Infinite Machine raises $9M a16z-led round to convince Americans to buy scooters
Infinite Machine turned many heads when it revealed its metallic, cyberpunk-style electric scooter in 2023. Now one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firms is backing the startup’s vision of filling the world’s cities with Infinite Machine’s futuristic vehicles in a big way. The New York-based startup has closed a
Read moreThreads is testing the ‘trending now’ view in Japan
After rolling out the trending topics feature in the U.S. earlier this year, Threads is now testing out the feature in Japan. “Lots of folks outside the US have been asking for the “Trending Now” feature, and we’re working on bringing it to more countries. This week, we’ll begin testing
Read moreGoogle, DPI backs African fintech Moniepoint in $110M round
Google’s Africa Investment Fund is a new investor in African fintech Moniepoint, which just closed $110 million in new financing. The Series C round, which involved an equity sale, per Bloomberg, was led by Development Partners International’s African Development Partners (ADP) III fund. Other investors, including African private equity firm
Read moreHow can you get your kids into coding? We asked an 8-year-old.
Ben welcomes Ricky Robinett, VP of Developer Relations and Community at Cloudflare, and his eight-year-old daughter Fay for a chat about how AI tools are helping new developers get started and how to encourage your kids to try coding.
Read moreInfraspeak raises $19.5M to bring collaboration to facilities management
It might not be the sexiest of subjects, but facilities management is central to any business that has a physical premises — the bigger that footprint becomes, the more complex it gets. Portuguese startup Infraspeak has set out to address that with an all-in-one platform that gives facility managers and
Read moreEmidat is building a tool to clean up construction by automating environmental reporting
Fixing the climate crisis is a vast, world-sized puzzle. But one particularly large piece of this ginormous conundrum is construction and real estate — which collectively amount for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Enter Munich-based data startup Emidat, which has built a software platform for automating the generation
Read moreKrafton backs IMM Investment’s maiden India fund
The India unit of gaming firm Krafton has backed IMM Investment’s maiden India fund as an anchor limited partner as the battle royale BGMI-maker broadens its investment bets in the South Asian market. Seoul-based IMM Investment, an early backer of Krafton and roughly half of South Korea’s unicorn startups, has
Read moreDespite risks, Vinod Khosla is optimistic about AI
Vinod Khosla has no doubts that humanity’s future with AI is bright. The Sun Microsystems co-founder turned prominent investor predicts that “the need to work will go away” almost entirely thanks to AI. “Almost all expertise, it doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about primary care physicians, mental health therapists,
Read moreFoster sisters explain why they haven’t invested in AI
Oversubscribed Ventures co-founder Sara Foster (above right) made a confession onstage on Monday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “I don’t even have ChatGPT on my phone,” she said. It’s an unexpected comment from an investor, given that ChatGPT is arguably the most influential product to launch this decade. But what makes
Read moreGoogle-backed Open Cloud Coalition launches to lobby European lawmakers
Europe has a new lobbying body, one with a self-stated mission to “improve competition, transparency, and resilience” in the cloud computing sector. The Open Cloud Coalition (OCC) counts 10 members at launch, the most notable one being Google, supported by cloud providers spanning international and local markets including Centerprise International,
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