Kost Capital, a new Danish venture capital fund, is out to bring better food to more people. General partner Bodil Sidén started the firm with LPs Kasper Hulthin, Christian Tang-Jespersen, Mark Emil Hermansen and Jacob Lee Ørnstrand. Kost, which means “diet” in the Scandinavian language, however, it will most like be difficult to stick to…
Veho, a package delivery company, confirmed that it laid off 19% of its employee headcount, or about 65 jobs. As first reported by The Information, these layoffs came after Veho grew revenue nearly 90% in 2023. “We conducted a reorganization of our corporate team to improve efficiencies, accelerate our path to profitability and be able…
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Company shared the first image of its lander on the lunar surface, revealing that the spacecraft touched down on the moon upside-down. It’s a remarkable recovery for the spacecraft, which experienced an “abnormality in the main engine” that affecting the landing orientation when it was just 50 meters above the lunar…
Porsche took the wraps off Thursday of the Macan EV, a long-delayed project that will test whether consumers still have the drive to spring for an electric vehicle that costs more than $78,000. The reveal comes at a pivotal time for Porsche — and many other automakers. Demand for expensive EVs has waned in recent…
DXwand, a Cairo- and Dubai-based startup that leverages conversational AI to help businesses in the Middle East automate customer service and employee assistance, has raised $4 million in Series A funding. UAE-based Shorooq Partners and Cairo-headquartered firm Algebra Ventures led the investment, with existing investor Dubai Future District Fund also participating. The Series A investment…
Aurora Innovation, the autonomous vehicle technology company aiming to launch a “driverless” self-driving trucks business by the end of 2024, laid off dozens of workers this month, according to sources familiar with the action. The Pittsburgh-based company, which also has facilities in California, Colorado, Texas and Montana, has since confirmed that about 3% of its…
Fintech has been in the dumps for a while now, and with companies like Brex once again cutting staff as they try to rein in costs, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the market for financial technology products is struggling. Well, not really. Brex might not be having a good couple of quarters, but there’s…
When Anomalo’s co-founders left Instacart in 2018, they thought they could put machine learning to work to solve data quality problems inherent in large data sets. Five years later, the company’s idea is even more relevant as data quality takes center stage with large language models. Today, the startup announced a $33 million Series B,…
As conversational AI begins to take over the world, chatbots are being given a new lease of life. However, there are clear hazards on the road ahead. Parcel delivery giant DPD recently had to disable part of its online support chatbot after it swore at a customer. A user managed to convince the chatbot to be…
Aniai, a startup that has built a burger-grilling robot, Alpha Grill, said today it has raised $12 million, bringing its total raise to $15 million. The money will go toward launching its first manufacturing facility, Factory One, in South Korea. The firm will also be deploying a cloud-based AI software platform for the robot called…
