Author: TechCrunch News

Micromobility startup Voi has raised $45 million, funds it says will be used to research and develop technology that will improve safety, keep users from riding on sidewalks and ensure scooters are properly parked. The funding comes a month after Voi launched a pilot in Northhampton, UK with Irish startup Luna to test how computer…

More than 40 African startups from a handful of countries have gone through YC over the past decade. Zambia joins that list today, and its entrant, Union54, is a worthy first entry. Union54 (54 is a nod to the number of African countries) is a fintech company founded by Perseus Mlambo and Alessandra Martini. The…

UK-based open banking bulk payment startup Comma has raised £4.34 million ($6m) in a Seed round of funding led by Octopus Ventures and Connect Ventures. They were joined by investors Village Global, and the founders of Wagestream, Peter Briffet and Portman Wills. The company says it enables small and micro businesses to bulk pay bills,…

This past decade, Nigeria has seen several companies cater to the development and growth of software engineers and tech talent in general. It’s a space many in the Nigerian ecosystem like to think is budding yet overcrowded. So when Chika Nwobi started Decagon in 2018, the perception was generally “here comes another tech talent accelerator.”…

Companies developing driver detection technology could get a boost from a provision tucked inside the 2,702-page $1 trillion infrastructure bill that would require automakers to build into new cars technology that can tell if drivers have had a few cold ones. The provision in the bill, which is actually a piece of bipartisan legislation called…

In the world of robotic startups, acquisition is often as good an outcome as any. And when it comes to robotic tractor startups, you could do worse than being acquired by John Deere. The agricultural technology giant announced today that it’s set to acquire Bear Flag Robotics for $250 million. The Bay Area-based firm, which…

What to look for — and what to avoid Sudheesh Nair Contributor Sudheesh Nair is CEO of ThoughtSpot, a business intelligence company that has built an intuitive Google-like interface for data analytics. Before ThoughtSpot, Sudheesh was president at Nutanix. In a company’s early days, the difference between C-level executives and the rest of the organization is…

Walter Isaacson, the biographer who chronicled the lives of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo da Vinci, is turning his attention to the life and career of Elon Musk. The Tesla CEO announced the project in a tweet Wednesday. If you’re curious about Tesla, SpaceX & my general goings on, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography…

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 4, 2021. It’s been hectic: Robinhood’s stock lost its mind. Facebook made another chunk of the internet mad. And a new unicorn wants to…

A framework for driving success Gregg Adkin is vice president and managing director at Dell Technologies Capital, the global venture capital investment arm of Dell Technologies. What’s the board’s role in an early-stage startup? Startup founders frequently ask me about the role of a board of directors. A board can be a crucial asset in…