Jul.14 — The only daily news program focused exclusively on technology, innovation and the future of business from San Francisco.
Even though the only thing the robot can do right now is pull weeds, Aigen is adamant it isn’t building a weed-whacking robot. It claims to be on a mission to terraform the earth, and says it has a path toward making agriculture carbon positive. It must have made a compelling argument, because it just
Maria Lepskaya Contributor Maria Lepskaya is a senior associate at Runa Capital, leading investments in different branches of quantum technologies and advanced materials. Market trends are the best indicators we have to judge the maturity of the quantum industry. While they don’t perfectly reflect technological progress, they showcase investors’ willingness to write checks for the
Snapchat has faced increasing criticism in recent years as the opioid crisis plays out on social media, often with tragic results. In October, an NBC investigation reported the stories of a number of young people aged 13 to 23 who died after purchasing fentanyl-laced pills on Snapchat. Snapchat parent company Snap responded by committing to
Agtonomy co-founder and CEO Tim Bucher was born and raised on a farm and was deep into his own farming business when he took a computer course while at UC Davis and got hooked. It was that parallel agriculture/technology career that led him to start Agtonomy, a hybrid autonomy and tele-assist service startup that turns
European startups collectively raised a record $100 billion+ in funding in 2021, a sign of their swelling ranks, ambitions and stature. Now, a VC in London has closed a record round of funding to cater specifically to that opportunity. Blossom Capital, which makes investments in European startups at the Series A stage, has raised $432
Supply chain issues continue to have a major impact on smartphone manufacturers per newly released figures from analyst firm Canalys — global shipments grew only 1% year over year in the final quarter of 2021. The numbers come on the tail of Q3 reports, which saw an overall drop of 6%, citing similar issues over
Yet more funding is finding its way to Istanbul’s gaming startups. Today, Dream Games — the casual games developer behind the hit game Royal Match — is announcing a $255 million Series C that values the startup at $2.75 billion. This Series C is being led by Index Ventures, with Makers Fund, IVP, funds and
Six months after its $20 million Series A, payroll connectivity platform Pinwheel just announced that it has nabbed another $50 million in a round led by new investor GGV Capital. Pinwheel serves neobanks and fintechs like Block, Acorns, and Current by providing application programming interfaces (APIs) linked to payroll, income, and employment data. Historically, systems
British autonomous vehicle startup Wayve has raised a $200 million Series B funding round from investors to scale its technology and expand its partnerships with commercial fleets. Wayve is aiming to be a major player in the arena of Robo-deliveries and logistics. It’s now raised a total of $258 million to date, for its technology,
In 2020, Africa50, an infrastructure financier backed by the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) Group and a good number of African governments, hosted an innovation challenge that sought affordable and reliable solutions for last-mile internet connectivity across the continent. A proposal by Poa Internet, a Kenyan startup beat 673 others from across the world as a
South Korea-based human resources management platform flex announced today it has closed a $32 million Series B round at a valuation of $298 million. The latest funding, which brings its total raised to $42 million, was led by Greenoaks, with participation from DST Global Partners. The startup’s mission is to enable corporations to automate and
Mio, the Vietnamese social commerce platform, has raised an $8 million Series A, less than a year after announcing its seed round. The funding was led by Jungle Ventures, Patamar Capital and Oliver Jung, with participation from returning investors GGV, Venturra, Hustle Fund, iSEED SEA and Gokul Rajaram. TechCrunch first covered Mio at the time
Amazon appears to have rowed back from a public threat to end support for Visa payments in the UK in a dispute over payment fees. The ecommerce giant sent an email to users of Amazon.co.uk today informing them that the “expected change” — which was due to take place on January 19 — will not
A Canadian startup working at the cutting edge of satellite imaging has raised $4.5 million across a combination of a $2.25 million seed round, and $2.25 million from a combined pre-seed and government funding. Wyvern, which is working specifically on hyperspectral imaging (imaging that captures light across many different wavelengths, including non-visible ones) is also
