Thu.May 06, 2021

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Payments, lending and neobanks rule fintechs in emerging markets, report says

TechCrunch

Tech investments in emerging markets have been in full swing over the past couple of years and their ecosystems have thrived as a result. Some of these markets like Africa, Latin America, and India, have comprehensive reports by publications and firms on trends and investments in their individual regions. But there’s hardly a report to compare and contrast trends and investments between these regions and rightfully so.

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My 20 Year Journey to Overnight Success. Ramon Ray’s Black Enterprise Interview.

Smart Hustle Magazine

Often times we see “success” and think that it was “overnight” We forget that most of the business success we see, was a slow and steady progression of mistakes, of learning. Three or more steps forward and 1 step backward. We forget it was many lonely nights of tears and misery until the breakthrough happened. This is the case of Tyler Perry, Casey Neistat, Dave Ramsey, Jim McCann of 1800 Flowers, Rebecca Minkoff and so many others.

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Figure raises $7.5M to help startup employees better understand their compensation

TechCrunch

The topic of compensation has historically been a delicate one that has left many people — especially startup employees — wondering just what drives what can feel like random decisions around pay and equity. Last June, software engineers (and housemates) Miles Hobby and Geoffrey Tisserand set about trying to solve the problem for companies by developing a data-driven platform that aims to help companies structure their compensation plans and transparently communicate them to candidat

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Standing Out in a Saturated Market: Business Tips from Sheets & Giggle

Smart Hustle Magazine

Sheets & Giggles creates sustainable bedding and other home textiles out of eucalyptus trees. (Soo cool!) And this kind of bedding uses up to 96% less water than cotton sheets to make them. They also use energy, no insecticides, and no pesticides. (Cotton can use up to 24% of the world’s insecticides on any given year.) These sheets are also more breathable, so if you’re a hot sleeper, they distribute moisture perfectly across the filaments, keeping you cooler.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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Shauntel Garvey of Reach Capital will join us to judge this year’s Startup Battlefield

TechCrunch

TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield is one of the most popular parts of our annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference which is happening on September 21-23 this year. Now we’re very excited to reveal one of the fine people who will be judging Startup Battlefield at this year’s all-virtual event in September: Shauntel Garvey, a general partner at Reach Capital, a VC specializing in the world of education technology.

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More Trending

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Valence unveils training program to help build pipeline of Black execs

TechCrunch

Diversity has been linked with equity and inclusion because diversity is just one part of the equation when it comes to hiring Black employees. How do the companies they work for make people feel welcome and included, rather than isolated? How do Black employees find their way into management, up the corporate ladder to the C Suite and into the boardroom?

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Hambleton Lord and Christopher Mirabile Are Changing the Face of Angel Investing

Angel Capital Association

By: Sarah Dickey, ACA Membership Director Boston-Area Angels Hambleton Lord and Christopher Mirabile Receive Hans Severiens Award for Individual Impact in Advancing the Field of Angel Investing. With their shared dedication to professionalize angel investing, commitment to educate the angel community and decades long friendship, it is easy to understand why Hambleton Lord and Christopher Mirabile have been so successful at changing the face of angel investing.

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Turkey’s Ace Games raises $7M to develop casual and ‘hyper casual’ games

TechCrunch

Ace Games , a Turkish mobile gaming company founded by a former Peak Games co-founder, has raised a $7 million seed funding round led by Actera Group. Co-investment has come from San Francisco’s NFX. Former gaming entrepreneurs Kristian Segerstrale, Alexis Bonte and Kaan Gunay also participated. Firat Ileri is a previous investor from the pre-seed round.

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[Medisafe in PharmiWeb] How health apps are changing Social Determinants of Health

OurCrowd

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are aspects of a patient’s environment and lifestyle—such as housing, food, finances, education, employment, and transportation—that can directly affect health. Studies have found that individual behavior, driven by social determinants, accounts for up to 40 percent of the risk of premature death. SDOH also include the presence or lack of personal support networks, with research revealing that social isolation is as much a threat to longevity as obesity.

