Startups

CaaStle founder charged with fraud, turns herself in

Venture /

Christine Hunsicker, founder of the fashion startup CaaStle, turned herself in to authorities Friday to face fraud charges, authorities confirmed to Bloomberg.  The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment against her, charging her with wire fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and lying to financial institutions. She […]

CaaStle founder charged with fraud, turns herself in Read More »

Rwazi raises $12M Series A to help companies with consumer insights and intelligence

Venture /

Joseph Rutakanga spent eight years looking for tools to help companies gather consumer insight data. Eventually, he decided to just build them.  Now his startup, called Rwazi, has raised a $12 million Series A led by Bonfire Ventures to help companies with market intelligence and consumer insights. He founded the company in 2021 with co-founder

Rwazi raises $12M Series A to help companies with consumer insights and intelligence Read More »

UK launches £500M package to support diverse, underrepresented investors and founders

Government & Policy /

The British Business Bank, owned by the UK government, is creating a £500 million (around $674 million) economic package to help support diverse and underrepresented fund managers and founders in the country.  Fifty million pounds will be set aside for female-led venture funds, which means the BBB has now committed at least £100 million (around

UK launches £500M package to support diverse, underrepresented investors and founders Read More »

AI leadership development platform Praxis Labs sells to Torch

Startups /

Praxis Labs, a learning development platform, announced its acquisition on Thursday for an undisclosed amount by the leadership and coaching enterprise Torch.  “As a small company with fewer than 20 people serving companies as large as Amazon, we knew we needed to build powerful partnerships, across product and go-to-market, to reach more companies,” co-founder and

AI leadership development platform Praxis Labs sells to Torch Read More »

Sarah Smith launches $16M fund, says AI can ‘unlock’ so much for solo GPs like herself

Venture /

Sarah Smith, founder and managing partner of the eponymous Sarah Smith Fund, announced Thursday the final closing of a $16 million Fund I.  Smith launched her eponymous fund in 2022 and is a solo GP. She said she’s “stunned” by what AI can unlock for firms like hers, solo and next-generation. “I can’t imagine doing

Sarah Smith launches $16M fund, says AI can ‘unlock’ so much for solo GPs like herself Read More »

Medium’s CEO explains what it took to stop losing $2.6M monthly

Venture /

Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine announced on Friday that the publishing platform has remained profitable since August of last year, when it first achieved this milestone. In the post, Stubblebine detailed what it took to achieve this goal, which involved a combination of product changes, an investor restructuring, renegotiated loans, unloading office space, layoffs, and other

Medium’s CEO explains what it took to stop losing $2.6M monthly Read More »

How a data processing problem at Lyft became the basis for Eventual

Fundraising /

When Eventual founders Sammy Sidhu and Jay Chia were working as software engineers at Lyft’s autonomous vehicle program, they witnessed a brewing data infrastructure problem — and one that would only become larger with the rise of AI. Self-driving cars produce a ton of unstructured data from 3D scans and photos to text and audio.

How a data processing problem at Lyft became the basis for Eventual Read More »

Uptime Industries wants to boost localized AI usage with an ‘AI-in-a-box’ called Lemony AI

Enterprise /

Uptime Industries is taking a bet on on-premise AI infrastructure with an “AI-in-a-box” handheld device called Lemony AI. The size of a sandwich, Lemony AI can supposedly run a large language model (LLM), AI agents and AI workflows all on one node. Each Lemony requires only 65 watts of power to run, the equivalent of

Uptime Industries wants to boost localized AI usage with an ‘AI-in-a-box’ called Lemony AI Read More »

XRobotics’ countertop robots are cooking up 25,000 pizzas a month

AI /

XRobotics thinks it has cracked the code on getting pizza restaurants to adopt robotics. The San Francisco-based robotics company built a countertop robot called xPizza Cube, which is roughly the size of a stackable washing machine, and uses machine learning to apply sauce, cheese and pepperonis to pizza dough. The machines, which lease for $1,300

XRobotics’ countertop robots are cooking up 25,000 pizzas a month Read More »