Robotic Research, a self-driving technology company that has spent the last two decades developing on and off-road autonomous vehicles for the Department of Defense, raised a $228 million Series A round. The company will use the investment, which was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Enlightenment Capital, to build out the commercial side of…
Indian ride-hailing giant Ola has raised $139 million at a valuation of about $7.3 billion, it said in a filing, ahead of its plans to file for an initial public offering early next year. Mumbai-headquartered financial giant Edelweiss led the new investment tranche. IIFL, Siddhant Partners, Tejal Merchantile, Hero Enterprise also poured money, Bangalore-headquartered Ola…
Twitter posted today that its testing a feature that would turn its in-app explore page into a TikTok-like video feed, complete with even a “For You” tab. This feature is testing on both Android and iOS for users in certain countries who use Twitter in English. Twitter is the latest social app to see if…
A new company is entering the crowded e-commerce aggregator space to acquire and scale high-performing Latin American brands selling on MercadoLibre, Shopify or Amazon. Quinio, a Mexico-based company, announced today it secured $20 million in a debt-and-equity round that will be used to add more than 30 brands to its portfolio. The company was founded…
The world’s largest card company just doubled down on its bid to capture the crypto market. Visa announced today that it has launched a crypto advisory practice for its clients and partners under its Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) arm. The news comes just a few months after Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, declared…
It’s been five years since the founding of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has proven to be quite a generous patron of cutting-edge biotech science and research, and far from winding down, the organization is stepping on the gas as good outcomes from its grants and internal work pile up. “Working as partners with scientists,…
As Snap’s creators begin to experiment with the company’s augmented reality Spectacles hardware, the company is delving deeper into juicing the capabilities of its Lens Studio to build augmented reality filters which are more connected, more realistic and more futuristic. At the company’s annual Lens Fest event, Snap debuted a number of changes coming to…
2021 has been a rosy year for China-based Amazon vendors looking for exits. Roll-ups, or brand aggregators, have been flooding China’s export-oriented e-commerce market with capital to scoop up sellers. The roll-ups themselves are fueled by venture capital, such as Silicon Valley’s Markai, which recently raised its seed round of $4 million from investors like…
A virtual bank is soon coming to Indonesia. WeLab, a Hong Kong-based fintech unicorn, announced Tuesday its acquisition of Bank Jasa Jakarta (BJJ), an Indonesian commercial bank. With the deal, WeLab is planning to launch a digital bank to capture the country’s enormous unbanked population in the second half of next year. A consortium led…
Hello and welcome back to Max Q! There was a TON of space news this week so I won’t ramble too much, other than to remind you that many of the people mentioned below will be at TC Sessions: Space on the 14th and 15th! That includes Peter Beck, CEO of Rocket Lab, Nanoracks’ Jeffrey Manber, and…
