Space startup Gitai raises $17.1M to help build the robotic workforce of commercial space

Japanese space startup Gitai has raised a $17.1 million funding round, a Series B financing for the robotics startup. This new funding will be used for hiring, as well as funding the development and execution of an on-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s robotic technology, which will show its efficacy in performing in-space satellite servicing […]
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Justworks’ Series B pitch deck may be the most wonderfully simple deck I’ve ever seen

It may be tough to remember, but there was a time long ago when Justworks wasn’t a household name. Though its monthly revenue growth charts were up and to the right, it had not even broken the $100,000 mark. Even then, Bain Capital Venture’s Matt Harris felt confident in betting on the startup. Harris says […]
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How capital-as-a-service can help you get your first check in 2021

“A lot of founders mix up raising money with making money.” This quote, which Career Karma founder Ruben Harris mentioned off-hand on a phone call with me, has been on my mind for months. In fact, raising money can cost you money, in the form of that sweet, sweet ownership and equity. That’s why Clearbanc, […]
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If you haven’t followed NFTs, here’s why you should start

Digital content has value, and crypto collectors are flocking to lay their namesake on the biggest collections of tomorrow.
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With $62.5M in debt financing, Road Runner Media puts digital ads behind commercial vehicles

If Southern California-based Road Runner Media succeeds, you’ll start seeing a lot more ads while you’re driving. That’s because the startup is placing digital screens on the back of technicians’ vans, delivery vehicles, buses and other commercial vehicles. Those screens can show both ads and serve as a brake light — according to founder and […]
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Jumia co-CEO Jeremy Hodara talks African e-commerce and his company’s path to profitability

This month, African e-commerce giant Jumia released its second full-year financials for Q4 and its fiscal year 2020. The results were mixed — active customers and gross profit increased, while orders and gross merchandise volume (GMV) fell. A particular feature that has troubled the company since its inception in 2012 was also present, namely persistent […]
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How to land startup funding from real estate giant Brookfield, which manages $600 billion in assets

There are big investment firms, and then there are big investment firms. Brookfield Asset Management, the Toronto-based,122-year-old outfit whose current market cap is $63 billion and that oversees $600 billion in assets, clearly falls into the latter camp. Think real estate, infrastructure, renewable power, private equity, and credit. If it falls into a defined asset […]
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AT&T is turning DirecTV into a standalone company

AT&T just announced an agreement with private equity firm TPG that will turn DirecTV into a standalone company, albeit one that’s still majority owned by the telecom giant. Specifically, AT&T says it will own 70% of the new company, while TPG owns 30%. This transaction values DirecTV at $16.25 billion — a dramatic decline from […]
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Blue Origin pushes New Glenn orbital rocket’s first flight to Q4 2022

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin published an updated timeline for the first flight of New Glenn, the orbital rocket it’s building to complement its existing New Shepard suborbital space launch vehicle. The company is now targeting Q4 2022 — a slippage of roughly a year from the prior stated timeline of sometime toward the […]
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TreeCard raises $5.1M seed to plant trees as you spend

TreeCard, a U.K. yet-to-launch fintech offering a spending card made out of wood and the promise to fund reforesting via the interchange fees generated, has raised $5.1 million in seed funding. The round is led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Seedcamp and Episode 1. Angel investors also backing the startup include Matt Robinson (founder […]
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SpaceX is really just SPAC and an ex

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is our first-ever Wednesday episode. If you want to learn more about the latest edition of the podcast, head here for more. This week we talked about space, an increasingly active part of the global economy, and […]
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Europe kicks off bid to find a route to ‘better’ gig work

The European Union has kicked off the first stage of a consultation process involving gig platforms and workers. Regional lawmakers have said they want to improve working conditions for people who provide labor via platforms which EU digital policy chief, Margrethe Vestager, accepted in a speech today can be “poor” and “precarious”. Yet she also […]
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Walmart’s Flipkart to deploy over 25,000 electric vehicles in India by 2030

India’s Flipkart said on Wednesday it will deploy more than 25,000 electric vehicles in its supply chain by 2030 as the Walmart-owned e-commerce giant looks to achieve a 100% transition to electric mobility in the next 10 years. The Bangalore-headquartered firm said it has partnered with leading EV makers including Hero Electric, Mahindra Electric, and […]
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6 Miami-based investors share their views on the region’s startup scene

