TechCrunch Startup News

Joby Aviation is still a year away from commercially launching its electric air taxi designed for urban environments, but the startup is already looking towards its next chapter: Intercity flight, powered by hydrogen.  To get the conversation started with regulators and demonstrate hydrogen’s capabilities, Joby told TechCrunch that it completed a 523-mile test flight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Iceland’s startup scene is punching above its weight. That’s perhaps in part because it kept the 2021 hype in check, but mostly because its tech ecosystem is coming of age. Iceland attracted the most venture capital per capita of all Nordic countries in 2023, but that stat is somewhat skewed by its relatively small population. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SaaS founders trying to figure out what it takes to raise their next round can refer to Point Nine’s famous yearly SaaS Funding Napkin. (The term refers to “back of the napkin” plans or calculations.) Now, European hardware deep tech teams have a similar resource from First Momentum, a pre-seed fund investing in technical B2B Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nala, a remittance startup that is now widening its portfolio through a new B2B payments platform, has raised $40 million equity in a rare deal that becomes one of the largest Series A transactions in Africa.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Solo founder Cat Jones took the plunge on setting up a travel business right around the time the pandemic was hitting Europe in March 2020. Fast forward to summer 2024 and her curated package tour business, Byway, is announcing close of an oversubscribed £5.4 million Series A round (around $6.9M at current exchange rates). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Investors are betting on Indian wealthtech startups as a growing middle class turns to diversify investments and startups challenge traditional financial advisors for high-net-worth clients. Premji Invest is in advanced stages of talks to lead a funding round of $30 million to $40 million in Dezerv, an app offering a suite of investment solutions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Quantum Rise, a Chicago-based startup which does AI-driven automation for companies like dunnhumby (a retail analytics platform for the the grocery industry), has raised a $15 million seed round from Erie Street Growth Partners. Its approach is somewhat akin to UIPath’s, a company famous for bringing robotic process automation to the enterprise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adept, a startup developing AI-powered “agents” to complete various software-based tasks, has agreed to license its tech to Amazon as the startup’s co-founders and portions of its team join the ecommerce giant. Geekwire’s Taylor Soper first reported the news Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Samyr Laine and Ayanna Alexander-Laine now put their grit and determination to work for founders wanting to launch and scale consumer brands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exploring accusations of plagiarism and unethical web scraping by a startup using AI sparks debates on the fine line between summarization and plagiarism in the age of generative AI and chatbots providing answers based on internet content.