Apps

A crop of Asian startups are working to change the commercial landscape by offering apps that let individuals buy and sell goods directly from one another more easily than on traditional Web-based sites.

Snapchat Inc. has raised $175 million in fresh funding from Fidelity Investments, valuing the messaging company at the same $16 billion valuation from one year ago, a person familiar with the matter said.

A Brazilian court ordered the release of a senior Facebook executive a day after police arrested him in response to the company’s failure to provide access to WhatsApp messages linked to an organized-crime and drug-trafficking investigation.

A top executive from Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea’s dominant mobile messaging service, says the company is considering charging for some uses of its taxi-hailing service in its home market.

Didi Kuaidi Joint Co. is planning to raise about $1 billion from investors on terms that would value the Chinese car-hailing company at more than $20 billion, according to people familiar with the situation.

Company’s CEO explains why he thinks eventually all organizations will use this kind of messaging app.

Investors in India’s tech startups are becoming more discerning and tightfisted. As a result, startups raised $959 million in the final three months of 2015, roughly half of what they raised in the last quarter of the previous year.

Taxi drivers blocked access to main roads in the French capital and clashed with riot police, as they went on strike to demand further restrictions on the business of car-hailing apps such as Uber Technologies Inc.

As Apple CEO Tim Cook prepares to release quarterly results after the close Tuesday, investors focus on the iPhone’s prospects in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market.

Lumos Labs will pay $2 million to the FTC to settle allegations that it “deceived consumers with unfounded claims” in its advertising.