way to shortcut

BBC's Zoe Kleinman experiences software which creates virtual training simulations for the military. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2NGkuRv

Skydio has raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. That pushes it into unicorn territory, with $340 million in total funding and a post-money valuation north of $1 billion. Skydio’s fresh capital comes on the heels of its expansion last year into the enterprise market, and it intends to use the considerable pile of cash to help it expand globally and accelerate product development. In July of last year, Skydio announced its $100 million Series C financing , and also debuted the X2, its first dedicated enterprise drone. The company also launched a suite of software for commercial and enterprise customers, its first departure from the consumer drone market where it had been focused prior to that raise since its founding in 2014. Skydio’s debut drone, the R1, received a lot of accolades and praise for its autonomous capabilities. Unlike other consumer drones at the time, including from recreational drone maker DJI, the R1 could track a t

Japanese space startup Gitai has raised a $17.1 million funding round, a Series B financing for the robotics startup. This new funding will be used for hiring, as well as funding the development and execution of an on-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s robotic technology, which will show its efficacy in performing in-space satellite servicing work. That mission is currently set to take place in 2023. Gitai will also be staffing up in the U.S., specifically, as it seeks to expand its stateside presence in a bid to attract more business from that market. “We are proceeding well in the Japanese market, and we’ve already contracted missions from Japanese companies, but we haven’t expanded to the U.S. market yet,” explained Gitai founder and CEO Sho Nakanose in an interview. So we would like to get missions from U.S. commercial space companies, as a subcontractor first. We’re especially interested in on-orbit servicing, and we would like to provide general-purpose robotic solu

A growing number of tech firms are helping farmers better look after their animals and crops. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/37YbgGZ

It may be tough to remember, but there was a time long ago when Justworks wasn’t a household name. Though its monthly revenue growth charts were up and to the right, it had not even broken the $100,000 mark. Even then, Bain Capital Venture’s Matt Harris felt confident in betting on the startup. Harris says that, with any investment (particularly at the early stage of a company), the decision really comes down to the team and more importantly, the founder. Two of the main reasons this deck “sings” is the line it draws to the Justworks culture and that the deck isn’t “artificially simple.” “Isaac is a long-term mercenary, but short- and medium-term missionary,” said Harris. “The word that really comes to mind is ‘structured.’ If you ask him to think about something and respond, he’ll think about it and come back with an answer that has four pillars underneath it. He’ll create a framework that not only answers your specific question, but can prove to be a model that will answer futur

Influencers can have a bad reputation but for some people they have proved to be a business lifeline. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2O8K01i

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch , but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here . Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. Kicking off with a tiny bit of housekeeping: Equity is now doing more stuff . And TechCrunch has its Justice and Early-Stage events coming up. I am interviewing the CRO of Zoom for the latter. And The Exchange itself has some long-overdue stuff coming next week, including $50M and $100M ARR updates (Druva, etc.), a peek at consumption based pricing vs. traditional SaaS models (featuring Fastly, Appian, BigCommerce CEOs, etc.), and more. Woo!  This week both DoorDash and Airbnb reported earnings for the first time as public companies, marking their real graduation into the ranks of the exited unicorns. We’re keeping our usual eye on the earnings cycle, quietly, but today

“A lot of founders mix up raising money with making money.” This quote, which Career Karma founder Ruben Harris mentioned off-hand on a phone call with me, has been on my mind for months. In fact, raising money can cost you money, in the form of that sweet, sweet ownership and equity. That’s why Clearbanc, a startup I have covered for years, has always had a compelling pitch. The company, co-founded by Michele Romanow and Andrew D’Souza, positions itself as an alternative equity-free capital solution for early-stage founders. Flexing its “20-minute term sheet” the startup uses an algorithm to shift through a startup’s data, and if it has positive ad spend and positive unit economics, they make an investment worth anything from $10,000 to over $10 million. It makes money through a revenue-share agreement versus an equity stake. “While we’ve invested in over 4,000 businesses using this model, we’ve also turned away over 50,000 who weren’t at this scale or level of repeatability,”

