Author: TechCrunch News

Varda Space Industries has raised a $42 million Series A to bring to manufacturing a key capability that can only be found off-world: microgravity. The eight-month-old startup is looking to establish its first manufacturing facility in space as early as 2023, and by doing so, bring back to Earth advanced products that can only be…

Digital comics platform INKR’s team INKR is a digital comics platform that crosses cultural and language divides, enabling creators to reach global audiences with its proprietary localization technology. Previously bootstrapped, the company announced today that it has raised $3.1 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures, with participation from manga distributor TokyoPop…

A new trend is emerging in the world of startups and, to many, it couldn’t have come too soon. Why are there so few women in senior roles? Women going through menopause are commonly known to drop out of leadership roles, for instance. In the UK, menopause is responsible for about 14 million lost working…

While the Chinese technology market digests a new regulatory landscape impacting the country’s edtech market in a sharply negative manner, U.S. education technology companies have something to cheer about: Duolingo’s IPO priced very well. The language-learning unicorn initially targeted an $85 to $95 per share IPO price range. That interval was later raised to $95…

QuotaPath, which has developed a commission-tracking solution for sales and revenue teams, has raised $21.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Insight Partners. Existing backers ATX Ventures, Integr8d Capital, Stage 2 Capital and HubSpot Ventures also participated in the financing, which brings the startup’s total funding to $26.3 million since its 2018…

Twitter’s recent acquisition spree continues today as the company announces it has acqui-hired the team from news aggregator and summary app Brief. The startup from former Google engineers launched last year to offer a subscription-based news summary app that aimed to tackle many of the problems with today’s news cycle, including information overload, burnout, media…

Tesla’s primary source of revenue comes from the sale of its electric vehicles, but its latest quarterly earnings report showed growth in its energy storage and solar business. The demand picture will get even sunnier for the division if the company can access enough chips for its energy storage products, according to Tesla CEO Elon…

Tesla is pushing the launch of its electric Semi truck program to 2022 due to supply chain challenges and the limited availability of battery cells, the company said in its second-quarter earnings report Monday. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has warned about battery supply constraints before and the effect it might have on the Tesla Semi,…

Freight forwarders often keep track of rates on spreadsheets they email to customers, but the pandemic has made that difficult because prices are constantly fluctuating. Freightify, a startup that refers to itself as the “Shopify for maritime freight,” provides white-label rate management and e-booking tools that freight forwarders can use to set up online stores,…

Olumide Soyombo is one of the well-known active angel investors in Nigeria tech startups and Africa at large. Since he began angel investing in 2014, Soyombo has invested in 33 startups, including Stripe-owned Paystack, PiggyVest, and TeamApt. Today, the investor is announcing the launch of Voltron Capital, a Pan-African venture capital firm he co-founded with…