Sixth Street Chief Science Adviser and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, co-founder of the CRISPR genome editing technology 10 years ago, and Sixth Street Vice Chairman and Partner R. Martin Chavez join Emily Chang to discuss the future of CRISPR and its potential for commercialization.
Blair Silverberg Contributor Blair Silverberg is co-founder and CEO of Hum Capital, a financial services company using technology to accelerate the fundraising process. More posts by this contributor Know your startup’s value so you can communicate it to investors For companies raising capital in the coming year, news of rising interest rates, market volatility and
Investor attention is focused on event companies lately, especially as pandemic restrictions ease around the world and events become in-person again. Just this year, we’ve seen companies like EventX, Twine, Vendelux and Zuddl announce either funding or strategic moves that enable them to vie for attendee attention. It’s not just a matter of going to
Voila, a startup building infrastructure for social commerce, is bringing concepts from China’s e-commerce market to the U.S. The company offers an alternative to the “link in bio” solutions used today by creators, like Linktree and Beacons, which direct followers to creators’ social profiles, personal websites, and other recommendations. Instead of a link list or
Vanilla is indeed “the world’s most popular flavor.” However, despite its popularity, its production is so complex that many people aren’t often getting the real thing, but a synthetic version of the flavoring. About 70% of the vanilla we consume is grown in Madagascar, and if you saw the weather news lately, the area was
Running a streaming media service requires a complex combination of technologies that can be difficult for even large companies to manage on their own. The Salesforce and AWS media industry groups have come together in an attempt to simplify that process by offering a solution that combines an infrastructure solution from AWS and marketing and
French startup Multis has raised a $7 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital. Originally designed as a neobank for companies working with cryptocurrencies, the company has slightly altered its product vision. It now intends to offer the software layer that helps web3 organizations manage their crypto finances. Other investors in the round include Long
David Teten Contributor More posts by this contributor What are the ‘jobs to be done’ of an investment manager? The macro trends forcing change on the investment management industry Akshat Dixit Contributor The easiest way to work with and for VC funds is to become a scout, getting compensated for sourcing investments. But how do
Nomad, a marketplace that aims to provide small-time rental property owners with “guaranteed rent,” has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Silicon Valley Bank Capital. The raise comes just six months after the Denver-based startup raised about $5 million in a seed round of funding. Nomad’s co-founders PJ O’Neil and
Microsoft is making a handful of changes to AltspaceVR to combat harassment within the virtual reality app. As of today, the company has removed the Campfire, News and Entertainment Commons social spaces. Those were hubs where AltspaceVR users could freely gather and talk to one another. But that same freedom also meant harassment was an
The cleaning products you use in your house are 99% water. Yes, the same stuff that comes out of the spigot at your house. With the radical idea that the municipal water system is probably a better way to transport water around, Blueland just raised $20 million to expand its successful line of cleaning-products-in-tablet-form, in
Latency is critical for a lot of workloads, yet the large cloud providers typically build their major data centers where the electricity is cheap and the local tax incentives high. In recent years, though, we’ve seen a new twist on this with projects like AWS’ Local Zones. These are small data centers adjacent to major
Apps like Calm and Endel are exploring an expanding new universe of what’s becoming known as ‘functional sound’. Calm and others are doing it in the meditation and sleep space, while Endel, which has raised $7.5m, creates ‘functional sound’ to enhance working or other activities. Now a new startup is launching what it calls ‘functional
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: How can early-stage startups
Spotify this afternoon announced two more acquisitions in the podcasts market, this time on both the measurement and analytics side of the business. The company is acquiring the podcast measurement service Podsights and the analytics platform Chartable for undisclosed sums. Measurement and attribution are still two of the biggest, unsolved challenges for podcast advertisers, Spotify
Twitter last fall introduced a new label that would allow what it calls the “good bots” on its service to identify themselves. While the word “bot” can often have a negative connotation, Twitter noted there were useful bots, too, which were automatically tweeting out useful information like Covid-19 updates, earthquake alerts, bills being introduced in
