Medical diagnostics company Visby Medical raised $100 million in a Series E round earlier this year. Today, the company told me it extended that round by an additional $35 million at the same valuation as the rest of the round. This financing will enable Visby Medical to scale production capacity from tens to hundreds of
admin
Stacks of teeny lenses that look like inverted pyramids could juice up solar panels, helping them capture more light from any angle on both sunny and overcast days. Solar panels perform best in direct sunlight, which is why some solar systems track the big fireball across the sky, turning to face it for maximum light.
The future of non-fungible tokens is getting more clarity in China as the country’s tech giants come together to formulate standards for the nascent industry. The China Cultural Industry Association, along with Tencent, Ant Group, Baidu, and others, jointly issued a “self-disciplined development proposal” for the “digital collectible industry,” a rebranded term for NFT in
Fleetzero has an ambitious goal: to compete with global shipping companies with its own boats, powered entirely by electricity. The company just secured $15.5 million in new funding and is looking for the first ship to convert to run on its shipping container-shaped batteries. The company’s plan, described in detail here, is to convert existing
TaskHuman, a professional development platform focused on coaching, today announced that it raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Madrona with participation from Impact Venture Capital, RingCentral Ventures, Sure Ventures, USVP, Gaingels, PeopleTech Angels, Propel(x) and Zoom Ventures. The latest infusion brings the company’s total raised to $35 million, which CEO Ravi Swaminathan
Jonathan Martinez Contributor Jonathan Martinez is a former YouTuber, UC Berkeley alum and growth marketing nerd who’s helped scale Uber, Postmates, Chime and various startups. More posts by this contributor How to improve retention, growth marketing’s golden metric When and how to hire your startup’s first growth marketer If you search for “growth marketing” roles
Equity service platform Carta has acquired Vauban, an online platform that helps investors back private companies from end to end. As first reported by The Information, the deal was framed by Carta as a way to support investors of all sizes, from the sub-million-dollar level into the billions of dollars worth of dry powder. Carta
Welp. Three straight weeks of work travel amid a seemingly endless pandemic finally caught up with me. Forgive me, as I’m writing this under the influence of green tea and antivirals, so thank you in advance to the regularly Herculean efforts of our copy editor, David. Apparently the old adage of things happening in Vegas
Everyone’s favorite versatile microcontroller maker, Raspberry Pi, just unveiled a handful of new, budget-minded products. The company is building on the success of its $4 Pico board, which has thus far moved just under two million units since its January 2021 launch. The new Pico W is launching today for $6 — the “W” (and
Five years ago, the European Union passed rules which largely ended mobile roaming fees for citizens traveling with their devices across borders within the bloc. Today lawmakers are reupping the regulation that lets EU citizens “roam like at home” for a full decade, meaning European consumers can keep avoiding most extra fees when travelling within
Google today announced an update to its password manager that will finally introduce a consistent look-and-feel across the service’s Chrome and Android implementations. Users will soon see a new unified user experience that will automatically group multiple passwords for the same sites or apps together, as well as a new shortcut on the Android home
Solana Labs Co-Founder Anatoly Yakovenko joins Emily Chang to discuss their announcement of a new Web3-focused Android mobile phone Saga, along with an open source software toolkit, Solana Mobile Stack; and how they want to take on phone and app ecosystem giants like Apple and Google.