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PE Mastery: CAPTARGET's Playbook for Quality Lead Flow

CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.

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Oculii looks to supercharge radar for autonomy with $55M round B

TechCrunch

Autonomous vehicles rely on many sensors to perceive the world around them, and while cameras and lidar get a lot of the attention, good old radar is an important piece of the puzzle — though it has some fundamental limitations. Oculii , which just raised a $55M round, aims to minimize those limitations and make radar more capable with a smart software layer for existing devices — and sell its own as well.

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[Virgin Hyperloop One in GlobeNewswire] CEO and Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop Speaks to U.S. House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on Emerging Mass Transportation Technology

OurCrowd

WASHINGTON, May 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, at the Transportation and Infrastructure Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee hearing, “When Unlimited Potential Meets Limited Resources: The Benefits and Challenges of High-Speed Rail and Emerging Rail Technologies,” Josh Giegel, the CEO and Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop, discussed how hyperloop can bring our transportation network into the 21st Century and the need for increased investment in hyperloop.

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SoftBank leads $15M round for China’s industrial robot maker Youibot

TechCrunch

SoftBank has picked its bet in China’s flourishing industrial robotics space. Youibot , a four-year-old startup that makes autonomous mobile robots for a range of scenarios, said it has notched close to 100 million yuan ($15.47 million) in its latest funding round led by SoftBank Ventures Asia, the Seoul-based early-stage arm of the global investment behemoth.

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Typos

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

Yesterday’s post has this line in it: I suspect all buy maybe two of those eleven funds have outperformed the public markets. As you can see, there is a typo there. “buy” should be “but” A number of readers let me know about the typo, which I very much appreciate. But for some reason, I am not all that motivated to change it.

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Monetizing Analytics Features

Think your customers will pay more for data visualizations in your application? Five years ago, they may have. But today, dashboards and visualizations have become table stakes. Turning analytics into a source of revenue means integrating advanced features in unique, hard-to-steal ways. Download this white paper to discover which features will differentiate your application and maximize the ROI of your analytics.

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Expressable launches with millions for scalable speech therapy

TechCrunch

Speaking isn’t simple for at least 40 million Americans , so a new Austin-based startup is scaling a solution. Expressable is a digital speech therapy company that connects patients to speech-language pathologists (SLP) via telehealth services and asynchronous support, and it has raised a new $4.5 million seed round. The early-stage startup is launching with an explicit focus on serving the approximately five million children in the United States that have a communication disorder.

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The tender issue of stealing time

Berkonomics

It’s a big issue within any company. . With easy access to Internet shopping, games, social networks and more, employees can find many ways to focus on personal issues while at work, detracting from productivity and demonstrating a disrespect for the time paid for by their employer. In fact, if we were to be direct, we might label it “stealing time,” and consider it a crime of sorts.

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Look out Pied Piper — iSIZE reduces power for video streaming, raises $6.3M in round led by Octopus

TechCrunch

It’s widely known that video streaming boomed during the pandemic, as millions of people were faced by boredom during lockdowns. But an unintended consequence of this was the growing environmental impact of millions of video streams, which meant server farms needing to draw increasing amounts of power from the grid. Indeed, there were even calls for people to cycle down to Standard Definition, as HD streaming has a greater impact.

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[PolarisQB in Street Insider] Quantum Drug Discovery Startup PolarisQB Announce Hiring of Pharmacologist Ian Reynolds

OurCrowd

DURHAM, N.C., May 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Polarisqb is proud to add Dr. Ian Reynolds, a world renowned expert in pharmacology, as an advisor to the company. Dr. Ian Reynolds is an experienced pharmaceutical executive who has been recognized for his work in small molecule drug discovery and has helped a number ofacademic researchers translate into the world of biotech research and drug development.

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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From bootstrapped to a $2.1B valuation, ReCharge raises $227M for subscription management platform

TechCrunch

ReCharge , a provider of subscription management software for e-commerce, announced today that it has raised $227 million in a Series B growth round at a $2.1 billion valuation. . Summit Partners, ICONIQ Growth and Bain Capital Ventures provided the capital. Notably, Santa Monica, California-based ReCharge was bootstrapped for several years before raising $50 million in a previously undisclosed Series A from Summit Partners in January of 2020.

