GM has launched a new business unit to offer commercial customers — starting with FedEx — an ecosystem of electric and connected products, the latest effort in the company’s ambitious $27 billion bid to become a leading electric automaker. The new business called BrightDrop, which officially launched Tuesday during the virtual 2021 CES, will begin […]
America is a land of paperwork, and nowhere is that more obvious than at the end of someone’s life. Advanced care directives have to be carefully disseminated to healthcare providers and strictly followed. Property has to be divided and transferred while meeting relevant estate laws. And of course, there are the logistics of a funeral, […]
Cockroach Labs, makers of CockroachDB, have been on a fundraising roll for the last couple of years. Today the company announced a $160 million Series E on a fat $2 billion valuation. The round comes just eight months after the startup raised an $86.6 million Series D. The latest investment was led by Altimeter Capital […]
Uber and pharmaceutical company Moderna have announced a partnership around COVID-19 vaccination, which will include a number of different initiatives. To start, it’s only confirmed component is to provide users with credible, factual information about COVID-19 vaccine safety through Uber’s consumer app, but the companies have also discussed additional “options” including building ride scheduling via […]
The maker of a defunct cloud photo storage app that pivoted to selling facial recognition services has been ordered to delete user data and any algorithms trained on it, under the terms of an FTC settlement. The regulator investigated complaints the Ever app — which gained earlier notoriety for using dark patterns to spam users’ […]
Archer, a company that’s looking to develop an airline of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for use in urban transport, will work with automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) in a new partnership to benefit from the latter’s expertise in engineering, design, supply chain and materials science. Archer aims to start production of its […]
For the past three years, the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) has brought startups to CES . This year, its virtual pavilion, organized with Taiwan Tech Arena, is hosting 100 startups, organized into five categories: Smart Living, Tech for Good, Cybersecurity and Cloud, Healthcare and Wellness, and Mobility Tech. During two press events, […]
Organizations today — perhaps more than ever before — are relying on technology to help them figure out what the next weeks, months, and years will hold for their business at what has been one of the more tumultuous periods for our global economy in decades. Today, a company that is providing the platform to […]
Technologists are getting better at coding biology and venture firms are flooding a new generation of startups with cash so that they can commercialize their technology bringing in the next wave of genetic innovation. Tessera Therapeutics, the Boston-based spinup from Flagship Pioneering, is the latest company to enter the mix with $230 million in new […]
UK SpaceTech startup Skyrora is currently the only private company capable of launching rockets from UK soil. On Christmas Eve at its testing facility in Fife, Scotland, the team performed a third-stage static fire engine test onboard a new vehicle that will ultimately carry satellites to their final destination. But what’s more interesting is that […]
One of the technology byproducts of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it has raised the game for businesses to have better digital tools in place to interface with customers, and their own work, to get things done. Today, a company called Jobber, which has built a platform doing just that for a particular segment of […]
Moving forward, Yelp users won’t just be asked whether a business has good food or accepts credit cards — the platform is also allowing them to share feedback on whether the staff is wearing masks and enforcing social distancing. Yelp’s head of consumer product Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh suggested that this is the next phase of […]
One year in, the Covid-19 global health pandemic continues to have something of a dragging effect on many aspects of life, but today a key bellwether for how technology is developing underscored how the industry continues to march on. The number of patents granted in the US in 2020 totaled 352,013, representing a decline of […]
LAUNCHub Ventures, an early-stage European VC which concentrates mainly on Central Eastern (CEE) and South-Eastern Europe (SEE), has completed the first closing of its new fund at €44 million ($53.5M), with an aspiration to reach a target size of €70 million. A final close is expected by Q2 2021. Its principal backer is the European […]
Roughly eight years ago, investors Mark Kvamme and Chris Olsen left Silicon Valley to open a venture firm, Drive Capital, in Columbus, Ohio. It wasn’t an easy decision. Leaving California wasn’t exactly fashionable at the time. In fact, While Olsen had grown up in Cincinnati, the Yale grad had landed at Sequoia Capital a couple […]
Pinduoduo, a rapidly growing Chinese e-commerce company, is weathering its PR storm after the death of an employee sparked criticism against the firm’s grueling working hours. The employee, 21 years old, collapsed on her way home from work on a late night before New Year. The cause of her death has not been disclosed but […]
Payments company Checkout.com is raising once again. The company has closed a $450 million Series C round with Tiger Global Management leading the round — Greenoaks Capital and all existing investors are also participating. If you’re not familiar with the company, Checkout.com wants to build a one-stop shop for all things related to payments, such […]
Curve, the London-based fintech that combines multiple cards and accounts into one smart card and an app, has secured a Series C finding round of $95 million. The financing was led by IDC Ventures, Fuel Venture Capital and Vulcan Capital (the investment arm of the estate of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen), with […]
Zipmex, a digital assets exchange headquartered in Singapore, announced today it has raised $6 million in funding led by Jump Capital. The startup, which plans to become a digital assets bank, says the round exceeded its initial target of $4 million. Along with earlier funding, it brings the total Zipmex has raised so far to […]
Amazon has begun the process of removing QAnon-related products from its platform. A spokesperson for the company said that the process may take a few days. Any sellers that attempt to evade the company’s systems and list products will be subject to action, including a blanket selling ban across Amazon stores. News of the ban was […]
