A lot of promising companies come out of work by researchers at universities, or even grad students who have struck on some new innovation. But the transition from tech-focused research group to product-focused startup isn’t easy to make; fortunately three experts in the matter joined us at TC Sessions: Robotics to discuss a few ways
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The big news of the morning is that Amazon is buying One Medical, a previously venture-backed consumer healthcare company with a technology twist, in an all-cash deal worth $3.9 billion inclusive of debt. The announcement follows recent reporting that One Medical was in play. Seeing One Medical taken off the table, then, is not a
In April, startup accelerator Techstars, in partnership with ARM Labs, a Lagos-based innovation program focusing on fintech startups, announced the launch of ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator Program. As Techstars’ newest accelerator program in Africa, the announcement re-emphasized the expansion plans Techstars touted when it hired Maëlle Gavet as CEO last January. The Lagos accelerator adds to
Facebook-parent Meta, which counts India as its largest market by users, is gearing up to make its third startup investment in the South Asian market. The American social media group, which invested in social commerce Meesho in 2019 and online learning platform Unacademy in 2020, is in talks to back the early-stage startup Better Opinions,
The UK’s App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) staged a 24-hour strike Wednesday to demand Uber be held accountable for the findings of the Uber files, a trove of thousands of leaked confidential documents that show how the ride-hail company broke laws, secretly lobbied governments and exploited driver safety to expand aggressively from 2013 to
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Well hello again! It’s Thursday — heat waves are heat wavin’, and all of TechCrunch is psyched about a fun and engaging Robotics event today. That’s not all that’s happening, though. We’ve
Startup founders and laid-off tech workers know all too well about the funding slowdown of 2022, but the boom times aren’t over for everyone. U.S. venture firms in particular are amassing more cash than ever, and Menlo Ventures is perpetuating the trend. The 46-year-old Bay Area firm, known for its early bets on companies like
Tesla suppliers traveling from Nuevo León, Mexico, to Texas now have their very own dedicated border patrol lane. Elon Musk’s electric car company, which recently relocated its headquarters from Fremont, California, to Austin, has struck a deal with the “pro-business” Mexican state to allow express access for Tesla and its suppliers at the Colombia Solidarity
“Buy now, pay later” (BNPL) startups have gained traction by targeting consumers, but BNPLs for businesses are also starting to take off. One example is Fairbanc, which is based in Singapore but focused on Indonesia. It allows small businesses to take out short-term credit to purchase fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) inventory. Fairbanc announced today it
Fonoa, a tax automation platform used by companies such as Uber and Zoom, has raised $60 million in a series B round of funding. Founded out of Dublin, Ireland, in 2019, Fonoa targets digital services companies that operate globally, automating many of the processes involved in managing sales tax, VAT, and goods and service tax
Robots have always found it a challenge to work with people and vice versa. Two people on the cutting edge of improving that relationship joined us for TC Sessions: Robotics to talk about the present and future of human-robot interaction: Veo Robotics co-founder Clara Vu and Robust.ai founder Rod Brooks (formerly of iRobot and Rethink
It’s probably hyperbole to credit Google’s Pixel A devices for single-handedly keeping the broader line alive during some admittedly lean times. Let’s be honest, much of that goes to Google’s very deep pockets — when you’re one of the world’s largest companies, what’s a little sunk-cost fallacy between friends? The budget devices have, however, been
Digit, the bipedal robot developed by Agility Robotics, will continue to evolve and improve, including the addition of a head and some digits of its very own, according to co-founders Damion Shelton and Jonathan Hurst. Just don’t expect Digit to talk or have digits that look like human hands. Digit, which was introduced in 2019,
Livestream shopping in the United States has a ways to go to catch up with China’s booming $600 billion industry, but Whatnot’s new $260 million Series D round shows that shoppers stateside are increasingly embracing this way of buying and selling items. The new investment was co-led by DST Global and returning investor CapitalG, and
On Tuesday, I covered Arkive’s $9.7 million funding round, a startup that is trying to answer the question: “What if the Smithsonian was owned and curated by the internet?” The company’s founder and CEO Tom McLeod was gracious enough to let me take a closer look at the pitch deck he used to raise their
