The Station: Rivian adds to its EV war chest, Sec. Buttigieg is coming to Disrupt, Argo preps to launch with Lyft

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. 
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One of Nigeria’s high profile angel investors is launching a fund for African startups

Olumide Soyombo is one of the well-known active angel investors in Nigeria tech startups and Africa at large. Since he began angel investing in 2014, Soyombo has invested in 33 startups, including Stripe-owned Paystack, PiggyVest, and TeamApt. Today, the investor is announcing the launch of Voltron Capital, a Pan-African venture capital firm he co-founded with […]
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Sproutl is an online marketplace for gardeners founded by former Farfetch executives

Meet Sproutl, a marketplace for gardeners living in the U.K. The startup founded by former Farfetch executives has raised a $9 million seed round. It wants to make gardening more accessible by providing a curated list of items, relevant advice as well as inspiration. Index Ventures is leading the round in the startup with Ada […]
https://tcrn.ch/3zyzq6k

Data-driven iteration helped China’s Genki Forest become a $6B beverage giant in 5 years

The bottled beverage industry wasn’t what Genki Forest’s founder, Binsen Tang, initially set out to tackle. The company aims to reach $1.2 billion this year.
https://tcrn.ch/3eUEkCL

Sequoia’s Mike Vernal outlines how to design feedback loops in the search for product-market fit

"Finding product-market fit is not a deterministic process. Most of the time, it requires iteration. It requires constant adaptation."
https://tcrn.ch/3zBub5Z

Rivian raises another $2.5B, pushing its EV war chest up to $10.5B

Rivian announced Friday that it has closed a $2.5 billion private funding round led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Ford Motor and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Third Point, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Dragoneer Investment Group and Coatue also participated in the round, according to Rivian. […]
https://tcrn.ch/3BC3I9V

Apple Music brings its spatial audio and lossless streaming to Android

It takes a really specific consumer to buy an Android phone, yet use Apple Music. But the small overlap in that Venn diagram may be getting bigger. Last month at WWDC, Apple unveiled a free update for Apple Music subscribers that added lossless audio streaming and spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos. Now, Android […]
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