Mon.Mar 22, 2021

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These undergraduates left university to build Flux, a payments startup now in YC

TechCrunch

In the 170 years since Western Union was founded, no company has managed to solve two basic problems that continue to bedevil the remittance business — exorbitant fees and slow deposit times. For instance, it takes days or weeks for money sent from an immigrant in the U.S. to reach a relative in Nigeria. Ben Eluan and Osezele Orukpe , two software engineers based in Nigeria, faced this problem in 2019.

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Pre-Seed Funding Explained: What It Is & How It Works

Feedough

An disruptive idea marks the start of a startup. But not all ideas convert into real businesses. Some are discarded during the course and some fail. But to make sure that the startup idea can result in a profitable business, an entrepreneur needs to validate it. This validation often requires the startup to pitch in some money. It is where pre-seed capital comes in.

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H3X rethinks the electric motor to power the next phase of mobility

TechCrunch

It’s plain to see that electric vehicles are the future, but there’s more to making that change happen than swapping out a gas motor for a battery-powered one — especially in aircraft. H3X is a startup that aims to accelerate that future with a reimagined, completely integrated electric motor that it claims outperforms everything on the market.

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Who is a Solopreneur? – Characteristics & Types

Feedough

When starting a business, an individual has to make many key decisions. A business owner might choose to branch out, establish different departments and ultimately hire employees. Or they might go solo. Solopreneurship at its core work on a very simple principle – grind and hustle alone. But what makes it different from entrepreneurship ? What dimensions an individual must be aware of before venturing into this field?

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From Curiosity to Competitive Edge: How Mid-Market CEOs Are Using AI to Scale Smarter

Speaker: Lee Andrews, Founder at LJA New Media & Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO at Aggregage

This session will walk you through how one CEO used generative AI, workflow automation, and sales personalization to transform an entire security company—then built the Zero to Strategy framework that other mid-market leaders are now using to unlock 3.5x ROI. As a business executive, you’ll learn how to assess AI opportunities in your business, drive adoption across teams, and overcome internal resource constraints—without hiring a single data scientist.

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Binance-backed Xend Finance launches DeFi platform for credit unions in Africa

TechCrunch

Nigerian startup Xend Finance uses decentralized finance (DeFi) to address currency devaluation. DeFi aims to bridge the gap between decentralized blockchains and financial services. Aronu Ugochukwu and Abafor Chima founded the startup in 2019, and Ugochukwu is quite familiar with currency devaluation. . Currency devaluation is a common economic nightmare faced in most African countries and other developing countries worldwide.

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More Trending

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The Station: Uber’s new battles in the UK, Lucid Motors’ second life plans and Cruise acquires Voyage

TechCrunch

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox. Hi friends and new readers, welcome to The Station, a newsletter dedicated to all the present and future ways people and packages move from Point A to Point B. Before I forget, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the newsletter, if you’re interested in attending our upcoming early-stage conference.

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6 Step Checklist to Structure Your Business

StartupNation

You’ve decided to take the plunge and start your dream business. You’ve decided what your new company is going to do and have formulated your overall strategy. StartupNation exclusive discounts and savings on Dell products and accessories: Learn more here. Now it’s time to complete a checklist of necessary tasks to set up and structure your business: Name your business.

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NFTs could bridge video games and the fashion industry

TechCrunch

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) offer new ways for consumers to collect, wear and trade fashion online, and now that most fashion shows have scaled back or gone virtual , they may become an important tool for the industry. Because some of the most profitable NFTs are produced by celebrities with teams , it makes sense that music corporations, fashion brands and designers are venturing into the NFT market as well.

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How to Choose the Right Business Name for Your Startup

StartupNation

Starting a new business is exciting. For many entrepreneurs, nothing is more thrilling than building a business that solves a big problem in a unique way. Startup founders have to make many decisions in the days, weeks and months after starting a business. One of the most important decisions comes very early—you have to give your new business a name.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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Nuvemshop, LatAm’s answer to Shopify, raises $90M in Accel-led Series D

TechCrunch

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to people everywhere shopping more online and Latin America is no exception. São Paulo-based Nuvemshop has developed an e-commerce platform that aims to allow SMBs and merchants to connect more directly with their consumers. With more people in Latin America getting used to making purchases digitally, the company has experienced a major surge in business over the past year.

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Entrepreneur Exits For $1.4 Billion, and It Wasn’t Even His Best Startup Idea!

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Startup success takes more than just having great ideas Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Afriex raises $1.2M seed to scale its payments and remittances platform across Africa

TechCrunch

Sending money from the U.S. to Nigeria can be a painstaking process. For remittance platforms like Western Union, it will cost a transfer fee and take between one to five business days for money sent from a U.S. debit card to enter a Nigerian bank account. . Crypto remittance platforms are rising to the challenge of fixing these cross-border payment issues by reducing time and fees.

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How to Expand Your Business and Go Global with the Largest Cross Border Ecommerce Platform

Smart Hustle Magazine

If you run a profitable business and you’re looking to expand, how about going global? T he thought might be daunting. How do you start and what if things don’t go according to plan? These are common concerns, however, it might be easier than you think. We talked to Tony Shan, the head of Alibaba’s cross-border B2C platforms in North America. He shed some light on how to get into global trade.

