Thu.Mar 04, 2021

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This pan-African freelance platform is the first Zimbabwean startup backed by Techstars

TechCrunch

On the 25th of January, Techstars Seattle announced its 12th class featuring 10 startups from different parts of the world. The accelerator, which has accepted only a handful of African startups, included one from Zimbabwe in this class. AfriBlocks is a global pan-African marketplace of vetted African freelance professionals. The startup was founded by Tongayi Choto and Roger Roman in July 2020 and has offices in Harare and Los Angeles.

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How mayors can lead the way for entrepreneurial ecosystem building

Source Link

Supporting entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses is key to economic mobility, opportunity and growth. But it's one thing for city leaders to "talk the talk" and quite another to implement a strategy that will spark and sustain entrepreneurship. Learn how two mayors have spearheaded entrepreneurial ecosystem development in their communities.

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IFC backs Bolt with $24M to expand its transportation network in emerging markets

TechCrunch

Bolt , an Uber competitor that is building an international on-demand network of services to transport people, food and other items in cars, scooters and bikes across Europe and Africa, has picked up some strategic funding today to continue expanding its business in emerging markets. The International Finance Corporation , a division of the World Bank, is investing €20 million ($24 million) in the Tallinn, Estonia-based startup to open more services across Eastern Europe and Africa, with a speci

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Do you really want to be the first to market?

Berkonomics

My stories of missing the context of the times. Over the years, as I managed my several computer companies as CEO or executive chairman, I made the decision to go to market with a brand-new product that had never before been exposed to my customer’s marketplace. In each case, after overwhelming publicity, certainly noticed by a great number of potential decision makers, and after record-breaking sessions at industry trade shows to introduce these to the potential buyers, the products failed in

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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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Fintech startup ClearGlass Analytics closes $3.6M for pension funds transparency platform

TechCrunch

Fintech startup ClearGlass Analytics has closed a £2.6 million ($3.6 million) funding round for its platform, which aims to create greater transparency on fees in the long-term savings market, such as pensions and the wider asset management market. The £2.6 million seed round includes European VC Lakestar and Outward VC, the venture arm of Investec, as well as several angels from both the asset management and pension fund worlds.

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More Trending

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Stream raises $38M as its chat and activity feed APIs power communications for 1B users

TechCrunch

A lot of our communication these days with each other is digital, and today one of the companies enabling that — with APIs to build chat experiences into apps — is announcing a round of funding on the back of some very strong growth. Stream , which lets developers build chat and activity streams into apps and other services by way of a few lines of code, has raised $38 million, funding that it will be using to continue building out its existing business as well as to work on new feat

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Self Service Advertising – Walmart, Hulu – Chasing Small Businesses

Smart Hustle Magazine

If you’re thinking about exploring other ad platforms beyond Facebook and Google, you have more options now than ever. With their self-service advertising tools, new players like Hulu and Walmart are trying to lure small business owners to run effective advertising campaigns. The Ad Market Has Become Super Competitive. PC: Walmart. Advertising is an age-old practice to build brand awareness and grow sales.

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A new asynchronous video startup, Weet, helps employees communicate on their own schedule

TechCrunch

For founder Najette Fellache, coming to the Bay Area a few years ago from Nantes, France was a way to grow a company she’d founded and which was already beginning to count major U.S. corporations like GE, Tesla, Amazon, and Medtronics as customers. What that six-year-old outfit, Speach , sells is essentially knowledge-sharing between colleagues via videos produced by the employees themselves, often to augment written instructions.

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WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: How the Pandemic Has Reshaped the Media Business (Episode 186)

StartupNation

On this morning’s WJR Business Beat, Jeff discusses shifts in the media business as a result of the pandemic. PQ Media’s latest update on consumer spending on media content and technology reports that, of the 28 digital media categories, the fastest growing in 2020 was digital audio subscription services, which rocketed to a 40% growth rate worldwide.

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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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Snapcommerce raises $85M to make over your mobile shopping experience

TechCrunch

People are not only shopping digitally more than ever, they’re also shopping using their mobile phones more than ever. And for mobile-first companies like Snapcommerce , this is good news. Snapcommerce , formerly known as SnapTravel , has raised $85 million in what the company is describing as a “Pre-IPO” growth round to help further its mission of “changing the way people shop on their phones.”.

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[Rewire in Pitchbook] Tel Aviv-based fintech startup Rewire banks $20M

OurCrowd

OurCrowd has led a $20 million investment in Rewire, a provider of cross-border online banking services for expatriate workers. The Series B will be used to add new products to its platform, such as bill payments, insurance, savings, and credit and loan services. Rewire has also secured an EU Electronic Money Institution license from the Dutch Central Bank to support its European expansion plans.

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Countingup closes £9.1M for its business current account with built-in accounting features

TechCrunch

Countingup , the U.K. fintech offering a business current account with built-in accounting features, has closed £9.1 million in Series A investment. Leading the round is Framework Venture Partners, with participation from Gresham House Ventures, Sage and existing investors. It’s noteworthy that Countingup has previously taken investment from ING, and the addition of Sage as a backer is interesting since both could help the startup reach more business customers.

