Out of its base in Belgium, Robovision already serves customers in 45 countries, CEO Thomas Van den Driessche told TechCrunch in an interview.
The initial traction Robovision gained was in agtech, which represents 50% of its activities, Van den Driessche said.
But other verticals are growing faster for Robovision, Van den Driessche said.
According to Van den Driessche, Robovision is seeing strong traction in life sciences and tech.
Van den Driessche became Robovision’s CEO in 2022, and Berte moved his focus to fundraising, partnerships and global expansion.
India-based audio platform Pocket FM has secured $103 million in Series D funding led by Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Stepstone Group.
Pocket FM offers audio series with several short episodes and aim to become the “Netflix for audio” globally.
That means you can’t use the coins you bought on Pocket FM to unlock content Pocket Novel products and vice versa.
Pocket FM also has a limited audiobook vertical where it competes with the likes of Audible with a similar pay-to-unlock strategy.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADIA has held talks with Pocket FM for a potential mega funding round, TechCrunch reported last week.
Europe eyes LinkedIn’s use of data for ads in another DSA askMicrosoft-owned professional social network, LinkedIn, is the latest to get a formal request for information (RFI) from the EU.
Of specific concern is whether LinkedIn is breaching the DSA’s prohibition on larger platforms’ use of sensitive data for ad targeting.
Profiling based on such data to target ads is banned under the law.
The DSA also empowers the EU to impose fines for incorrect, incomplete, or misleading information in response to an RFI.
LinkedIn isn’t the only platform to be in the EU’s spotlight when it comes to use of data for ads.
SpaceX is aiming to launch its massive Starship rocket for the third time as soon as March 14, the company confirmed in a social media post Wednesday.
SpaceX is still awaiting regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the launch, without which Starship will remain grounded.
SpaceX conducted the first Starship orbital flight test last April; there was a seven-month gap between it and the second test, which took place last November.
Both ended with mid-air explosions of the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage (which is also called Starship).
Meanwhile, the Starship upper stage will continue its ascent to orbit.
Bitcoin jumped and Coinbase’s app crashed, while Aptos eyes Hong Kong and Telegram rolls out rewards with TONWelcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction.
This week in web3Crunching numbersThis week the crypto market was very hyped up as the two biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, bitcoin and ether, both jumped about 23.6% and 18%, respectively, on the week, according to CoinMarketCap data.
The total crypto market cap increased 19.4% over a seven-day period to $2.34 trillion.
Our favorite ‘Crypto Twitter’ postICYMI, last week a lot of crypto people were tweeting about emails from Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.
In June 2022, Magic Eden raised $130 million in a Series B round that granted it unicorn status.
In the past several years, the kitchen has increasingly become a focal point for the world of automation.
Others, including Zume Robotics, have been less successful – the pizza robot firm shut its doors last year after attempting a major pivot into Earth-conscious food packaging.
The new cash infusion follows a January 2021 raise of $7.7 million, bringing the total funding up to $22.5 million.
MaC Venture Capital, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures and Alumni Ventures joined existing backers, Construct Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Promus Ventures and Red and Blue Ventures.
Chef isn’t revealing specific sales figures, only saying that it has “robots at food companies in five cities around the US and Canada” including “Fortune 500 food companies.” Bhageria also tells TechCrunch that it has quadrupled “recurring revenue from 2022 to 2023,” though, again, nothing more specific than that.
The deal would allow General Catalyst to tap deeper into India’s vibrant technology scene that has lured over $100 billion in startup investments since 2010.
The deal hasn’t finalized, so things may change, the sources cautioned, requesting anonymity as the deliberation is private.
The U.S. firm held conversations with many senior individuals in India last year looking to find an India-based partner, many people familiar with the matter said.
Its new focus on India follows the firm expanding in Europe last year by agreeing to merge with La Famiglia, an investor in several high-profile early-stage startups including AI firm Mistral.
Investing in India has proven uniquely challenging to many global venture firms that have entered the country or have explored such possibility, a partner at a India-based venture firm said.
Hyperexponential, a London-based insurance technology (insurtech) startup that serves the property-casualty (P&C) insurance industry with “decision intelligence” for pricing, has raised $73 million in a Series B equity round of funding.
Boston-based venture capital (VC) firm Battery Ventures led the round, with participation from existing investor Highland Europe and Andreessen Horowitz (A16z).
Moreover, that Hyperexponential is bringing in high-profile U.S. VC firms points to an international roadmap, with the company confirming plans to expand beyond its current operations in the U.K. and Poland to the lucrative U.S. market.
“We’ve focused on building a capital-efficient, independent business that was both high-growth and sustainable from the outset,” said Hyperexponential co-founder and CEO Amrit Santhirasenan, in a statement.
The company also said that it plans expand into adjacent markets, including SME insurance.
The move by Stripe suggests that the tech world is still very much in search of growth opportunities, even as the broader stock market dips. With its reliance on software-based…
