Loon, the Alphabet -owned company that’s using stratospheric balloons to provide high-speed bandwidth to hard-to-serve areas without strong ground infrastructure, has signed a new deal with carrier Vodacom to expand its offering in Africa to Mozambique. This is the second commercial agreement that Loon has in place in the continent, and its close proximity to […]
As we move through life in the pandemic, companies are being forced to review and understand how workflows happen. How do you distribute laptops to your workforce? How do you make sure everyone has the correct tool set? FortressIQ, a startup that wants to help companies use data to understand and improve internal processes, announced […]
With November looming, the scramble to protect the 2020 U.S. election from coronavirus chaos is on. To that end, a small, skilled cluster of voting rights advocates are launching a new voter mobilization project. Called VoteAmerica, the new non-profit shares DNA with Vote.org, the esteemed nonpartisan voter mobilization site VoteAmerica founder Debra Cleaver first launched […]
Even in these trying economic times, there are some services that companies can’t do without. Having good security tools is one of them. Expel, a 4-year old startup that offers security operations as a service, announced a $50 million Series D financing today. CapitalG led the round with participation from existing investors Battery Ventures, Greycroft, […]
As millions of students and teachers shift to learn from home in response to the novel coronavirus disease, modern-day flashcard business Quizlet has raised $30 million in a Series C round led by General Atlantic. Quizlet’s chief executive officer Matthew Glotzbach said that the new funding values the business at $1 billion, up five times […]
Rocket Lab is already in the testing phase for a new engine it’s building to propel its forthcoming Photon Lunar spacecraft, according to CEO and founder Peter Beck . Beck shared an image of the engine, called hyperCurie, undergoing tests conducted by the company’s propellant team. HyperCurie, as its name implies, is an evolution of […]
I’ve been following the Nura story since the Australian startup brought an unfinished prototype of its first headphones to our offices four years back. When I finally had the opportunity to review the Nuraphones the following year, I put the noise-adapting headphones at the top of my list of 2017’s best gadgets. There was a […]
Rakuten, often referred to as the “Amazon of Japan” with extensive holdings in e-commerce and streaming media, has made an acquisition that will help it build up and flex a newer arm of its business: communications services. Today, the company announced that it is buying Innoeye, an engineering company based out of Herndon, VA, with […]
Click Materials, a Vancouver-based developer of “smart glass” has inked a major partnership with one fo the largest manufacturers of windows for the home, Cardinal Glass, as it looks to challenge the billion dollar-backed View Inc. Founded in 2016 by a University of British Columbia professor, Curtis Berlinguette, Click Materials has raised only a few […]
SirionLabs, a startup that provides contract management software to enterprises, has raised $44 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand and handle surge in demand from clients. Tiger Global and Avatar Growth Capital led the Seattle-headquartered startup’s Series C round. The eight-year-old startup, which was founded in India, has raised $66 […]
The Minneapolis-based outdoor furniture brand Yardbird, which makes its wares in part from recycled plastic harvested from beaches and ocean-bound waterways, has raised $4.4 million in financing. Even heading into the teeth of a pandemic, American consumers won’t be denied their sustainably manufactured patio furniture. Yardbird, which closed the round in March, makes its furniture […]
There is immense opacity in the venture capital industry, and that has made comparing venture funds notoriously difficult. Traditional benchmarks calculated by groups like Cambridge Associates bucket VC funds into “vintage years” and place funds into quartiles based on metrics like IRR (rate of return adjusted for time) and DPI (or the amount of capital […]
Berlin -based recruitment startup, Zenjob, which operates a digital platform connecting students with highly flexible temp jobs in sectors such as retail, logistics and hospitality, has closed a €27 million ($30M) Series C led by Forestay Capital. Also participating in the funding round: Redalpine, Acton Capital, Axa Venture Partners and Atlantic Labs. Prior to this […]
Scratchpay, the Pasadena, Calif.-based provider of petcare financing plans, is now offering lending services for dental, optical and chiropractic care for humans in a broad expansion of its services. The expansion into human health and wellness was always on the company’s roadmap, according to chief executive John Keatley, but those plans accelerated as the company […]
Twilio’s video player will be used as the backbone for the new video consultation service that Zocdoc is launching for its customers today, the two companies said in a statement. As the COVID-19 epidemic reshapes healthcare in the U.S. more service providers are going remote with the delivery of healthcare consultations and encouraging entire generations […]
London-based femtech hardware startup Astinno has picked up an Innovate UK grant worth £360k ($450k) to fund further testing of a wearable it’s developing for women experiencing a perimenopause symptom known as hot flushes. The sensor-packed device, which it’s calling Grace, is being designed to detect the onset of a hot flush and apply cooling […]
Children and teenagers in China are hyper-connected and using the internet in ways that were unimaginable and inaccessible to earlier generations. As many as 175 million people under the age of 18, or 93.1% of the country’s underage population, were internet users in 2019, according to a joint report released by the government-affiliated China Internet […]
Emteria, is a startup that emerged out of the limitations of the official Android Open Source Project. AOSP just isn’t good enough to be used in industrial applications which means if industry wants to use it, the platform must be extended and customized. Some industries still use outdated platforms like Windows CE to power things […]
M17, the Taiwan-based live streaming entertainment startup, announced that it has raised a $26.5 million Series D. The round was led by Vertex Growth Fund, with participation from Stonebridge Korea Unicorn Venture Fund, Innoven Capital Singapore, Kaga Electronics and ASE Global Group. The new funding will be used for growth in Japan, one of M17’s […]
Alameda County officials announced today that Tesla can reopen as soon as next week if it implements additional safety recommendations. The statement from the Alameda County Public Health Department said that after receiving Tesla’s COVID-19 site-specific safety plan for its Fremont plant, officials “held productive discussions today with Tesla’s representatives about their safety and prevention […]
