Sexual health isn’t the taboo it once was, but that doesn’t mean everything is all roses and unicorns in the land of STI testing. TBD Health is taking a fresh new approach with at-home testing made available for vagina-havers. The company has been offering a five-panel “check yourself out” kit for at-home testing, and recently…
Berlin-based Cherry Ventures has launched its fourth fund, a €300 million ($340 million) early stage tech fund. The Cherry IV fund will also feature a dedicated crypto and web3 strategy, building off Cherry’s existing portfolio in the space. Cherry’s portfolio includes unicorns Flink and SellerX, Infarm, as well as AUTO1 Group, FlixBus, flaschenpost, Forto, Xometry,…
Mention Me, a platform to generate customer referrals, has raised a $25m Series B round, led by London’s Octopus Ventures. Eight Roads Ventures, the lead investor from the prior round, a $7 million Series A in a 2018, also participated. The London-based startup helps businesses turn referrals into a channel for acquiring customers, while also gathering data…
SaaS Labs has raised $42 million in a new financing round, less than three months after closing its previous funding, and acquired two startups as it looks to aggressively grow its automation platform that serves sales and support teams at small and medium-sized businesses. Sequoia Capital India led SaaS Labs’ Series B round. Base 10…
There are many ways of spinning up a startup, but it takes a particularly brave set of founders to take on a deeply entrenched industry with a small number of incumbents who have the market all sown up. You’d have to be a special flavor of bold to take on internet search for example —…
If there was ever a rubber-meets road moment for six-year-old app Gale Healthcare Solutions, it’s probably right now. Gale Healthcare Solutions, founded in 2016, matches nurses with available work shifts. A hospital or clinic posts available shifts, then nurses can peruse opportunities, claim open spots, and be paid the same day through the platform. This…
In a move rarely made by Western venture capitalists, QED Investors announced today that it has hired an African partner, Gbenga Ajayi. He will focus on Africa investments as part of QED’s international team. Last September, the fintech-focused venture capital firm announced closing $1.05 billion for its oversubscribed seventh fund. TechCrunch reported that Fund VII,…
Politics and tech are certainly strange bedfellows. The Gang loves to talk about filibusters and the fall of democracy, but forget it when I try to bring up my fascination with live audio. That is understandable; we never talk about the little stuff until there’s a battling billionaire angle. So it was that Jack Dorsey’s…
Jibo may have breathed its last robotic breaths back in 2019, but researchers at MIT believe the social robot may have been onto something. Sure, the world wasn’t ready for a pricey social robot a few years back, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some positives to take away from the experience — namely, the…
Two of the world’s largest e-commerce players are joining joined hands. Major Chinese online retailer JD.com has formed a strategic partnership with Ottawa-based Shopify to help global brands tap China’s enormous appetite for imported goods, as well as helping Chinese merchants sell overseas. The news is turning heads in China’s cross-border e-commerce community. The first…