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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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TryNow raises $12M to bring try-before-you-buy, Prime Wardrobe as a service to online retailers

TechCrunch

Amazon’s Prime Wardrobe has been a key way for the e-commerce giant to expand its reach selling clothing and other apparel: giving shoppers an easy way to try on several items, return what they don’t want and pay for what they keep has helped it cross the virtual chasm by bringing the online experience a little closer to what it’s like to shop for fashion in physical stores.

VC 101
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The Entrepreneur in the Bunker

Entrepreneur's Handbook

5 practical strategies to deal with naysayers Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Swedish fintech Zaver raises $5M to bring cardless payments and BNPL to ‘durables’ sector

TechCrunch

Zaver , a Swedish fintech that enable merchants to accept cardless payments and offer buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) as an option, has raised $5 million in new funding. The company, which began life focused on P2P payments for marketplace transactions, is now doubling down on the durables sector (think: automotive, health & beauty, craftmanship etc.) for both online and offline commerce, after claiming to have found product-market-fit.

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[PRESS RELEASE] ISRAEL’S OURCROWD AND WATERFUND LAUNCH DEDICATED WATER AND AGTECH PARTNERSHIP FOCUSED ON THE MIDDLE EAST

OurCrowd

Jerusalem / New York, March 22, 2021 – OurCrowd and Waterfund announced today that they will build a dedicated investment portfolio of 15 leading water and agricultural technology companies. Waterfund committed $50 million of capital to the OurCrowd managed portfolio, with an initial investment completed in Plenty, Inc., a vertical farming leader.

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The GTM Intelligence Era: ZoomInfo 2025 Customer Impact Report

ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!

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Camunda snares $98M Series B as process automation continues to flourish

TechCrunch

It’s clear that automated workflow tooling has become increasingly important for companies. Perhaps that explains why Camunda , a Berlin startup that makes open source process automation software, announced an €82 million Series B today. That translates into approximately $98 million U.S. Insight Partners led the round with help from A round investor Highland Europe.

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What Is Consumer Awareness? – Consumer Rights & Responsibilities Explained

Feedough

There are times when the competitive market scenario leads to companies engaging in what we call “malpractices”, or practices that benefit the business at the consumer’s cost. These could be misleading advertisements – for example, the brand’s promotion calling it a sugar-free snack when it’s not really sugar-free – or even manufacturing a product that contains life-threatening ingredients – for example, excessive amounts of lead were detected in Nestlé’s Maggi noodles, an international noodles

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Coursera set to roughly double its private valuation in impending IPO

TechCrunch

In a new S-1/A filing , Coursera set an initial IPO price range between $30 and $33 a share, signaling the market views its edtech business warmly ahead of its impending public offering. Coursera will have 130,271,466 shares outstanding after its IPO, or 132,630,966 including its underwriters’ option. At $30 per share, the low end of the company’s IPO range and a share count inclusive of 2,359,500 shares reserved for its underwriting banks, the firm would be worth $3.98 billion.

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[OurCrowd in Tech Crunch] Waterfund commits $50M to OurCrowd’s water and agtech portfolio

OurCrowd

Waterfund, an investment and trading firm that specializes in acquiring and managing water-related infrastructure assets, today announced a deal with Israel-based crowdfunding platform OurCrowd that will see the Waterfund team commit $50 million to build a water- and agtech-focused portfolio of 15 companies. Read more here. The post [OurCrowd in Tech Crunch] Waterfund commits $50M to OurCrowd’s water and agtech portfolio appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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How Top Tech CFOs Solve Annual Planning’s Biggest Challenges

Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.

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Side raises $150M at $1B valuation to help real estate agents go it alone

TechCrunch

Side , a real estate technology company that works to turn agents and independent brokerages into boutique brands and businesses, announced Monday that it has raised $150 million in Series D funding. Coatue Management led the round, which brings San Francisco-based Side’s valuation to $1 billion and total funding raised to over $200 million since its 2017 inception.

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Preparing Communities for the Climate Crisis

Continuations

The more you know about the climate crisis, the harder it is to not be depressed at least some of the time. The challenges ahead are vast and the will to action still small by comparison. So we already know things will get a lot worse because the physics of the climate crisis are cumulative until we manage to reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

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Techstars NYC is more global than ever with its latest class of startups

TechCrunch

Techstars NYC just announced the 10 startups participating in this year’s program, making up what Managing Director Jenny Fielding described as the accelerator’s most global class yet. “We’ve always had applications from around the world and I was always able to take companies from anywhere,” Fielding said. “But the truth is, when you run Techstars New York, if you don’t have five companies from New York, there’s a feeling that you’re letting

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[OurCrowd in The Times of Israel] OurCrowd, US Waterfund to set up joint water-tech investment portfolio

OurCrowd

Jerusalem-based VC firm OurCrowd and US firm Waterfund said Monday they will work jointly to set up an investment portfolio of 15 “leading” water and agricultural technology companies. Read more here. The post [OurCrowd in The Times of Israel] OurCrowd, US Waterfund to set up joint water-tech investment portfolio appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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5 Ways You Can Win Faster with Gen AI in Sales

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.