Miami is quickly becoming a symbol for the tech exodus from Silicon Valley. The area is home to a number of investors, successful tech founders and an eager local government. For this survey, TechCrunch spoke to a number of investors about the area’s potential, opportunities and key players. This is the second survey TechCrunch published […]
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Project management service ZenHub raises $4.7M

ZenHub, the GitHub-centric project management service for development teams, today announced that it has raised a $4.7 million seed funding round from Canada’s BDC Capital and Ripple Ventures. This marks the first fundraise for the Vancouver, Canada-based startup after the team bootstrapped the service, which first launched back in 2014. Additional angel investors in this […]
https://tcrn.ch/3kiVJqo

Rows, formerly dashdash, raises $16M to build and populate web apps using only spreadsheet skills

Spreadsheet software — led by products like Microsoft’s Excel, Google’s Sheets and Apple’s Numbers — continues to be one of the most-used categories of business apps, with Excel alone clocking up more than a billion users just on its Android version. Now, a startup called Rows that’s built on that ubiquity, with a low-code platform […]
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FCC proposes rules for emergency broadband program to keep struggling families online

The FCC has taken a major step toward offering financial support for people struggling to pay broadband bills during the pandemic. If approved, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program could provide $50 per month to millions of households, and more in tribal lands. The EBBP was created in the budget passed by Congress earlier this year, […]
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Spotify to launch a new high-end subscription, Spotify HiFi

Spotify today announced its plans to roll out a new high-end subscription service, called Spotify HiFi, along with other new features and updates, including new content deals, and features for creators. The company said Spotify HiFi will launch later this year to Spotify Premium subscribers in select global markets, allowing them to listen to music […]
https://tcrn.ch/3qMHhJr

Indonesian investment platform FUNDtastic lands $7.7 million Series A

Despite the market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, retail investing is increasing in Indonesia, especially among people aged 18 to 30. Today, investment platform FUNDtastic announced it has raised a $7.7 million Series A to tap into that demand, with plans to launch new products for retail investors, reports DealStreetAsia. The round was led by […]
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Twitter explored buying India’s ShareChat and turning Moj into a global TikTok rival

Twitter recently held talks to acquire Indian social media startup ShareChat as the company explored ways to expand its presence in the world’s second largest internet market and build a global rival to TikTok, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The American firm, which is already an investor in Bangalore-based ShareChat, offered to […]
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Bain’s Matt Harris and Justworks’ Isaac Oates to talk through the Series B deal that brought them together

It’s been almost 10 years since Justworks launched. The platform, founded by Isaac Oates, was yet another example of software eating the world; in this particular instance, it was the world of HR. Since, the company has raised nearly $150 million in funding. All the way back in 2016, Bain Capital Ventures caught a whiff […]
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South Korea’s prime minister has joined Clubhouse

After garnering an estimated 8 million downloads since its launch, Clubhouse’s popularity continues across the world and even outside of its original tech-focused seed community. The latest news comes from East Asia, where Korean media reported this morning that the country’s current prime minister, Chung Sye-kyun, has officially joined the social audio app under the […]
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Chief community officer is the new CMO

Community isn’t a single Slack group or event or newsletter. It’s an aggregation of all of these touch points, and includes both customers, eventual customers and one-time users. Despite this nebulous, disconnected reality, companies are paying more attention to various channels as remote work and digital communication powers our days. My recent tweet underscored the […]
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As the SPAC frenzy continues, questions arise about how much the market can absorb

Another week and the biggest story in a sea of big stories continues to center on SPACs, these blank-check companies that raise capital through IPOs expressly to acquire a privately held company and take it public. But some industry watchers as starting to wonder: Is the party just getting started, with more early guests still […]
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Block Party’s Tracy Chou will join us at TechCrunch Sessions: Justice on March 3

Tracy Chou’s resume is impressive. She interned at RocketFuel, Google and Facebook before becoming a software engineer at Quora and Pinterest. She is also a major advocate for diversity within the tech industry, launching Project Include in 2016. Now, she’s the founder and CEO of Block Party, a platform aimed at making people feel safer […]
https://tcrn.ch/3ugmJLD

With $20M A round, Promise brings financial flexibility to outdated government and utility payment systems

