If startups were looking for more specifics about crypto lending, new rules by which blank-check companies might have to abide, or whether the SEC views NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as securities, they didn’t get any this week from Erin Schneider, the regional director of the SEC’s powerful San Francisco office. While speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021,…
While Delilah Kidanu grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, mobile money platform M-Pesa was the go-to fintech platform for her and most Kenyans. The Safaricom-owned product provides basic access to financial services like sending and receiving money and purchasing airtime. Yet, some Kenyans still lack other digital financial services from savings to investments. Last year, people…
Grocery giant Albertsons Companies, which owns Safeway and Jewel-Osco, is steadily adding to its digital transformation, this time with shoppable, livestream video experiences developed by Redwood City-based Firework. Firework noted that Albertsons is the first U.S. grocer to utilize its platform to create, host and curate their own short-form and livestream video for the Albertsons…
ZestMoney, a Bangalore-based buy now, pay later platform, said on Wednesday it has raised $50 million in a new financing round from Australia’s Zip as the Indian firm looks to cash in on a trend that is showing wider traction in several global markets. The eight-year-old Australian firm, which has a presence in 12 markets…
Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturing giant Foxconn and national Thailand oil supplier PTT PLC are moving forward with an agreement to start an electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Thailand. The facility is expected to begin rolling out vehicles by 2023. Foxconn had previously reported plans to begin building factories in both Thailand and the U.S. next year.…
As companies continue to delay their returns to the office and find temporary remote work policies becoming permanent, the startups building tooling for remote work-first cultures are finding a seemingly endless supply of customers. “Companies are finding the shift to remote work is not a one-time aberration due to Covid,” Almanac CEO Adam Nathan tells…
Farming sustainably and efficiently has gone from a big tractor problem to a big data problem over the last few decades, and startup EarthOptics believes the next frontier of precision agriculture lies deep in the soil. Using high-tech imaging techniques, the company claims to map the physical and chemical composition of fields faster, better, and…
Joseph Wengier Contributor Joseph Wengier competed in five Paralympics and won nine gold medals. He promotes the advancement of a more inclusive internet as an ambassador for accessibility technology company UserWay. After winning my first gold medal in the 1972 Paralympics, I went out with the swim team for a celebratory dinner. I’ll never forget…
Open banking — a disruptive technology that seeks to bypass the dominance of card networks and other traditional financial rails by letting banks open their systems directly to developers (and new services) by way of APIs — continues to gain ground in the world of financial services. As a mark of that traction, a startup…
U.S. technology unicorn Toast filed a new S-1 document this morning detailing a higher IPO price range for its shares. The more expensive range indicates that Toast may be worth more in its debut than it initially expected, a bullish sign for technology companies more broadly. Toast’s rising valuation may provide a boon to two…
