Onstage at TC Sessions: Climate 2022 this week, climate modeling expert Dr. William Collins shared why he’s deeply skeptical of carbon offsets, and tree-based offsets in particular. According to Collins, they are, “as far as we can tell, a feel-good measure.” Likewise, tree-planting programs pedestalized by companies like United Airlines are “fool’s gold,” he said.
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You’ve probably heard of unicorns, and you may have heard of soonicorns. But have you heard of gigacorns? Unlike its other more common cousins, the term “gigacorn” doesn’t refer to valuation. Instead, it tells us how well a startup can help fight carbon dioxide emissions, climate change and its implications. According to venture capitalist Christian
Most of us have a variety of fermented food products in our kitchen: you can’t make tofu, chocolate, vinegar or bread without agreeable microorganisms that can be produced at scale. Today, precision fermentation is innovating the alternative protein industry as food tech startups find the best methods for brewing eggs, dairy, meat and seafood in
Despite being one of the countries in Europe with the most hours of sunshine, Spain has extremely low levels of household solar installations. Madrid-based Samara, a startup founded in May this year — which is launching a service in its home market today — wants to change that, spotting what it believes is a major
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is still “hopeful, positive and in fact bullish” that Congress can agree on “a significant push into clean energy,” despite the regulatory body’s virtual gridlock on issues like climate. Before Congress breaks for August recess, Democrats have said they hope to reach a deal on a budget reconciliation bill. Effectively
Join, a decision-making platform for architecture, engineering and construction, today closed a $16 million Series A round led by SignalFire with participation from Ironspring Ventures, Metaprop, Building Ventures and Standard Investments. The fresh capital, which brings the company’s total raised to $30 million, will be put toward “doubling down” on market expansion and expanding Join’s
Deno, the development company behind the eponymous Deno runtime, today announced that it closed a $21 million Series A round led by Sequoia that brings its total raised to $26 million. According to CEO Ryan Dahl, the new cash will be put toward building out Deno’s commercial offering, Deno Deploy, while growing marketing operations and
Successful founder stories are a trove of information and inspiration. They’re also a map of sorts, one that provides insight into the challenges of navigating the complex startup landscape. Hearing about the triumphs and challenges — and the inevitable missteps — can help new and aspiring early-stage founders stay the course and even avoid common
Based in Vietnam, Anfin wants to turn more people into stock investors with features like fractional trading and in-app communities. The Y Combinator alum announced today it has raised a $4.8 million Series A led by angel investor Clement Benoit, the founder of Stuart and Not So Dark, and Y Combinator. Participants in the round
In recent years, there’s been an explosion of tools that allow businesses to connect, transform, analyze and serve data from all kinds of sources. Combined with the increasing pressure on businesses to digital transform their operations, this can lead to a patchwork of solutions that aren’t easy to maintain or scale. Research from Forrester estimates
Despite the demand for platforms that let developers experiment with different versions of apps, the infrastructure required remains relatively complex to build. Beyond data pipelines and statistical methods, and experimentation infrastructure relies on analytical workflows often sourced from difficult-to-configure cloud environments. Plenty of startups have emerged in recent years to abstract away the app experimentation
Gearset, a tooling provider for Salesforce software, today announced that it raised $55 million in a funding tranche led by Silversmith Capital Partners. Co-founder and CEO Kevin Boyle said that the new money will be put toward expanding Gearset’s product offering, growing its sales and marketing functions, and scaling the team across the U.S. and
Caring for a family member is not only hard work, but expensive, too. Many family caregivers miss work (or stop working) and pay for medical expenses out of pocket. Aidaly was created to help them find sources for compensation and financial aid. The company, which is coming out of stealth mode, announced that it has
There’s been a massive proliferation of fintech services in the past few years, during which fintech companies competed to develop new products more quickly than their competitors. Nowadays, the race between fintechs has much more to do with consolidation and which companies can build a holistic, “one-stop-shop” by bringing those different products onto one platform.