The last year has been one of financial hardship for billions, and among the specific hardships is the elementary one of paying for utilities, taxes and other government fees — the systems for which are rarely set up for easy or flexible payment. Promise aims to change that by integrating with official payment systems and […]
https://tcrn.ch/2ZB6Z7T

8 investors discuss Stockholm’s maturing startup ecosystem

"I think there is a lot of interesting stuff coming out of Stockholm and accelerating with all recent success stories," said VNV Global's Bjorn von Sivers.
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Perseverance lands safely on Mars and sends back its first images of the surface

Mars rover Perseverance has landed on the surface of Mars after a white-knuckle descent involving picking a landing spot just moments before making a rocket-powered sky-crane landing. The rover immediately sent back its first image of Jezero Crater, which it will be exploring over the course of its mission. A clearly tense but optimistic team […]
https://tcrn.ch/3blNqWu

Following backlash, WhatsApp to roll out in-app banner to better explain its privacy update

Last month, Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced it would delay enforcement of its new privacy terms, following a backlash from confused users which later led to a legal challenge in India and various regulatory investigations. WhatsApp users had misinterpreted the privacy updates as an indication that the app would begin sharing more data — including their private […]
https://tcrn.ch/2NjspDY

Emerging as an Eastern powerhouse, Earlybird Digital East Fund launches new $242M fund

Earlybird Digital East Fund — a fund associated with Germany’s Earlybird VC, but operating separately — has launched a €200m ($242m) successor fund. The fund’s focus will remain the same as before: a Seed and Series-A fund focusing on what’s known as ‘Emerging Europe’, in other words, countries stretching from the Baltics to Central and […]
https://tcrn.ch/3pqrJcY

Gridware is building early-detection sensors for power grid failures and wildfires

Like corporate financial accounting, the power grid never draws headlines when things are going well. No journalist writes “The power remains on,” or discusses the extensive work it takes to maintain the grid. Instead, it takes a record-breaking ice wave to knock out power to one of the largest states in America for it to […]
https://tcrn.ch/3astDWi

Google to roll out slate of over 50 updates for Classroom, Meet and other online education tools

Google today introduced a suite of updates for its online education tools whose adoption and further development have been accelerated by the pandemic, including Google Classroom, Google Meet and the next generation of G Suite for Education, now rebranded as Google Workspace for Education. In total, Google is promising more than 50 new features across […]
https://tcrn.ch/3s6uORk

Dixa acquires Elevio, the ‘knowledge management’ platform helping brands improve customer support

Dixa, the Danish customer support platform promising more personalised customer support, has acquired Melbourne-based “knowledge management” SaaS Elevio to bolster its product and technology offerings. The deal is said to be worth around $15 million, in a combination of cash and Dixa shares. This sees Elevio’s own VC investors exit, and Elevio’s founders and employees […]
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We’re talking startup sales with Zoom CRO Ryan Azus at TechCrunch Early Stage

TechCrunch is excited to announce that Zoom chief revenue officer (CRO) Ryan Azus is joining us at TechCrunch Early Stage on April 1. Azus has worked at Cisco, RingCentral and most recently Zoom. In his previous roles he held a number of sales titles, including his final role at RingCentral where he was its executive […]
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Inside Rover and MoneyLion’s SPAC-led public debuts

If we are not careful, every entry of this column could consist of SPAC news.
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Zomentum raises $13 million to scale its sales acceleration platform for IT channel partners

Most small businesses, which form the backbone of an economy, today don’t have the resources to handle their IT needs. Take restaurants, for an example. They have likely outsourced this job to contract IT professionals to reduce expenses. Every time they need to buy a point-of-sale machine, a printer, new computers, or assign business emails to […]
https://tcrn.ch/2OInnkO

Parler crawls back online empty and with a Tea Party CEO

Parler, a social network adopted by the far right and recently kicked off AWS for its userbase’s habit of advocating violence, is back online. The restoration questions the notion that “big tech” can take and keep an unwanted presence offline, but Parler’s return is not quite a triumph, and its new CEO doesn’t suggest much […]
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Delivery company goPuff is in talks to acquire the UK’s Fancy

GoPuff, the U.S.-based startup that operates its own “microfulfillment” network and promises to deliver items such as over-the-counter medicine, baby food and alcohol in 30 minutes or less, is in talks to acquire the U.K.’s Fancy Delivery, TechCrunch has learned. According to sources, terms of the acquisition are still being fleshed out, and the deal […]
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India lifts restrictions on mapping and surveying to help local firms

