The odds are against San Francisco-based electric vehicle battery swapping company Ample. Other companies have tried to build a business on exchanging dead batteries for fresh ones to solve the problem of long EV charge times: Fourteen years ago, Better Place raised nearly a billion dollars to do what Ample’s doing, and it ended up…
Signal AI, an artificial intelligence startup that trawls the vast sea of internet and other publicly available data to provide organizations with sentiment insights and other information to make better business decisions, has raised $50 million. It plans to use the funds to continue building out its AI platform to bring in more diversified data…
Kenyan startup Wowzi has secured new funding to expand the reach of its platform, which turns social media users into brand influencers, to West and Southern Africa — as it taps the increasing usage of social sites across the continent driven by the proliferation of smartphones and a deepening internet penetration. Wowzi, which connects social…
The Oversight Board, a group Facebook created to review its policy decisions, weighed in on a case of misinformation in war-torn Ethiopia Tuesday, warning the company about the risks of allowing hate speech and unverified information to spread freely in conflict zones. The Oversight Board reviewed a post in Amharic from an Ethiopia-based Facebook user…
Snap announced today that it paid over $250 million to more than 12,000 creators this year on Spotlight, its TikTok clone. Unlike Snapchat’s friend-to-friend, ephemeral messaging, Spotlight allows users to reach a wide audience. Since last year when Spotlight launched, Snap says that creators are posting three times as often now. It’s no secret that…
Open has acquired consumer neo-banking startup Finin for $10 million as the Bangalore-based, Google-backed business-focused neobanking platform looks to broaden its offerings and deepen relationships with banks. The deal involves both cash and stock, the two said. Launched in 2019, Finin is among the first consumer-focused neobanking startups in India. The startup, which had raised…
ForwardX Robotics, a Beijing-headquartered company that makes autonomous mobile robots (AMR), said Tuesday it has closed the initial tranche of its Series C funding round as it looks to expand globally. The startup is fundraising for the rest of its Series C round at a time investors are courting warehousing and manufacturing robot makers in…
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Monday, December 13! The theme of today is crypto, or web3 if you prefer that rebranding. Why? Because it turns out that an NFT project…
“Our Notus algorithm identified you as the most impactful journalist for our audience.” As a slight narcissist — as all writers are — I saw this line in a cold email and had two immediate thoughts: first, is the founder just saying this because they want me to write about their funding round, and second,…
Indonesia-based insurtech startup Fuse announced today it has secured $25 million of Series B extension round as it plans to enter more countries including Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia. The startup has closed three funding rounds of Series B within the past six months, bringing the company’s total raised to over $70 million. The…
