TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Internet giant Google announced today that it has made the first investment from its Africa Investment Fund in Ugandan super app SafeBoda. The undisclosed investment comes two months after Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced the tech giant’s intentions to commit $1 billion over the next five years in “tech-led initiatives”, which includes a $50 million Africa Investment Fund targeted at early- and growth-stage startups on the continent.

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StartupNation

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Shutterstock. As businesses of all sizes approach the end of the year, retailers are pushing hard to grasp their customer’s attention with effective holiday marketing campaigns and hit their end-of-the-year targets. This year is no exception, presenting a huge opportunity for retailers. In the U.S. alone, retail sales are expected to reach $859 billion toward the end of the year, representing an increase of 10.5% from 2020 results of 8.5%.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Just two and a half months after emerging from stealth , weight care management startup Found announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round that values the company at $600 million. WestCap — a growth equity firm founded by former Blackstone and Airbnb executive Laurence Tosi — led the investment, with participation from IVP, The Chernin Group, G9 Ventures and Able Partners.

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StartupNation

DECEMBER 16, 2021

The pandemic has changed the way business works. While the economic effects caused many businesses to fail, it also paved the way for many emerging business opportunities. Returning to pre-pandemic is no longer an option, and companies see this as a time to make real change and create new success. Taking the initiative to cater to some of these new markets now will pay dividends in the future. .

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Lack of digitalization decreases business competitiveness. To thrive, embracing modern solutions becomes essential. The approach to digitalization often aligns with a company's business model. This shift not only boosts productivity but also automates processes and improves security. The tech market offers a wealth of technologies tailored for management, planning, and forecasting, replacing outdated pen-and-paper methods.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Two years ago, a group of entrepreneurs in Pakistan began surveying the market to understand why financial services weren’t reaching the majority of merchants in the world’s fifth most populous nation. On Friday, Tiger Global said it is backing their startup, CreditBook , to help address those challenges. This is the New York-headquartered firm’s first investment in Pakistan.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

ManageXR announced today it has raised a $4 million seed round led by Rally Ventures , with venture partner and previous lead angel investor Jay Borenstein joining the company’s board of directors. . With the latest funding, ManageXR will support its expanding team and go-to-market strategy as the company has experienced rapid growth since becoming available to beta users in November 2019 and officially launching in April 2021.

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StartupNation

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Think about the last time you trekked across town, ordered food or looked for a place to stay in a new city. The common thread linking all three experiences is that, chances are, you used an app that relies on workers in the gig economy. The gig economy isn’t just limited to the service and hospitality industries, either. Today, gig economy workers exist in practically every sector and include writers, graphic designers, app and web developers, accountants, legal experts, translators and more.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Juan Carlos Hernández. Contributor. Share on Twitter. Juan Carlos Hernández is the executive director at parallel18 , a top-level, performance-driven international startup program with a social mission, part of the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust. Startup markets around the world are heating up, and more investors are competing against each other for the best deals.

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Tomasz Tunguz

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Tokens are the paid customer acquisition channel of web3. By analyzing how web3 companies invest tokens, we can calculate the cost of customer acquisition (CAC) for a crypto company. When a user spins up a validator to verify transactions on a blockchain, stresses the testnet and is rewarded with tokens, stakes tokens to generate yield, burns tokens to transact, or receives an airdrop for tweeting, a cryptoco expends tokens to acquire a customer.

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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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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Capital may help someone take the jump into entrepreneurship, but what about the activation energy to let them think that big in the first place? To Cory Levy , the latter has always been more important. The entrepreneur behind First Text , a low-friction service that connects founders to investors, launched Z Fellows last year to test out his take.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Inspirational stories plus practical takeaways from the entrepreneurship world. Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or YouTube. Today’s guest is Prukalpa Sankar who was named The Economic Times Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, a Forbes 30 under 30, and a Fortune 40 under 40. She’s the founder of two major organizations. First, SocialCops helped revolutionize the use of data at organizations focused on good causes.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Continual , a startup that aims to bring operational AI to the modern data warehouse-centric data stack, today announced that it has raised a $4 million seed round led by Amplify Partners , with Illuminate Ventures, Essence, Wayfinder and Data Community Fund also participating in the round. With this announcement, Continual is also opening up its service as a public beta , after testing it with a number of select customers in recent months.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 16, 2021

My friends at The New Consumer and Coefficient Capital have published their annual consumer survey. There are many interesting slides in it, none more than this one. I guess that explains this chart: But back to the consumer survey, there are lots of interesting slides in it and you can get it here by creating a free account to The New Consumer. I strongly recommend doing that and enjoying your coffee this morning mulling over the report.