This morning Rebundle, a hair-focused startup based in St. Louis, announced that it has raised $1.4 million in a pre-seed round. M25, a venture firm with a geographic focus on the Midwest, led the funding event. Prior to its pre-seed round, Rebundle had raised what CEO and co-founder Ciara Imani May described as six-figures worth of
Istanbul has become a city to watch when it comes to casual gaming startups, boosted by the likes of Peak (acquired by Zynga for $1.8 billion) and Dream (valued at $1 billion in a funding round last year). Now, a new startup is announcing a major round of funding to make its own mark on
Burnt Finance is a crypto startup which, as a stunt, burnt a Banksy artwork and but then the NFT they’d minted for it for $400,000, double what it cost on the ‘normal’ open art market. Based on the idea that auctions for NFTs could be improved, it went on to raise $3 million for a
Cash flow is a major pain point for small businesses in Africa. Long payment cycles, which can take 30-90 days after services or products have been rendered, and little or no capital, of which research says 85% of African small and medium businesses are subject to, are the main culprits of cash flow issues. Many
Customer service tickets tend to fall into the same few buckets — returns, refunds or quality control questions. Not only are these repetitive, but it leaves little time for customer engagement on more complex requests, like relaying information on products or helping a customer find the best product for them. Maja Schaefer and Matt Ciolek,
Tado, the German smart home startup that specializes in thermostats and more recently moved into flexible “time of use” energy tariffs based on loadshifting technology, is today announcing the next step in its life as a business. It’s going public by way of a SPAC deal. GFJ ESG Acquisition, a German SPAC entity focused specifically
Supply chain logistics — getting components and eventually finished products from A to B to C — is one of the most critical parts of running a business, not least because it is one of the most complex, involving dozens of companies, hundreds of combinations and permutations, accounting for world events outside of your business,
Another regulatory brick in the wall for Apple: The iPhone maker agreed this weekend to changes to its App Store in the Netherlands focused on dating apps, agreeing to allow local developers of dating apps to be able to offer non-Apple based payments (via Reuters). In December, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM)
French startup Exotec has raised a $335 million Series D round in a new round of funding led by Goldman Sachs’ Growth Equity business. Following today’s investment, the company has reached a valuation of $2 billion. Exotec sells a complete end-to-end solution to turn a regular warehouse into a partially automated logistics platform. It’s a
nCore Games has raised $10 million in a new financing round as the top Indian gaming firm gears up to launch web3 offerings, its top executives said Monday. Animoca Brands and Galaxy Interactive, two high-profile investors in the crypto space, led the funding. Polygon, a popular layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution, and Hyperedge Capital also
Early-stage startup founders have just a few ways to recruit and retain employees: Offer a competitive salary Create a role that harnesses their interests/talent Give them a stake in the company. In most cases, equity will not leave employees with substantial wealth. But even the most embittered worker will think twice about walking away from
Korean technology giant LG makes everything from televisions (they announced some new ones at CES), washing machines and fridges, to, well, it’ll probably take less time to list the things they don’t get involved in. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company has a robust interest in innovation, then, and LG Nova is
Whatever you do, don’t refer to LG’s incubator program LG Nova as a corporate venture capital (CVC) outfit. LG Nova is the pointiest tip of the spear for LG, the company’s experimental playground to work with startups to explore spaces where the corporation has spotted areas ripe for future growth. Backed by a relatively large
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. Among many of the entrepreneur catchphrases out there, the one that annoys me the most is: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” The phrase may be meant to make people with
Shanea Leven Contributor Shanea Leven is co-founder and CEO of CodeSee, a developer platform that helps developers and development teams better understand codebases. “Raising money is catastrophically challenging for female founders, and even harder for Black female founders.” It’s a bold, even damning statement — one I made in a recent discussion speculating what’s to