For a long-time, distributed work for VCs looked like a split-HQ between two cities in different parts of the world. Now, it may look like “the cloud.” Andreessen Horowitz, a venture firm turned registered investment advisor, says that its “headquarters will be in the cloud” going forward, according to a blog post written by founding
Just Eat Takeaway is cutting 390 jobs from its workforce in France, constituting part of a broader global restructuring effort as the food delivery giant looks to reverse its recent downturn. Just Eat Takeaway is the result of a $7.6 billion merger between the U.K.’s Just East and Dutch rival Takeaway.com back in 2020. Shortly
Factors like latency, bandwidth, security and privacy are driving the adoption of edge computing, which aims to process data closer to where it’s being generated. Consider a temperature sensor in a shipyard or a fleet of cameras in a fulfillment center. Normally, the data from them might have to be relayed to a server for
The idea of starting Healthie, a software company meant to help healthcare companies and startups handle back-office operations, came to co-founder Erica Jain after witnessing her parents struggle with weight loss but lack of access to a comprehensive care team. “What Healthie is building is akin to the way that Stripe changed the way e-commerce
Prerna A Jhunjhunwala and Nikhil Naik, founders of Creative Galileo People who work with kids know how difficult it is to keep them engaged with online learning content. Creative Galileo keeps children hooked by adding in their favorite cartoon characters. The Singapore-based edtech platform announced today that it has raised $7.5 million in Series A
After spending years in London, matching Kenyans in the diaspora with investment opportunities back home, and later on as a credit portfolio manager at Barclays bank, Njeri Muhia sought a greater challenge within Africa. Already aware of the growing startup ecosystem in the continent and the funding gaps that local founders face, she teamed up
Karti Chidambaram, an Indian lawmaker, has called for an investigation into the finances of Byju’s, the country’s most valuable startup, for not submitting its statements for the financial year that ended in March 2021, which he alleged violates a local law, and other “loopholes.” Chidambaram, a Member of Parliament for Sivaganga in the Lok Sabha,
Urban, a popular UK-based startup that allows customers to find self-employed massage therapists who can be booked to attend customers’ homes, has been named in an investigation into alleged abuse by unlicensed freelance therapists. The startup has raised $35.7M from investors that include the likes of Felix Capital, Passion Capital, the London Co-Investment Fund, angels from
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Oh hey, and welcome to the Daily Crunch for Wednesday! Today, the whole office is proverbially abuzz with robotics. Proverbially, because we’re not sure we actually have an office at this point,
While the pandemic prompted companies to digitize much of the way they do business, not every brand made the pivot successfully. In some cases, it cost them dearly. According to Couchbase, enterprises wasted on average $4.12 million on failed, delayed or scaled-back projects in 2020. The same survey found that over four-fifths of companies —
Tesla plans to increase the price of its branded “full self-driving” beta software, the advanced driver assistance system that CEO Elon Musk has said will mean the difference between the company “being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.” Tesla vehicles today come standard with its driver assistance system called Autopilot. For an
Tesla’s mythical solar roofs may be on ice right now, but its conventional solar business is a whole ‘nother story. This afternoon, the automaker said the division notched its “strongest” quarter in more than four years, with a total of 106 megawatts deployed in Q2 2022. “Although we continue to experience import delays beyond our
Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant that has plowed money into AI and autonomous vehicle technology, unveiled Wednesday a new all-electric robotaxi that it plans to deploy at scale across China. Baidu will add the Apollo RT6 EV – a cross between an SUV and a minivan that comes with a detachable steering wheel –
Apparently not, if venture capital activity on the continent is any indication Alex Wilhelm Anna Heim 14 hours Did no one tell European venture capitalists and startup founders that we’re supposed to be on the cusp of a global recession? With startups and VCs all heralding the doom of investment activity across the world, you’d think a
Yamin Durrani Contributor The past couple of years were all about huge valuations and less about needing to prove peak operational efficiency across the entire business. Even if you didn’t experience this first-hand as a startup founder or employee, the sheer amount of funding dispersed just last year proves my point. This year’s a bit