Daily Crunch: Dropbox acquires HelloSign

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1. Dropbox snares HelloSign for $230M, gets workflow and e-signature

Dropbox’s SVP of engineering Quentin Clark sees this as more than simply bolting on electronic signature functionality to the Dropbox solution. For him, the workflow capabilities that HelloSign added in 2017 were key to the purchase.

“What is unique about HelloSign is that the investment they’ve made in APIs and the workflow products is really so aligned with our long-term direction,” Clark said. “It’s not just a thing to do one more activity with Dropbox, it’s really going to help us pursue that broader vision.”

2. Google and IAB ad category lists show ‘massive leakage of highly intimate data,’ GDPR complaint claims

The complaint — lodged last fall by Dr. Johnny Ryan of private browser Brave; Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group; and Michael Veale, a data and policy researcher at University College London — alleges “wide-scale and systemic breaches of the data protection regime by Google and others” in the behavioral advertising industry.

3. Too few cybersecurity professionals is a gigantic problem for 2019

That’s according to Robert Ackerman Jr., founder and a managing director of AllegisCyber, an early-stage cybersecurity venture firm.

4. Naspers takes full control of Russian classifieds site Avito in $1.16B deal

South African internet conglomerate Naspers is best known for backing Chinese tech giant Tencent, but it also operates a vast network of online classifieds businesses. That network just got a little larger.

5. Contentsquare, the digital experience insights platform, raises $60M Series C

Contentsquare offers cloud-based software that helps businesses understand how and why users are interacting with their app, mobile and web sites.

6. Scribd has more than 1M paying subscribers

The company also says it’s been profitable since early in 2017, and that it’s currently bringing in $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

7. It’s not Monday without a TechCrunch podcast roundup

This week, the Equity team covers the latest news from scooter startups, while Original Content reviews the dueling Fyre Festival documentaries and Mixtape talks to the team at #builtbygirls.