Kiran Upadhyay

Everybody expected PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) to be worth more than eBay following its split with its parent company (NASDAQ:EBAY), but not that much. After a short period of trading on a “when issued” basis, PayPal is now officially an independent company. On its first day of trading, shares opened at $41.63, 8.3 percent above Friday’s last temporary closing price before its public introduction. With shares trading at $41.63, it values the company at $50.8 billion, above eBay’s current intraday valuation of $34.5 billion. PayPal shares are now trading at $40.21 minutes after NASDAQ’s opening bell. Shares are still up 4.74 percent even with this small market correction. As a reminder, shortly after PayPal’s first IPO, the company was acquired by eBay in July 2002 for $1.5 billion. The same company is now worth 33 times its last public valuation. Until now, PayPal has managed more than 18 billion transactions and over $1 trillion. It now has 169 million consumers in 200 countries. In

The fallout of the Hacking Team leak is hitting Adobe hard. The leak revealed two unpatched vulnerabilities in the company’s ubiquitous (and ubiquitously disliked) Flash Player. Because it took Adobe a while to patch these, Mozilla decided to block all versions of Flash for Firefox users. Adobe today finally released a patched version of Flash, but Firefox users may have to manually update their Flash installs to get this new version (assuming they actually want to use Flash again). This marks the second time in a week that Adobe had to patch a Flash vulnerability because of the Hacking Team leaks. Read More

This news comes just months after Grooveshark was shut down following a settlement in legal battles against record industry giants UMG, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group. The cause of death is currently unknown; Gainesville Police confirm that there is no evidence of foul play or suicide. Greenberg’s mother told the Gainsville Sun that Josh had no known health problems, and that he was “excited about new potential things.” In a eulogy to his friend, Life360’s Ben Erez writes: I’m sad and shocked but I can’t stop imagining what Josh would say. Probably something very zen like “appreciate me for who I was, mourn my loss, and get back to enjoying life. It’s too short to not. Here’s to Josh Greenberg, true leader, a stand up guy, and one of my favorite people ever. May he rest in peace.” Our thoughts are with Josh, his family, and his friends. Via

Food delivery startup Zesty turned corporate last year and began an office catering program. The startup now plans to go beyond serving in San Francisco and recently pulled in $17 million in Series A funding to do that. Index Ventures led the round, with participation from Founders Fund and previous investor Forerunner Ventures. Zesty raised a healthy $3.7 million in seed money from Y Combinator, SV Angel and others in the spring of 2014. The startup now possesses a total of $20.7 million in venture capital to use for its expansion plans. Zesty differentiates itself from other catering companies like ZeroCater by offering startups in San Francisco with 10-1,000 employees a healthier meal option. The startup brings meals into companies on an agreed-upon schedule and works with individual SF restaurants to ensure there’s no added sugar or MSG in meals. All meals come with a list of ingredients, as well as calories per serving so that those watching their weight or wanting to e

Bolt is a San Francisco-based startup that makes electric motorbikes. The bikes are handmade in a small garage on the edge of town and come with the same type of lithium-ion batteries used in Teslas. Co-founder Nathan Jauvtis grew up riding and assembling motorcycles and bikes, but he really liked the idea of building his own bike – one that would be clean and easy to ride. He started Bolt out of his garage not long ago and just started taking the first orders for these $5,000 vehicles. The price seems steep, considering a brand new Vespa goes for a little less than that, but Jauvtis’ bikes also come with a few key tech innovations that set this bike apart from the rest. The Bolt M-1 is the first Bolt bike off the line. The bike is keyless and can start with a unique passcode or from your smartphone. The Bolt app will locate your vehicle, should any harm come to it. Parents will also enjoy some controls on the app that will allow them to limit the top speed of the bike and keep

\ Witness, the live-streaming app that serves as a panic button for the mobile age, debuted earlier this year at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015 Hackathon, where it eventually went on to win the grand prize. Now the app is live in the App Store for the public to try, allowing users to broadcast their location, audio and video to a pre-defined set of emergency contacts. You can think of Witness as something like a private version of Twitter’s Periscope, for example, combined with a user safety application designed to quickly alert friends or family if you’re in trouble or are in an uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation where you may need help. Created by developer Marinos Bernitsas, who quit his job in algorithmic trading in New York to focus on his passion for building mobile apps, Witness was originally designed for those who are in high-risk situations – like when you’re walking home alone at night through unknown or unsafe areas. But the app also resonated with the

We’ve seen bike helmets with integrated front and back lights before. But Boston-based hardware startup Lumos is hoping to go one better by packing a front light, wireless indicator lights and an accelerometer-powered backlight into an otherwise pretty standard-looking cycle helmet. Rechargeable battery included. The team has just pressed play on a Kickstarter campaign, aiming to raise $125,000 in crowdfunding to turn their current prototype into a shipping product starting from April next year. Thus far they’ve been mostly been bootstrapping development, raising a small round at the end of last year from friends, family and a few angels. “There are currently no bike helmets in the market that feature integrated brake and turn signal lights. Lumos will be the first to do this,” says co-founder Eu-wen Ding, when asked what’s new here. “This is a huge distinctive feature that will help cyclists more effectively communicate their intentions to people around them.” He also points