When you think of green, climate-aware industries, you’d be forgiven if fashion isn’t at the top of your list. Rubi Laboratories wants to put a dent in that by creating new, environmentally friendlier fabrics. The company does that by capturing waste CO2 and creating natural textiles, bypassing agriculture and manufacturing. The company claims it is
As employers try to manage the loss of workers to “The Great Resignation” and engage employees working from home, Okay co-founder and CEO Antoine Boulanger says the company is seeing its quantitative and empathetic management approach become more in demand as “the distinction between productivity and employee satisfaction is disappearing for knowledge workers.” Two years
Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the UK, has been elevated to new heights at Meta, the tech giant formerly known as Facebook — under a new title of president of global affairs in its senior management team. This is an upgrade on the VP of global affairs and communications title Clegg was
Payments infrastructure company Stronghold has launched a venture capital arm to deploy $100 million of its balance sheet capital in startups and funds in three core strategies — underrepresented founders, fintech, and web3, CEO Tammy Camp told TechCrunch in an interview. Stronghold offers a suite of fintech and blockchain APIs and services, including embedded payments,
Genesis, which has built a low-code/no-code application platform specifically for the financial markets, announced today it has landed a $200 million investment led by Tiger Global Management. The financing comes 11 months after the company announced it had raised $45 million, as our own Ingrid Lunden reported last March. Interestingly, Genesis had raised less than
Snapchat is partnering with Ticketmaster to launch a new way for users to discover live entertainment events within the Snap Map, the company announced on Wednesday. The new feature will be accessible through a new in-app Mini. For context, Snap Minis are third-party programs that live inside Snapchat’s Chat section. The new “Ticketmatcher Mini” matches
Calvin Broadus, a.k.a. Snoop Dogg, rocked the stage at Sunday’s Super Bowl, and now his Casa Verde Capital team is pumping new funds into Frankfurt-based Cansativa Group, touted as the “largest medical cannabis distributor” in Germany. Cansativa Group came onto the scene in 2017 with business-to-business tools for customers to manage every stage of the
Finland-based Swappie refurbishes and resells used iPhones, taking care of the entire process, and selling the refurbished devices via its own marketplace, with a 12-month warranty. Back in 2020, it closed a €35.8 million ($40.6M) Series B to expand into new markets in Europe. It’s now raised a $124M (€108M) Series C funding round led
The ability to rent all sorts of things is a logical step in the evolution of a subscription economy, but renting hardware wasn’t necessarily top-of-mind for startups until COVID-19 hit. Pre-pandemic, a common step in the onboarding process at many VC-funded startups in the Bay Area called for new employees to visit the closest Apple
Small businesses are the backbone of Southeast Asia’s economy, but many struggle to secure working capital loans because they don’t have traditional credit records or collateral, say the founders of Funding Societies. The fintech, which claims to be the region’s largest SME digital financing platform, uses alternative forms of credit-scoring and has disbursed more than
Neighborhood social network Nextdoor is revamping its product. The changes, which aim to simplify the app and promote better relationships between neighbors, follow last year’s hire of Nextdoor’s new Head of Product Kiran Prasad, who joined the company after serving at LinkedIn. Combined, the updates are laying the groundwork for a new strategic direction for
Anyone who had to get documents signed early in the pandemic knows how harrowing and dangerous the situation was. Nobody wanted to meet face-to-face, but we still had to conduct business. Today, in an effort to simplify online document signing, Zoom and DocuSign announced a new integration that lets you review and sign a document
During the worst throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, very few people could travel. Meanwhile, both 2021 and 2022 were predicted to be the years of “revenge travel” where people would do a great deal more. Or at least plan more. In the background was a site that allowed people to travel virtually, either out of
Tech healthcare unicorn Ro announced today that it has raised $150 million exclusively from existing investors, led by ShawSpring Partners, with participation from FirstMark Capital, General Catalyst, Seven Seven Six, BoxGroup, Altimeter Capital, Baupost Group, Initialized, TQ Ventures and TCG. Sources close to the company, as well as Bloomberg, confirm that the money was raised