outbrain merge in $850M deal to take on Google and Facebook

The content recommendation rivals — who are, shall we say, not exactly known for the high quality of their recommendations — are merging to form a single company.

While the companies describe the deal as a merger, the combined entity will be called Taboola, with Taboola’s founder Adam Singolda securing the CEO slot. Further, Taboola is paying Outbrain investors $250 million in cash plus a 30% share of the combined companies.

Read more

Introducing Brex Cash: The cash management account that earns rewards.

Sponsored by BREX

Setting up a business operating account for your startup shouldn’t be hard. That’s why we built Brex Cash, the cash account that earns you both returns on your money and rewards points on every wire payment and ACH you make - all with zero transaction fees.

Read more

Here’s everything Microsoft announced at today’s Surface event

Most of the rumors panned out: There was a new version of the Surface Laptop, including the addition of a USB C port and a 15-inch model. The Surface Pro got a USB C port as well, along with improved studio microphones. And there’s the new Surface Pro X, which finds the company utilizing Microsoft’s new SQ1 chip.

Read more

Introducing the Startup Battlefield companies at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019

This year’s batch covers rapid cholera detection, developer tools, strawberry-picking robots, regulatory monitoring and more.

Read more

Uber launches a shift-work finder app, Uber Works, starting in Chicago

This is a new app for matching = workers with shifts, called Uber Works. The app does this matching in partnership with staffing agencies, and it offers workers the carrot of more timely payments.

Read more

Will Smith just dropped $10K on a startup that pitched him onstage at Disrupt

It’s true: I interviewed Will Smith and Ang Lee about their new movie “Gemini Man,” and it turned into a mini-startup pitch competition.

Read more

In a new filing, the venture firm Mithril Capital says it has been under assault by its former general counsel

The firm has been characterized in news reports by Recode as being in a complete state of disarray — and, more recently, for reportedly being investigated by the FBI for financial misconduct. Mithril is now drawing a line from those stories to former employee Crystal McKellar.

Read more

How Bongo, the ‘Netflix of Bangladesh,’ won the local video streaming market with just $10M

The on-demand video service began life as a channel on YouTube in 2014 before expanding as a standalone app to users a year later. Now, of the 96 million people in Bangladesh who are online today, 75 million of them are subscribed to either Bongo’s YouTube channel or to its app. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

Read more

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.