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[DouxMatok in Israel21C] High-tech cocoa spread with 50% less sugar hits US shelves

OurCrowd

Lovers of all things chocolate spread, this one is for you. Israeli food-tech startup DouxMatok recently launched a line of cocoa spreads in the United States based on its proprietary technology that cuts sugar content by 50 percent, making Sunday morning pancakes a far less sugary and guilt-ridden event. Read more here. The post [DouxMatok in Israel21C] High-tech cocoa spread with 50% less sugar hits US shelves appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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Personal skin problems leads founder to launch skincare startup Nøie, raises $12M Series A

TechCrunch

Inspired by his own problems with skin ailments, tech founder Daniel Jensen decided there had to be a better way. So, using an in-house tech platform, his Copenhagen-based startup Nøie developed its own database of skin profiles to better care for sensitive skin. Nøie has now raised $12 million in a Series A funding round led by Talis Capital, with participation from Inventure, as well as existing investors including Thomas Ryge Mikkelsen, former CMO of Pandora, and Kristian Schrøder Hart-Hansen

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[Virgin Hyperloop One in WHBL] Virgin Hyperloop shows off the future: mass transport in floating magnetic pods

OurCrowd

(Reuters) – In the desert just north of Las Vegas, a long white metal tube sits at the base of the mountains, promising to one day revolutionize travel. That is where Virgin Hyperloop, whose partners include Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, is developing the technology for passenger pods that will hurtle at speeds of up to 750 miles an hour (1,200 kph) through almost air-free vacuum tunnels using magnetic levitation.

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How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics

Just by embedding analytics, app owners can charge 24% more for their product. How much value could you add? This framework from Software Pricing Partners explains how application enhancements can extend your product offerings. You’ll learn: How to take a disciplined approach to pricing The three elements of the Packaging Decision Framework Ways to structure your new embedded analytics offering Download the White Paper to learn about How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics.

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Bitski raises $19 million from a16z to become the ‘Shopify for NFTs’

TechCrunch

For every crypto-skeptic that sees NFTs as yet another hype bubble, there’s an acolyte who sees NFTs as the key to unlocking the future of the creative web. Bitski , an SF-based startup that builds custom NFT storefronts for brands and creators, is banking on the latter, and they have new investors betting the same. The startup tells TechCrunch they’ve raised $19 million in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz.

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[The Bouqs in Forbes] These 19 Flower Delivery Services Make It Easy To Send A Bouquet Of Fresh Blooms For Any Occasion

OurCrowd

Mother’s Day is right around the corner, and if you’re scrambling to find the best flower delivery services to get a beautiful bouquet delivered in time for the special day, you’re in luck. We’ve rounded up 19 online flower retailers that can have have fresh blooms, from classic red roses to lush bouquets of pink peonies to arrangements of rainbow ranunculus, in your mom’s hands with just a few days’ notice.

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How much product room will fintech giants leave for startups?

TechCrunch

I was going to wait until after Square reported its Q1 results today to dig into the world of fintech earnings and what they might mean for startups, but something got stuck in my craw that matters more than what Jack’s team may have up its sleeve: How much space is being left in fintech when the major players are growing rapidly in categories where startups are doing their best to make a dent?

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How Startups and Entrepreneurs Can Use TikTok to Grow Their Businesses

StartupNation

TikTok has risen to new heights in recent years with its short-form videos: the app is now available in over 150 markets across the globe, in 75 languages and has over 689 million active monthly users. Internet usage has spiked amid the pandemic, and TikTok remained the most downloaded app in Q1 of 2021. As people seek online entertainment as a way to stay productive, healthy and aware, brands are considering ways to harness their reach and shape new conversations on platforms like TikTok.

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ABM Evolution: How Top Marketers Are Using Account-Based Strategies

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.