A devaluing currency and hard economic conditions make cryptocurrencies attractive despite the risks. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3uCAXXi

Several waves of Pokémania have swept the globe, keeping this lucrative franchise relevant for 25 years. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3bHdRGh

Non-fungible tokens have been around for two years, but these NFTs, one-of-one digital items on the Ethereum and other blockchains, are suddenly becoming a more popular way to collect visual art, primarily, whether it’s an animated cat or an NBA clip or virtual furniture. “Suddenly” is hardly an overstatement. According to the outlet Cointelegraph, during the second half of last year, $9 million worth of NFT goods sold to buyers; during one 24-hour window earlier this week, $60 million worth of digital goods were sold. What’s going on? A thorough New York Times piece on the trend earlier this week likely fueled new interest, along with a separate piece in Esquire about the artist Beeple, a Wisconsin dad whose digital drawings, which he has created every single day for the last 13 years, began selling like hotcakes in December. If you need evidence of a tipping point (and it is ample right now), consider that the work of Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, was just made

Could the cryptocurrency's huge electricity consumption also sink it? from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3kAo8s4

There is growing speculation that a certificate scheme could be built into the main NHS app. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3bGSvJa

Ros Atkins looks at the consequences of Facebook's power on events in Myanmar, Washington DC and Australia. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3su00Kg

When I needed a new sofa several months ago, I was pleased to find a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option during the checkout process. I had prepared myself to make a major financial outlay, but the service fees were well worth the convenience of deferring the entire payment. Coincidentally, I was siting on said sofa this morning and considering that transaction when Alex Wilhelm submitted a column that compared recent earnings for three BNPL providers : Afterpay, Affirm and Klarna. I asked him why he decided to dig into the sector with such gusto. Full Extra Crunch articles are only available to members. Use discount code ECFriday to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription. “What struck me about the concept was that we had just seen earnings from Affirm,” he said. “So we had three BNPL players with known earnings, and I had just covered a startup funding round in the space.” “Toss in some obvious audience interest, and it was an easy choice to write the piece. Now the quest

If Southern California-based Road Runner Media succeeds, you’ll start seeing a lot more ads while you’re driving. That’s because the startup is placing digital screens on the back of technicians’ vans, delivery vehicles, buses and other commercial vehicles. Those screens can show both ads and serve as a brake light — according to founder and chairman Randall Lanham, the brake light functionality is required if you’re putting a sign on the back of a vehicle. “The way we look at it, we are a digital brake light,” Lanham said. Yes, the brake light is showing ads, but “the driver touching the brakes interrupts the ad.” (The sign can also indicate turns, reversing and emergency flashers. You can see a mock-up ad in the image above, and real footage in the video below.) To pursue this idea, Lanham (who described himself as a “recovering attorney”) enlisted Chris Riley as CEO — Riley’s experience includes several years as CEO of PepsiCo Australia and New Zealand. And the company announc

David Teten Contributor Share on Twitter David Teten is founder of Versatile VC and writes periodically at teten.com and @dteten . More posts by this contributor 15 steps to fundraising a new VC or private equity fund Flexible VC: A new model for startups targeting profitability Katherine Boe Heuck Contributor Katherine Boe Heuck is a MBA candidate at MIT Sloan (class of 2022), a past intern at Versatile VC and a current intern at Metaprop NYC . What can we learn from the best 40 venture capital investments of all time? Well, we learn to invest exclusively in men, preferably white or Asian. We reviewed CB Insights’ global list of “40 of the Best VC Bets of all Time.” All of the 40 companies’ 92 founders were male. Of the 43 U.S.-based founders, 35 were white American; four were white immigrant/first generation, from France, Ukraine, Russia and Iran; and four were Indian immigrant/first generation. Of the 19 Western Europe/Israel-based founders, all we