Ethiopian Building Tech Startup Raises $3.34M
Circular economy and climate tech startup Kubik has successfully completed its initial milestone in the seed investment round, raising an oversubscribed $3.34M. The Ethiopian-based startup specializes in transforming hard-to-recycle plastic waste into affordable, low-carbon building materials. The funding round attracted multinational investors, including Plug & Play, BESTSELLER Foundation, GIIG Africa
Read moreSupply chain startup Baskit supports Indonesia’s middlemen
Large brand distributors dominate the top of the supply chain, but toward the bottom, there are thousands of middlemen, including wholesalers, who are the ones creating relationships with retailers. Founded last year, Baskit wants to provide them with tools to digitize the management of their inventory and services to help
Read moreThomson Reuters buys Casetext, an AI legal tech startup, for $650M in cash
Thomson Reuters has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Casetext, a Y Combinator-backed legal tech startup. The deal, valued at $650 million in cash, is expected to close in the second half of 2023, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. “The acquisition of Casetext is another step
Read moreArkam Ventures targets $180 million to tap ‘middle India’ opportunity with second fund
Arkam Ventures is courting its second fund, aiming for $180 million, nearly doubling the size of its maiden fund, as the Indian venture capital firm gears up to double down on the expanding ‘middle India’ opportunity. The firm’s partners said in an interview that they are hopeful to retain support
Read moreKindred Ventures foresees a ‘massive explosion of startups’ courtesy of AI
Last week, we talked with Kindred Ventures, a small, nine-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm that, despite investing in a lot of nascent startups — more than 100 to date — takes a generalist approach, investing in AI, climate tech, consumer internet companies, crypto deals, fintech startups, health startups, mobility
Read moreMax Q: Welcome to the era of MaaS (microgravity-as-a-service)
Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: Atmos Space Cargo’s research and manufacturing space capsule Another anomaly hits Launcher’s Orbiter space tug News from NASA, and more Atmos Space Cargo is building return capsules for in-space research and manufacturing The International Space Station has a monopoly on
Read moreDecentralized social networking app Damus to be removed from App Store, will appeal decision
Damus, a decentralized social networking app backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, will be removed from the App Store due to Apple’s strict payment rules. Apple had threatened to remove Damus earlier this month over the app’s tips feature, claiming that it could be used by content creators to sell
Read moreSignalFire’s State of Talent report 2023
Heather Doshay Contributor Share on Twitter Heather Doshay is partner, People + Talent, at early-stage venture firm SignalFire, where she leads recruiting programs for the portfolio and advises founders on applying the firm's Beacon AI for hiring. She's spent 15+ years as a people and talent executive at Webflow, RainforestQA
Read moreUnicorn social app IRL to shut down after admitting 95% of its users were fake
Ironically, the social app IRL‘s users do not exist in real life. An internal investigation by IRL’s board of directors found that 95% of the app’s reported 20 million users were “automated or from bots,” The Information first reported. So, after raising more than $200 million in venture capital, IRL
Read moreTelegram is adding Stories next month
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced today that the messaging app is adding Stories in early July. Durov says users have been asking for the feature for years, noting that more than half of all feature requests that Telegram receives are related to Stories. The company was initially against adding Stories
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