Zen Educate raises $37M and acquires Aquinas Education as it tries to address the teacher shortage
Zen Educate, an online marketplace that connects schools with teachers, has raised $37 million in a Series B round of funding. The raise comes amid a growing teacher shortage crisis both sides of the pond, with a recent report from ADP Research Institute noting that the global pandemic exacerbated the
Read moreProbability, cryptography, and naïveté
Probability and cryptography have this in common: really smart people can be confidently wrong about both. I wrote years ago about how striking it was to see two senior professors arguing over an undergraduate probability exercise. As I commented in that post, “Professors might forget how to do a calculus
Read moreETF Partners raises €284M for climate startups that will be effective quickly — not 20 years down the road
The European venture capital firm raised its fourth fund as fund as climate tech "comes of age." © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreMicrosoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs
Copilot, Microsoft's brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreScarlett Johansson says that OpenAI approached her to use her voice
"When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine." © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreTechCrunch Space: Star(side)liner
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. For those who haven’t heard, the first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule has been pushed back yet again to no earlier than May 25. From NASA: “The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner
Read moreThese 81 robotics companies are hiring
When I attended Automate in Chicago a few weeks back, multiple people thanked me for TechCrunch’s semi-regular robotics job report. It’s always edifying to get that feedback in person. While it’s true that the industry has seen ups and downs in terms of both funding and hiring in recent years,
Read moreVinFast crash that killed family of four now under federal investigation
The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family of four, TechCrunch has learned. The crash happened in Pleasanton, California at about 9 p.m. on April 24. Police told
Read moreNYC-Dublin real-time video portal reopens with some fixes to prevent inappropriate behavior
When putting a video portal in a public park in the middle of New York City, some inappropriate behavior will likely occur. The Portal, the vision of Lithuanian artist and entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, was designed to bring people together and let them share common experiences. After it opened earlier this
Read moreContour Venture Partners, an early investor in Datadog and Movable Ink, lowers the target for its fifth fund
Longtime New York-based seed investor, Contour Venture Partners, is making progress on its latest flagship fund after lowering its target. The firm closed on $42 million, raised from 64 backers, for Contour Venture Partners Fund V, according to an SEC filing from May 17. The firm is targeting $70 million
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