Truly there is nothing new under the sun if, when one learns that a goldfish can drive, the immediate response is “again?” But while today’s icthyological innovation may bear superficial, scale-deep if you will, similarity to fish-driven vehicles of yesteryear, there is an important new aspect: in this case, the goldfish has actually learned to
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The year 2021 saw more and bigger deals closed in Africa, as tech startups across the continent raised close to $5 billion. This amount was double the previous year’s investment, and nine times what was raised five years ago, an indication of how much the startup scene has transformed over the last few years. Fintechs
Chris Jacob Contributor Chris Jacob serves as global vice president, Threat Intelligence Engineers at ThreatQuotient and previously held leadership roles at SourceFire, Fidelis Cybersecurity and Webroot. Threat intelligence has been a part of cyber defense processes in the private sector for nearly a decade now. Many threat intelligence teams were initially composed of classically trained
In retrospect, the rise of software as a service (SaaS) is obvious. But for years, the idea that software would not only be hosted by providers instead of purchased by customers, and rented, instead of owned outright, was far from anyone’s mind. SaaS has cemented its place in the epicenter of startup and Big Tech
Exotel said on Tuesday it has raised $40 million in a financing round, just three months after securing $35 million in funding, as the Bangalore-based startup demonstrates growth for its full-stack customer engagement platform in emerging markets. Steadview Capital led the startup’s Series D round. Exotel, which counts Blume Ventures and IIFL Asset Management among its
Putting solar panels on the roof is increasingly realistic for the average homeowner, but they tend to be specialized, aftermarket affairs or else whole-roof replacements. GAF Energy, a division of the roofing giant, claims its new solar shingles are simple enough to install that no special equipment or knowledge is required, making home renewable energy
It’s easy to forget now in the age of Apple and Android, but at one time, BlackBerry owned the business smartphone market. You could have your Motorolas and your Nokias and your Samsungs, but for business, BlackBerry was it. Stalwart. Secure. Functional. As TechCrunch reported this morning, BlackBerry is shutting down its remaining services, and
Abstra, which has developed a no-code tool for designers and programmers to build professional apps, has raised $2.3 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Latin America Fund. Bruno Vieira Costa founded Rio de Janeiro-based Abstra in March of 2020. Costa graduated from college in 2018 and already has one startup sale under his
Germany’s Delivery Hero is set to become Glovo’s majority shareholder following a deal to acquire an additional 39.4% stake of the Spanish delivery startup, of which it already held 44%. We learned of the deal over the holidays, but you’ll be excused if you missed the news when it broke — the deal was announced
The long, lonesome death of the classic BlackBerry brand hits another milestone tomorrow, as the company finally end access to legacy services. Users still hanging onto devices running BlackBerry OS 7.1 and BlackBerry 10 will lose substantial functionality, on Tuesday January 4. The list includes – but is not limited to – key features like
Most artificial intelligence models are trained through supervised learning, meaning that humans must label raw data. Data labeling is a critical part of automating artificial intelligence and machine learning model, but at the same time, it can be time-consuming and tedious work. A Korean startup called AIMMO, which uses software and humans to label and
Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) “for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” according to the company. Her official government account remains active. Rep. Greene has been prolific in the posting of articles and statistics supposedly pertaining to the pandemic but often are misleading or flat-out wrong. This
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New Zealand, a country of 5 million people in the South Pacific, has witnessed a shifting tech startup landscape over the last couple of years. While some major global companies like Xero, Rocket Lab, LanzaTech and Seequent have shined a spotlight on New Zealand’s startup scene, the country historically hasn’t had access to much venture
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. As is tradition on the show, we used the last episode of the year to make predictions about the next year. To continue an annual tradition, Grace and Chris joined Natasha and Mary
Technology has come a long way in 2021. There’s widespread mRNA vaccines! An asteroid-deflecting space mission! A very powerful laptop with a very controversial notch! But it’s unfortunately easier to think about the cringiest moments of the year than it is to remember times when we marveled at indoor farming robots. So hop aboard the choo-choo-cheugy
In late March last year, as the virus started to spread across India, investors began to worry about the impact a potential pandemic could have on their portfolio firms. They exchanged notes, and on April 1, penned a joint open letter to the local startup ecosystem, advising firms to “prepare for the worst.” In the
Apple has issued unusual and significant stock bonuses to some engineers in an effort to retain talent. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports on “Bloomberg Markets: The Close.”
The future of lidar is uncertain unless, as Voyant hopes to do, its price and size are reduced to fractions of their current values. As long as lidars are sandwich-sized devices that cost thousands, they won’t be ubiquitous — so Voyant has raised some cash to bring its smaller, cheaper, more easily manufactured, yet still
Ten years ago, if you were a scrappy kid somehow making a living off of YouTube ad revenue and brand deals, you were probably told you didn’t have a real job. Now, if monetizing your creative output is how you pay your rent, you’re part of the creator economy, a buzzy new industry. An often-cited
There is often a mistaken impression that covering the enterprise is kind of dull when compared to the consumer side of the house, but having followed the space for a couple of decades now, I can tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, there’s big money in the enterprise,
Two years ago, the African tech ecosystem saw newfound attention from global players that translated to the continent’s best year of receiving venture capital. From varying sources, it is estimated up to $2 billion went into African tech startups in 2019. With high-profile visits from the most famous Jacks (Ma and Dorsey), a long-awaited first
Koko Networks, a Kenya-based bio-fuel technology enterprise has extended its business to cover other fast-moving consumer goods, through a new tech platform that will capitalize on its established distribution networks in low-income neighborhoods. Koko Club, its new business-line, will sell the products directly to consumers through the dukas (small shops) that currently serve as the
GlobalBees, which raised one of the largest Series A financing rounds in India earlier this year, has entered the unicorn club as the New Delhi-headquartered firm scales its Thrasio-like house of brands. Premji Invest, the investment firm controlled by Indian tycoon Azim Premji, led the nine-month-old startup’s Series B financing round, the young firm disclosed
A few years ago, VCs were expected to perform extensive due diligence on startups. Investors dove into financials, called customers and vetted founders. But power has now shifted toward the founders after a long run of investors holding more than half the power thanks to the commoditization of capital. The pace at which deals were
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’s allowed between a
Hide your “Tony the Tiger”/”Eugene Levy” fan fiction — those phrases, along with hundreds of others, are now banned from Tumblr’s iOS app. Now, any personal blog that flags itself as “mature” is not accessible on the iOS app — users will see a pop-up explaining that the content has been hidden because of “potentially
Autonomous trucking startup TuSimple has completed its first autonomous truck run on open public roads without a human in the vehicle, according to the company. TuSimple’s Autonomous Driving System (ADS) navigated 100% of the 80-mile run along surface streets and highways between a railyard in Tuscon, Arizona and a distribution center in Phoenix, which took
On a congested sidewalk next to a busy mall in Shenzhen, a 20-something woman uses a smartphone app to order a milk tea on Meituan, a major food delivery company. In under ten minutes, the pearl-white drink arrives, not on the back of one of the city’s ubiquitous delivery bikes, but descending from the cloudy
As someone who covers Southeast Asia startups and funding stories, the best word I can think of to describe 2021 is “whoa!” This was the year that global investors not only started to pay close attention to the region’s tech ecosystems, but also began putting real money into them. Backed by international LPs, Southeast Asia-focused