PayPal Ventures’ latest investment is in an Indonesian startup that provides personal insurance products covering a variety of risks, including accidents, phone screen damage, and ticket cancellations. Qoala has secured $47 million in a new round co-led by PayPal Ventures and MassMutual Ventures, the five-year-old […]
Day: March 27, 2024
New study of unicorn founders finds most are ‘underdogs,’ and female founders are rising
A new study that zeros-in on the founders of so-called “Unicorns” (companies worth over a billion dollars) has found most have “underdog” founders, are often drawn from the top 10 universities, a rising female founder make-up, but no obvious monopoly at Seed stage of funding […]
The Anticipation Builds: ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ Set to Take Summer 2024 by Storm
As the summer of 2024 approaches, the cinema world braces itself for the return of the most electrifying duo in action comedy, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, in “Bad Boys:…
Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks
Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8M (or in local currency: PLN 31,850,141), also calls out the e-commerce giant for deceptive design elements which may inject a […]
African B2B e-commerce giant Wasoko marked down to $260M after VC halves stake
VNV Global, a Swedish investment firm that backs startups in mobility, health and marketplaces, slashed the value of its holding in Wasoko, an African B2B e-commerce startup, by 48%, according to its annual report for 2023. In its annual report, VNV set Wasoko’s fair value at […]
The Grok chatbot will soon be enabled for X Premium users, Elon Musk says
xAI’s Grok chatbot, the Elon Musk-helmed company’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will be available to X’s Premium subscribers later this week. Musk has announced Grok’s expanded availability in a tweet, along with an instructional video on how to post a conversation with the chatbot directly […]
Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks
Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8M (or in local currency: PLN 31,850,141), also calls out the e-commerce giant for deceptive design elements which may inject a […]
Robinhood’s new credit card goes after Apple Card with ability to invest cash-back perks
Eight months after acquiring credit card startup X1 for $95 million, Robinhood announced today the launch of its new Gold Card, with a list of features that could even give Apple Card users envy. Robinhood, better known for its brokerage app aimed at the everyday […]
This camera captures 156.3 trillion frames per second
Scientists have created a blazing-fast scientific camera that shoots images at an encoding rate of 156.3 terahertz (THz) to individual pixels — equivalent to 156.3 trillion frames per second. Dubbed SCARF (swept-coded aperture real-time femtophotography), the research-grade camera could lead to breakthroughs in fields studying […]
Vinyl records outsell CDs for the second year running
Vinyl reigns when it comes to physical media. | Image: RIAA People bought 43 million vinyl records last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That’s 6 million more than the number of CDs sold in 2023, marking the second time since […]