Remote hiring company Deel has raised $50 million at a $12 billion valuation, according to an Axios report. Axios’ Dan Primack broke the news this morning, citing anonymous sources. He wrote that “new investors include Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, while existing company backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital and Y Combinator.” To say that
Twitter announced today that it has rolled out a new web video game to make it easier for users to understand its privacy policy. The goal of the game, which is called Data Dash, is to educate people on the information that Twitter collects, how the information is used and what controls users have over
When AWS launched its storage offering in 2006, it began a march to offer compute, storage and database services in the cloud. Google, Microsoft, Alibaba and IBM among others would follow. One player that might not be top of mind in this market is Cloudflare, but with its announcement today of a new SQL database
The European Union has formally presented its proposal to move from a situation in which some tech platforms voluntarily scan for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to something more systematic — publishing draft legislation that will create a framework which could obligate digital services to use automated technologies to detect and report existing or new
The last thing we need in this world is more guns. But we’re getting them whether we like it or not, so wouldn’t it be nice if those guns had safety mechanisms like our phones, making them impossible for anyone but their owners to use? That’s what Biofire is building, and it has raised $17
YouTube is expanding on its latest feature that made any public YouTube video potential fodder for its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts. Today, the company is announcing the launch of “Green Screen,” a tool that will allow users to use up to a 60-second video segment from any eligible YouTube video or YouTube Short as the
Mobile penetration in Africa is growing impressively at about 46% as more people come online for the very first time. In turn, this has increased the market opportunity for startups, especially fintechs and e-commerce, which try to provide various solutions to meet the financial needs of the populace. But to do that, these businesses must
Mylerz, a Cairo-based e-commerce fulfillment startup, plans to enter three new markets in North Africa and expand across Egypt over the next three months against the backdrop of the $9.6 million funding it has just secured. The startup also has its eyes on the growing e-commerce market in East Africa, with the long-term goal of
Twitter announced today that it’s rolling out a new “Copypasta and Duplicate Content” policy to clarify how the platform works to combat spam and duplicative content. For context, copypasta refers to an attempt by multiple individuals to duplicate content from an original source and share it widely. The social media giant first revealed in August
Arrikto’s mission is to enable data scientists to build and deploy their machine learning models faster. The company, which raised a $10 million Series A round in late 2020, is building its platform on top of Kubeflow, a cloud-native open-source project for building machine learning operations that was originally developed by Google but which is
VC firm Educapital recently announced that it has reached the first close of its second fund. The team has already secured $105 million (€100 million) and now wants to reach $160 million (€150 million) to invest in edtech startups as well as companies working on the future of work. I caught up with Marie-Christine Levet,
Hunting down a beat up-looking shared electric scooter that has the germs of goodness-knows-who all over the handlebars is not Unagi’s idea of sexy shared micromobility. Instead, the e-scooter manufacturer is launching a more exclusive version that will see its slick e-scooters available to rent at hotels, luxury apartments and coworking spaces. “Unagi on Demand,”
Canoo’s first-quarter earnings shows a company burning through cash, no near-term revenue and a warning that it may not have enough money to stay in business. Shares of Canoo, which were down 5% Tuesday, fell another 17.5% in after-market trading following the release of its earnings. It has since recovered and is now down more
Consumers in every country are getting squeezed on all sides. Globally, sluggish wage growth and rising inflation has encouraged shoppers to defer payments on everything from groceries to durable goods. Affirm, Afterpay and Klarna own 75% of the sector in the U.S., which leaves little room for startups hoping to join the fray. Founders who
Twitter’s future owner weighed in on the social network’s biggest question Tuesday, leaving little room for doubt that if Elon Musk has his way, the platform’s doors will be wide open for Trump. “I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said in an interview at the Financial Times Future
There’s an open secret in the battery startup world — everyone is pitching their cells as the ones to spur consumers to ditch their gas-guzzling SUVs for sleek, fast-charging electric vehicles with cross-country range, even if they’re really eyeing something else. Sure, some companies will leapfrog the steady 5% annual improvements that lithium-ion batteries have
The UK government has confirmed it will move forward on a major ex ante competition reform aimed at Big Tech, as it set out its priorities for the new parliamentary session earlier today. However it has only said that draft legislation will be published over this period — booting the prospect of passing updated competition
Hardware, as the saying goes, is hard; but there remains an opportunity for startups that focus on specific niches to build viable businesses. In the latest example, reMarkable, the Oslo, Norway-based maker of a simple and slick $299 e-paper tablet of the same name, says that it has passed 1 million devices sold since 2017
Adam Oliner, co-founder and CEO of Graft used to run machine learning at Slack, where he helped build the company’s internal artificial intelligence infrastructure. Slack lacked the resources of a company like Meta or Google, but it still had tons of data to sift through and it was his job to build something on a
Construction tech is one of those sectors that has not historically been considered “sexy” in a startup world that often favors glitzier technology. But construction fuels the commercial and real estate industries, which in turn impacts all of us in one way or another. Historically, the industry has been reluctant to embrace technology, but as
Adobe announced today that it’s introducing a new suite of Creative Cloud Express capabilities to make it easier to plan, schedule, preview and publish social media content across platforms. The company is launching “Content Scheduler” within Creative Cloud Express, which builds on its acquisition of ContentCal in December, as Adobe has integrated ContentCal into Creative
To date, Blueland, fresh off its $20 million fundraise back in February, has mostly been focusing on home cleaning products. Today, the innovative cleaning company launches a new product that helps you be as clean as your house, embracing the same “hey, let’s not ship water if we can avoid it” model as its domestic
Data science teams are stymied by disorganization at their companies, impacting efforts to deploy timely AI and analytics projects. In a recent survey of “data executives” at U.S.-based companies, 44% said that they’ve not hired enough, were too siloed-off to be effective, and haven’t been given clear roles. Respondents said that they were most concerned
French startup Sencrop just raised an $18 million Series B funding round led by JVP. The company helps farmers mitigate all sorts of risks, from extreme weather events to diseases that affect various crops. It is both a hardware and software play with a forecasting service that you can access through a subscription product. Weather
Last October marked 20 years of the iPod. It’s a remarkable run in the cutthroat, always-iterating world of consumer electronics. And while it’s undoubtedly true that life hasn’t been particularly for the music player in a product lineup that includes various iPhones and iPads, the beloved music player has somehow managed to hang on. That
Arianee has raised a $21 million Series A round (€20 million) in a round led by Tiger Global. The company issues digital ownership and authenticity certificates on behalf of partner brands. For instance, a luxury and fashion brand can replace the authenticity card that you get with your new watch or handbag with a digital
Hannah Life Technologies, a startup for couples trying to conceive, announced today it has raised $5.15 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. Other investors include Golden Gate Ventures, Anthro Ventures, and medical technology entrepreneur Dr. Jack Wang. The funding comes about 18 months after the company raised seed funding from Y
Uber has opted for arbitration to solve a dispute it has with drivers in Kenya over the reduction of commuter fares. The ride-hailing firm asked Kenya’s Supreme Court, in an application, to allow it to solve its issues with the drivers through channels agreed upon in contracts, while stating that it was “improper” for its
South Korean startup Seadronix wants to reduce the issue of marine accidents, 75% of which are caused by human error, according to a 2019 Allianz safety and shipping report. The company just secured a $5.8 million Series A extension to scale its AI-based ship berthing monitoring and navigation systems to help cargo ships navigate safely
Software as a service has become the default for how organizations adopt and use apps these days, thanks to advances in cloud computing and networking, and the flexibility of pay-as-you-use models that adapt to the evolving needs of a business. Today, a company called Paddle, which has built a large business out of providing the