It’s been a tough few years for Omio, the Berlin-based travel search and booking platform that saw 98% of its revenues evaporate overnight when COVID-19 hit Europe back in Spring 2020. But the company kept on trucking and has found some light at the end of the tunnel: Today it’s reporting revenues which have rebounded
Germany’s competition regulator is looking into possible abuses related to how Google operates its Maps product. It’s the latest proceeding the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has opened against Google — with earlier (ongoing) investigations into the tech giant’s News Showcase licensing practices and its data terms. However the Maps proceeding is the first initiated under tougher
Google has quietly dropped its appeal in France against an antitrust fine of half a billion euros levied against it last summer for major breaches in how it negotiated to remunerate local news publishers for displaying copyrighted content. A major reform to European Union rules around digital copyright which was agreed back in 2019 —
Data quality has been shaping up as a salient and increasingly critical part of the world of data science: Enterprises are sitting on growing troves of information, but it’s only useful if we can trust it to be accurate and usable. To that end, Validio, a startup building tools to improve and ensure data quality
A Ukrainian deeptech startup is launching a charity NFT project to sell AI-generated artworks with the twin goal of raising money to support people affected by Russia’s war of aggression and also — it hopes — keep attention locked on the conflict as it approaches its fourth month, with many in the country concerned that
Personio — a startup out of Munich, Germany that styles itself as a Workday and ServiceNow focused on the small and medium businesses of the world — went on a funding tear through the Covid-19 pandemic after its recruiting, payroll, people management, development and training, workflow automation and other HR tools found traction particularly among
A long-running EU engagement with TikTok — initiated following a series of complaints over child safety and consumer protection complaints filed back in February 2021 — has ended, for now, with the video sharing platform offering a series of commitments to improve user reporting and disclosure requirements around ads/sponsored content; and also to boost transparency
Given the dire predictions about the impending (and basically already here) Climate Crisis, the world can’t get enough ClimateTech funds right to power new innovation that can address the issue. FTSE 250-listed investment firm IP Group has been investing in the area previously but has clearly ‘read the runes’ and re-shaped its existing investment strategy,
Apple’s health business could now stand alone as one of the largest in the sector in terms of sheer reach — if it could ever be disentangled from the company’s other products, which, by design, it really can’t. At the company’s annual WWDC global developer conference last week, a variety of new health-related features were
Meta announced today that it’s rolling out new tools on Instagram and Quest VR headsets that are designed to give parents additional supervision controls. On Instagram, parents and guardians can now send invitations to their teens to initiate supervision tools. Prior to this change, only teens could send invitations. Parents and guardians can now also
In its early pre-pandemic days, Keychron made a name for itself with its series of affordable mechanical keyboards — including a few low-profile ones that remain a rarity to this day. Those boards didn’t necessarily appeal to enthusiasts, but were more than good enough for most mainstream users who wanted a different kind of keyboard.
It’s hard to get a thrill from glimpses of unreleased smartphone hardware these days, given the baked-in maturity of the mobile market and the general form and function sameness of the sticky rectangles we humans routinely spend hours poking at and peering into each day. But this rear-view design-teaser (below) of a forthcoming handset made
Puffco has long led the market with innovative cannabis vaporizers. The Puffco Peak Pro is easily one of the best e-rigs available, and the company just unveiled a new vape called the Proxy. It offers the best of the Peak Pro and can be built into various form factors. Don’t be distracted by the lovely
Rune Labs, a precision neurology company in San Francisco, announced that its StrivePD software ecosystem for Parkinson’s disease has been granted 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin using the Apple Watch to collect and measure data from Parkinson’s patients. The FDA approval is another reason the Apple Watch is
Samsung announced today that it’s launching “Samsung Wallet” to enable users to store select digital keys, boarding passes, identification cards and more all in one location. The company says Samsung Wallet combines Samsung Pay and Samsung Pass into one secure platform. The mobile wallet was first teased at the manufacturer’s Unpacked event earlier this year.
BeReal, LiveIn, Locket… what do these new consumer social apps have in common besides a highly-ranked position on the App Store’s Top Charts? They engage their users through a combination of push notifications and homescreen widgets, instead of forcing people to spend a long time browsing their app, scrolling feeds, or watching creator content. The