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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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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

When it comes to online payments, the front end of the system has seen a massive amount of disruption in the last several years, with companies like Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, Square and others building APIs that make it very simple for online merchants to integrate easy payment services into their checkout flows. But when it comes to the backend, the rails other tech used to actually pass on payment information and make the transactions are more often than not decades old.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Take risks, conquer your fears, and never give up Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

With e-commerce becoming increasingly globalized, a company called Taxdoo , which builds API-based tools to help e-commerce companies with tax compliance and other accounting needs, is announcing a round of funding: $64 million, a Series B that the Hamburg-based startup will be using to expand further across Europe and to build what it describes as the financial operating system for e-commerce businesses. “We’re already helping customers shave off hours of manual [sales tax] work, an

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OurCrowd

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Hailo, the leading edge Artificial Intelligence chipmaker today announced its partnership with NXP® Semiconductors, an automotive market innovator, to launch a number of joint AI solutions for automotive Electronic Control Units (ECUs). The joint solutions will combine NXP’s safe and efficient automotive processors (S32G and Layerscape) along with the high-performance Hailo-8™ AI processor.

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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.

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Alyssa Jaffee. Contributor. Share on Twitter. Alyssa Jaffee is a partner at 7wireVentures , a digital health-focused venture capital firm, where she focuses on investments that empower consumers to become better stewards of their heath. This was a record-breaking year for private investment across digital health. Investors poured billions of dollars into digital health solutions with great promise of driving innovation in a highly antiquated and inefficient industry.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

DECEMBER 16, 2021

And we aren’t talking about a $10 impulse purchase, either. Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Denver-based software startup Gtmhub announced this morning that it has closed a $120 million Series C. Index Ventures led the round, with a number of prior investors contributing as well. Before its new investment, Gtmhub had raised just over $40 million in total , making its Series C around triple its prior aggregate capital base. The OKR software market that the startup competes in has had a busy year, helping make the huge round more understandable than it is when simply compared to Gtmhub&

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Derek Sivers

DECEMBER 16, 2021

A gorilla, speaking with sign language, makes a joke. We’re amazed. She’s showing the fullest expression of a soul. But when a person is humorless, it’s the opposite. They’ve lost the point of life. A recovering hospital patient makes a joke. We’re relieved. Not just their body, but their soul is alive. But when a previously jovial patient loses their humor, we’re rightfully concerned.

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Advertiser: ZoomInfo

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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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

French startup Voodoo has announced that it plans to make a significant investment in blockchain-powered mobile games. The company estimates that it represents a $200 million investment over the coming years. 2021 has been an important year for crypto gaming, with Axie Infinity popularizing the play-to-earn model. Some companies, such as Mythical Games, raised massive funding rounds and are working on mainstream crypto games.

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OurCrowd

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Ambarella (AMBA – Free Report) recently announced that it has collaborated with Tel-Aviv-based artificial intelligence (“AI”) mobility company, Autobrains Technologies, to develop Advanced Driver Assistance System (“ADAS”) solutions. Read more here. The post [Autobrains in Zacks] Ambarella (AMBA), Autobrains tie up to develop ADAS solutions appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Cockroach Labs , makers of CockroachDB, has been raking in money this year. It started the year with a $160 million Series E on a $2 billion valuation and ended it with a $278 million Series F on a $5 billion valuation, more than doubling the company value in less than 12 months. Greenoaks led the latest round — they were a participant in the prior round — with participation from Altimeter, Bond, Benchmark, Coatue, FirstMark, GV, Index Ventures, J.P.

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OurCrowd

DECEMBER 16, 2021

Beyond Meat has announced the appointment of food industry veteran Jorg Oostdam to the newly created position of General Manager, Europe. With more than two decades of experience in the food and retail sector, including a 15-year tenure at Mars, Incorporated, Oostdam will drive Beyond Meat’s expansion in Europe and accelerate its strategic growth worldwide.

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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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