look

Forta Secures $55M Investment to Promote Autism Care for Parents

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In a world where healthcare access is disproportionately skewed by geography and income, Forta Health raised a substantial round of funding to level the playing field a bit. Forta defends its approach, saying it differs in some substantial ways from the ABA approaches from the bad old days. Those are now very passé,” explains Christian Smith, co-founder and CMO at Forta Health, in an interview with TechCrunch. Forta Health wants to ensure that those parents have professional support and training to be able to give higher-quality care. Forta Health is exploring how to enhance family caregiving with technology, especially for chronic conditions and areas where the health system falls short.

Evaluating Your Startup’s CAC: Determining the Viability of Introducing a New Product

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Look at your startup’s CAC to decide if you should launch another productUntil recently, it was widely accepted that startups, constrained by limited resources, should primarily concentrate on a single product. Investing in customer acquisition is justified when the net present value of the profits from the acquisition exceeds the customer’s customer acquisition cost (CAC). Customer acquisition and product development stand out as a startup’s most important investments. Customer acquisition and product development stand out as a startup’s most important investments. With the rise in CAC, the relative value of customer acquisition remains the same compared to new product development.

Revitalizing Virtual Connections: EyeQ’s Approach to Maintaining Eye Contact during Video Calls

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There are a ton of tools out there that help you keep eye contact when talking with people online – some (Plexicam, CenterCam) place the camera in front of your screen. Others use AI to edit the video stream to make it look as if you’re looking at the camera (it’s creepy AF when done poorly). EyeQ is taking a different approach, and we took a closer look at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. The lack of personal connection and the inability to maintain eye contact during video calls are major contributing factors to this issue. “Our primary focus is on the online healthcare and consultancy markets, where making authentic eye contact is crucial.

A deeper exploration of the Rownd tabletop CNC lathe

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In an era where DIY culture and personal manufacturing are rising, Rownd Lathe is an exciting new player. This compact CNC lathe is a fun gateway to creativity, enabling users to effortlessly shape and form a variety of materials, including wood, aluminum, and plastic. For amateur machinists, entry-level CNC mills have been around for a hot minute (Bantam is the brand that immediately springs to mind), but CNC lathes have been conspicuously absent from the market. Ease of use is central to the Rownd Lathe experience. This touch interface also allows for manual machine control, or you can upload Gcode to run the machine like any other CNC lathe.

Spicing Up Automatic Medicine Dispensers with My Memo Technology

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Every few years, a new startup takes a stab at automatic pill dispensers to help with drug adherence and to prevent people from accidentally dosing more than they should. Makes sense: For many of us, as we get older, more and more medicines join the lineup that keeps us ticking along. Unfortunately, memories get fuzzy, and forgetting to take — or doubling up — medicines can have disastrous consequences. The company takes a fresh look at the market, with a good-looking device to keep its users’ medicine intake on track. My Memo is a closed box that makes the medicines inside inaccessible — helpful to prevent casual theft and child safety, for example.

Investors Look Ahead with Confidence to 2024

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Welcome back, and welcome to 2024! We’re starting the year off on a high note: After a mediocre 2023, investors are optimistic about exit activity picking back up in 2024. Some think M&A activity will skyrocket, while others think we will see the IPO market bounce back. Get the TechCrunch+ Roundup newsletter in your inbox! Dear Sophie,Our HR and operational consulting firm works primarily with tech startups.

Investors predict a rise in company sell-offs in 2024

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It’s been a rough few years for startups looking to exit, but companies, especially late-stage startups, can’t stay private forever. When the exit market didn’t open back up in 2023, as many hoped after a very quiet 2022, investors and founders alike decided that 2024 was the year that the exit market would defrost. The vast majority of investors responded that they think exit volume will be higher in 2024 than in 2023 and 2022, but there wasn’t consensus on what those exits would look like. Some investors are more optimistic about M&A in 2024, while others think we will see a rebound in the IPO market. While most respondents answered this survey before the Adobe-Figma deal dissolved, many VCs acknowledged that startups looking to pursue that route this year will have to be conscious of the current regulatory environment anyway.

“Discover the Upcoming Transformations in PERM with Sophie”

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Ask Sophie: What changes are in store for PERM? Sophie is passionate about transcending borders, expanding opportunity, and connecting the world by practicing compassionate, visionary, and expert immigration law. Would you provide an update on what we should look out for in the new year when it comes to the PERM process? Now, let me provide a bit of context about where things currently stand with the PERM process before diving into the changes you should look out for that will — or will not :) — impact PERM. If you’d like additional detail about the nuts and bolts of the PERM process, take a look at this previous Ask Sophie column.

Germany’s Fading Green Dreams and the Impending Consolidation of Cannabis Enterprises

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As 2023 comes to an end, it is only natural to reflect on what happened in the markets we cover. But when it comes to cannabis, the answer is “not much,” which won’t help cannabis startups that are already facing a challenging funding environment. Namely, 2023 wasn’t the year that Germany legalized adult recreational cannabis use. That matters because that’s not what the legal cannabis market once anticipated, and whenever there is misalignment between reality and what investors expected, especially when public companies boosted said expectations, it is rarely good news. “Companies have spent significant capital in preparation for a sizable commercial market in Germany.

“Surprisingly, Figma Still Shines Without Adobe”

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Even without Adobe, things don’t look too bad for Figma CB Insights estimates that Figma is still worth between $8.3 billion and $9 billionA failed acquisition often spells doom for the target company. But despite its $20 billion takeover by Adobe not going through, there are reasons to think that Figma will be just fine. That the online design company will get a $1 billion termination fee from Adobe will help soften the blow. So, “no, startups, you’re not getting a breakup fee unless it’s a sizable enough deal where there is antitrust risk,” VC Ed Sim wrote on X. But in the Adobe-Figma deal, where both companies knew that this risk was front and center, even a $1 billion fee seems only fair compared to the uncertainty ahead.