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The Reality of Being the CEO of a Growing Company

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Does it have to be like this? Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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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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Flourish, a startup that aims to help banks engage and retain customers, raises $1.5M

TechCrunch

It’s not uncommon these days to hear of U.S.-based investors backing Latin American startups. But it’s not every day that we hear of Latin American VCs investing in U.S.-based startups. Berkeley-based fintech Flourish has raised $1.5 million in a funding round led by Brazilian venture capital firm Canary. Founded by Pedro Moura and Jessica Eting, the startup offers an “engagement and financial wellness” solution for banks, fintechs and credit unions with the goal of helping them engage and reta

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Free Money for Startups

David Teten VC

We have added a large new section to the Versatile VC website with some of the best sources of free money for tech-enabled founders. That’s free as in “free beer”, not free as in “free speech”. Free tech accelerators: No equity, no cash. Free money and support from the Fortune Global 500 and Fortune Global 500. Free consulting. Free government money and support.

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Coursera is planning to file to go public tomorrow

TechCrunch

Coursera, an online education platform that has seen its business grow amid the coronavirus pandemic, is planning to file paperwork tomorrow for its initial public offering, sources familiar with the matter say. The company has been talking to underwriters since last year, but tomorrow could mark its first legal step in the process to IPO. The Mountain View-based business, founded in 2012, was last valued at $2.4 billion in the private markets, during a Series F fundraising event in July 2020.

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Free Money for Startups

David Teten VC

We have added a large new section to the Versatile VC website with some of the best sources of free money for tech-enabled founders. That’s free as in “free beer”, not free as in “free speech”. Free tech accelerators: No equity, no cash. Free money and support from the Fortune Global 500 and Fortune Global 500. Free consulting. Free government money and support.

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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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Indonesian logistics startup SiCepat raises $170 million Series B

TechCrunch

SiCepat , an end-to-end logistics startup in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $170 million Series B funding round. Founded in 2014 to provide last-mile deliveries for small merchants, the company has since expanded to serve large e-commerce platforms, too. Its services now also cover warehousing and fulfillment, middle-mile logistics and online distribution.

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[Hailo in CTech] Israel’s Hailo collaborates with AWS and others to launch video analytics solution

OurCrowd

Hailo, an Israeli AI chipmaker for edge devices, has collaborated with three different companies to deliver EdgeTuring, a next-generation AI processing solution for video analytics. The collaboration includes Amazon Web Services, one of the world’s most adopted cloud platforms; Leopard Imaging, a provider of embedded camera design and manufacturing; and Socionext, a provider of system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for image and video systems.

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Luxury air travel startup Aero raises $20M

TechCrunch

Aero , a startup backed by Garrett Camp’s startup studio Expa, has raised $20 million in Series A funding — right as CEO Uma Subramanian said demand for air travel is returning “with a vengeance.” I last wrote about Aero in 2019 , when it announced Subramanian’s appointment as CEO, along with the fact that it had raised a total of $16 million in funding.

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[Ripple in GlobeNewswire] New partnership to improve protein content of pulse-based products

OurCrowd

EDMONTON, Alberta, March 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, Protein Industries Canada announced an investment into a project that will lead to the development of new, high-protein pulse-based ingredients for the non-dairy beverage market. Read more here. The post [Ripple in GlobeNewswire] New partnership to improve protein content of pulse-based products 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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Jungle Scout raises $110M, acquires Downstream Impact to help 3rd parties sell on marketplaces like Amazon

TechCrunch

There has been a rapid proliferation of roll-up companies armed with wallets full of money to consolidate promising smaller merchants that sell on Amazon and other marketplaces, the idea being to create economies of scale to help them sell more effectively and grow. Today, a company that is somewhat doing the opposite — building tools to help Amazon sellers work better on their own — is announcing significant funding to keep growing its business.

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How Much is 20% More NDR Worth to Your SaaS Startup?

Tomasz Tunguz

A 20% delta in net dollar retention (NDR) may not seem like much, just a trifle, but make no mistake, it’s massive. In preparing for a presentation at next week’s Saastr Build conference, I reviewed this S-1 analysis for DataDog that I had published a few years ago. It shows the difference in the net dollar retention across three competitors in the same space, Application Performance Monitoring: DataDog, New Relic, and AppDynamics.

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Papaya Global raises $100M more at a $1B+ valuation for tools to hire, pay and manage distributed workforces

TechCrunch

Remote working — hiring people further afield and letting people work outside of a central physical office — is looking like it will be here to stay, and today one of the startups building tools for that environment is announcing a big fundraise in response to the opportunity. Papaya Global , an Israeli startup that provides cloud-based payroll and hiring, onboarding and compliance services across 140 countries for organizations that employ full-time, part-time and contract workers o

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Rethinking “Urgent” and “Important” In Modern Life

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Expanding the Eisenhower Matrix Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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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.