India said on Monday local firms will no longer need license or other permission to collect, generate, store and share geospatial data of the country, bringing sweeping changes to its earlier stance that it admitted hindered innovation. Until now, New Delhi required Indian firms to seek licenses and additional approvals to create and publish topographical […]
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The Series A deal that launched a near unicorn: Meet Accel’s Steve Loughlin and Ironclad’s Jason Boehmig

The only people who truly understand a relationship are the ones who are in it. Luckily for us, we’re going to have a candid conversation with both parties in the relationship between Ironclad CEO and cofounder Jason Boehmig and his investor and board member Accel partner Steve Loughlin. Loughlin led Ironclad’s Series A deal back […]
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Examining the ‘pipeline problem’

The tech industry has long grappled with an overwhelming lack of diversity among employees, executives, venture-backed founders, venture capital firms and board members. And despite recent efforts to increase diversity throughout the industry, tech still remains predominantly white and male. Over the years, many have argued that the lack of diversity in tech is caused […]
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Human Capital: Doing away with the NDA

You’ve landed on Human Capital, a weekly newsletter detailing the latest in diversity, equity, inclusion and labor. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Friday at 1 p.m. PT. There’s some new legislation that hopes to prevent the use of non-disclosure agreements in workplace situations involving all forms of discrimination and harassment. That would […]
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9 investors discuss hurdles, opportunities and the impact of cloud vendors in enterprise data lakes

About a decade ago, I remember having a conversation with a friend about big data. At the time, we both agreed that it was the purview of large companies like Facebook, Yahoo and Google, and not something most companies would have to worry about. As it turned out, we were both wrong. Within a short […]
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Investors say Belgium’s startups are poised for international expansion

However, finding funding for startups is still a “difficult task today” said one, as the ecosystem suffers from a lack of "scale capital" for later rounds.
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Felicis’ Aydin Senkut and Guideline’s Kevin Busque on the value of simple pitch decks

This week on Extra Crunch Live, Busque and Senkut discussed Guideline's Series B pitch deck — which Senkut described as a "role model" — and how they built trust over time.
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EchoVC’s Eghosa Omoigui to talk about how founders can avoid blind spots at Early Stage 2021

The All-22 tape is perhaps one of the most valued tools for professional football coaches because it allows the viewer to see all 22 players on the field at the same time. It improves a coach’s line of sight and, most importantly, helps avoid missing a critical motion or player. The upshot: It removes the […]
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Sweden’s data watchdog slaps police for unlawful use of Clearview AI

Sweden’s data protection authority, the IMY, has fined the local police authority €250,000 ($300k+) for unlawful use of the controversial facial recognition software, Clearview AI, in breach of the country’s Criminal Data Act. As part of the enforcement the police must conduct further training and education of staff in order to avoid any future processing […]
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South African VC firm Knife Capital gets first commitment for its $50M fund, to invest in 10-12 Series B rounds

Knife Capital, a South African venture capital firm, is raising a $50 million fund for startups looking to raise Series B financing. With Knife Fund III called the African Series B Expansion Fund, the firm seeks to directly invest in the aggressive expansion of South African breakout companies. It also plans to co-invest in companies […]
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Base Operations raises $2.2 million to modernize physical enterprise security

Typically when we talk about tech and security, the mind naturally jumps to cybersecurity. But equally important, especially for global companies with large, multinational organizations, is physical security — a key function at most medium-to-large enterprises, and yet one that to date, hasn’t really done much to take advantage of recent advances in technology. Enter […]
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2up launches ahead of Valentine’s Day to help gamers find one another

People don’t often equate gaming with dating, but maybe they should. As gaming continues to grow in popularity, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, a new startup called 2up is launching to help gamers connect both on and off screen. The app was founded by sibling duo Stephanie and Lincoln Smith, who have been […]
https://tcrn.ch/3q74LIZ

Toyota to bring 3 new electrified vehicles to US market

Toyota Motor North America said Wednesday it will bring three new electrified vehicles to the U.S. market, as the automaker seeks to win over customers by offering a variety of lower emission and zero-emission cars and SUVs. Two of the new vehicles will be all electric and one will be a plug-in hybrid, the company […]
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