Author: TechCrunch News

Unacademy has laid off 12% of its workforce, or over 350 roles, in its latest round of layoffs — just over four months after cutting about 350 roles in November. Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal announced the new layoff decision in a Slack post to employees. “We have taken every step in the right decision…

Impact investor Goodwell Investments and Oxfam Novib, a Dutch foundation and Oxfam International affiliate, have set up Pepea, a €20 million ($21.7m) fund, to provide financing to early-stage startups in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia. The fund, created with the backing of Oxfam Novib Impact Investments, will provide venture debt with a focus on mezzanine finance,…

Indian insurtech Acko is in late-stage discussions to secure $120 million in a funding round at a time when weak global market conditions have subdued large financing deliberations in the South Asian market. General Atlantic is in talks to lead a $120 million round into Acko, the first tranche of which is about $100 million,…

Amazon now allows T-mobile customers to link their mobile numbers and make or receive hands-free Wi-Fi calls through Alexa-enabled devices like Echo Dot or Echo Show. This comes more than two years after the ecommerce giant partnered up with AT&T for a similar feature. Customers will need to enable the T-Mobile with Alexa skill from…

As of this writing, more than 1,100 signatories, including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology, have signed an open letter that calls on “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” Says the letter: Contemporary AI…

A consortium led by Lifelong Group has acquired the distressed firm GoMechanic months after the Sequoia India-backed startup admitted “grave errors” in financial reporting. The New Delhi-headquartered Lifelong Group, which serves several major players in the automotive industry including Hero and General Motors, said it won the bidding to acquire GoMechanic, whose investors scrambled for…