THE NEWS WRAP: Early-stage investor 500 Startups teams with SeedInvest for new $100 million public raising fund

Early-stage investor and accelerator 500 Startups is using public fundraising for a new $100 million fund.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the firm has joined with New York-based online investment platform SeedInvest to facilitate public fundraising.

500 Startups will use SeedInvest’s technology to run a website, 500.co/invest, where interested accredited investors can review the firm’s public statements, make their interest known and put their money into the new fund without a lot of paperwork.

Apple rumoured to be working on mainstream smart home hardware

The tech giant is said to be eyeing smart home hardware as another category for continued growth.

According to a report by 9to5 Mac, Apple is said to have assembled a team to work on various hardware products for the home that deeply integrate with the existing array of Apple devices on the market.

Apple is said to be beyond the exploratory phase of development.

Google begins removing search results following court ruling

The tech giant has begun removing results from its search engine under Europe’s new right to be forgotten laws, in line with a decision made by the European Union’s top court which gives individuals the right to request removal of results that turn up in internet searches for their own names.

The company has a dedicated removals team to evaluate each request.

So far only a small amount of the initial 41,000 requests have been processed.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 21.38 to 16,846.13. The Australian dollar is currently trading at US94 cents.