Mottu, a São Paulo-based motorcycle rental startup, has raised $30 million in equity in a Series B round of funding. The company, which aims to give independent couriers a way to work for logistics and food delivery apps, also secured $10 million in debt financing. Most, if not all, the workers have little to no,
Aiming to compete with Bilt in the nascent property renter rewards market, Stake, a startup that provides cash back and banking services to renters, today announced that it raised $12 million in a Series A round led by RET Ventures’ new RET Ventures ESG Fund. Enterprise Community Partners, Hometeam Ventures, Operator Stack, Shadow Ventures, Olive
Storytelling platform Wattpad is introducing a new creator program for writers that can earn them up to $25,000 in compensation. The company is also debuting a new metric called “Engaged Readers,” to help writers gauge readers’ interest in their stories, and Wattpad Creator Portal, a new site for writers to get tips and tricks about
On April 4, the U.K.’s development finance institution, Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) Group, formally changed its name to British International Investment. As part of the name change, the development finance institution (DFI) announced that it surpassed its pledge to invest £2 billion in Africa over the last two years. It was a reminder of the
The U.K. is planning to tweak an existing law to allow text and data mining “for any purpose,” in a move that’s designed to boost artificial intelligence (AI) development across the country. The announcement constitutes part of a broader strategy to “level up” AI and transform the U.K. into what it calls a “global AI
Most Americans dread doing their taxes. Surveys show as much. But as many as 40% rely on money from tax refunds to satisfy some financial obligation. Ben Borodach, a former Deloitte fintech strategist and the CEO of tax service provider April, believes this points to the need for taxpayers to change their behavior from thinking
Alex Song Contributor Alex Song is the CEO and co-founder of Proxima, a data science company that helps brands better reach consumers across all major platforms. More posts by this contributor Why D2C holding companies are here to stay Every day, the advertising world faces new challenges and opportunities. New platforms, mediums, M&A activity, privacy
New data indicates that startups are laying off more staff. That said, the pace of layoffs is modest compared with the early-2020 economic correction. As COVID locked down many nations for the first time, the global economy shuddered and startups were left to deal with an immensely changed world effectively overnight. Layoffs at companies like
Very soon, humanity will get to view the deepest images of the universe that have ever been captured. In two weeks, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — NASA’s super expensive, super powerful deep space optical imager — will release its first full-color images, and agency officials today suggested that they could just
AlgiKnit is on a mission to offer more environmentally conscious materials for the heavily polluting fashion and textile industries. The startup is developing materials from seaweeds such as Macrocystis Pyrifera, one of the planet’s most renewable and regenerative organisms, creating yarns and fibers that don’t rely on petroleum or toxic chemicals. Aleks Gosiewski, Aaron Nesser
Y Combinator has announced Launch YC, a platform where people can sort accelerator startups by industry, batch and launch date to discover new products. The famed accelerator, which has seeded the likes of Instacart, Coinbase, OpenSea and Dropbox, invites users to vote for newly launched startups “to help them climb up the leaderboard, try out
Consumer rights groups in Europe have filed a new series of privacy complaints against Google — accusing the advertising giant of deceptive design around the account creation process which they say steers users into agreeing to extensive and invasive processing of their data. The tech giant profiles account holders for ad targeting purposes — apparently
If data is at the heart of any modern business, it needs to be easier to access and manipulate it without expertise. While there are many data analysis tools available including the sophisticated data science variety, and more line of business-focused BI tools, it hasn’t been easy for a person with little experience to work
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: What are my F-1
There is a moment from around April 2021 that Pilar Johnson thinks about often. She was scared and nervous. The Houston native grew up in a low-income neighborhood and had no experience in venture capital. As she waded into the industry, imposter syndrome frequently crept in. Then, she and her team at Debut Capital raised
Pokémon Go developer Niantic is running into trouble as it builds “the real-world metaverse.” Like so many other tech companies facing turbulent economic times, the company decided to let go of 8% of its staff, affecting about 85 to 90 people. Just seven months ago, the company raised $300 million at a $9 billion valuation,
If you want the inside scoop on which companies are serious about addressing their carbon emissions and which aren’t, take a look at the public comments submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its proposed climate rule. You can tell if a company is serious by its stance on so-called Scope 3 emissions.
Snežana Gebauer Contributor Snežana Gebauer, a partner with StoneTurn, has 20 years of experience in managing complex international investigations for major law firms, Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies and sovereign nations. The economic sanctions that have been imposed following the war in Ukraine pose an intricate set of challenges for private equity (PE). Sanctions are