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“Raspberry Pi Goes Public: Shares Surge Following Successful IPO Pricing”

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Who would have thought that Raspberry Pi, the maker of cheap, single-board computers, would become a public company? It means that Raspberry Pi could end up raising more than $200 million during its IPO process. If you’re looking to buy Raspberry Pi shares as a retail investor, this isn’t possible just yet. Raspberry Pi Ltd, the public company, is the commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Arm previously announced that it intended to increase its stake in Raspberry Pi with the public listing.

“Revolutionizing Home Energy Audits: How AI Can Aid Kelvin in His Quest to Save the Planet”

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When you’re looking for a startup idea that could slow climate change, you might become an expert at home energy assessments. Instead, the startup has put together a small team of engineers to create its own AI model specialized in home energy assessments using machine learning. The company uses open data, such as satellite images, as well as its own training data set with millions of photos and energy assessments. In the company’s first tests, its home energy assessments have been accurate within 5% of old-fashioned assessments. The startup has now raised €4.7 million ($5.1 million at today’s exchange rate) with Racine² leading the round and a non-dilutive investment from Bpifrance.

“Delays and Obstacles: Wasoko-MaxAB Merger Challenges Africa’s E-commerce Growth”

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It’s been described as “the largest merger in African e-commerce” by both companies. When the planned merger was first announced, the B2B e-commerce players were active in eight countries. These recent moves suggest the new entity will likely serve fewer than the 450,000 retailers quoted during the merger announcement. As the merger nears completion, the CEOs from both companies will continue as full-time executives but function in different roles. “Regarding our merger with MaxAB, it is important to state that this is progressing as expected and in accordance with the initial terms.

“Exclusive Opportunity: Italian Founders Fund Seeks Visionary Entrepreneurs with €50 Million to Fund Global Endeavors”

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While funding for Italian startups has been growing, the country still ranks eighth in Europe by VC investment, according to Dealroom. Newly created Italian Founders Fund (IFF) hopes to help with the catching up, both in quantity and in quality. It will use this geographical flexibility to also back Italian founders operating abroad, as well as foreign startups interested in entering the Italian market. It will also help that some of its LPs are GPs of foreign funds, and that it plans to back Italian founders with global ambitions. Global Italian startups include Bending Spoons, the owner of popular apps and services like Evernote and Meetup, which is valued at $2.55 billion.

“Meowtel: The Feline-Focused Enterprise That Pounced Through Financial Challenges and Achieved Profitability”

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Dogs are the most popular pet in the U.S.: 65.1 million households have one, according to the American Pet Products Association. Sonya Petcavich, the founder of cat-sitting app Meowtel, thinks that cats, and cat people, deserve more. “Rover had been around for a few years, and Wag was picking up steam, but they were so dog focused. Meowtel has made it to this point raising just under $1 million in venture capital. ImpriMed, a dog oncology startup, raised $23 million in November, and Fi, a smart dog collar, has raised more than $40 million in venture capital.

NEA Invests $20M in Anterior to Accelerate AI-powered Health Insurance Approvals

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Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by NEA, according to two people familiar with the deal. Existing investors Sequoia, which led Anterior’s $3.2 million seed round last September, and Neo, an accelerator that helped the company launch in the summer of 2022, also participated in the Series A financing. The company has built an LLM-powered co-pilot that helps nurses and doctors save hours on gathering medical documentation required by insurance. While Anterior’s initial offering is in prior authorization automation, the company eventually plans to expand into other medical administrative functions. Makhzoimi also backed Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup that launched this year with $1 billion in funding.

A Weekly Roundup of Startups: Triumphs, Setbacks, and Bright Spots

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Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje’s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Image Credits: OdaHardware is hard, episode 234: We already knew that Humane’s Ai Pin launch was going anything but smoothly. Image Credits: Sword Health / CompanyLive by the sword : Sword Health, an AI-powered virtual physical therapy startup, raised a $30 million primary funding round and a $130 million secondary funding round that brought its valuation to $3 billion. : Sword Health, an AI-powered virtual physical therapy startup, raised a $30 million primary funding round and a $130 million secondary funding round that brought its valuation to $3 billion. Where’s your head at: Austrian startup Storyblok raised $80 million to add more AI to its “headless” content management system (CMS) for non-technical people.

Battery Maker EnerVenue Secures $515M in Funding, According to Filing

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EnerVenue, a startup that has developed an alternative to lithium-ion batteries for long-duration renewable energy storage, is raising $515 million in fresh equity, per an SEC filing seen by TechCrunch. The company is in the process of building a gigawatt-scale factory in Kentucky to produce its nickel-hydrogen batteries, an endeavor that’s estimated to cost $264 million. So far, EnerVenue has raised $308 million of the $515 million target, the filing says. Nickel-hydrogen batteries aren’t as energy dense as lithium-ion, meaning they won’t be competing for space in electric vehicles quite yet. The next challenge will be completing the factory, scaling production and sending its novel batteries out into the world.

HSBC’s Valuation of $22 Billion Byju’s Plummets to $0

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In a research note, HSBC estimates that the Indian edtech giant Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing. The write-down in its estimation makes Byju’s one of the most spectacular startup slides in recent memory. Those issues — coupled with abrupt resignations from its auditor and board members — contributed to derailing a $1 billion fundraise deliberation by Byju’s. Prosus, one of Byju’s largest investors, publicly slammed the startup, alleging it “regularly disregarded advice” from the backer. It stands to reason then, that in the research note HSBC also estimated the value of Prosus’ 10% stake in the Indian startup to be zero because of the ongoing legal cases and funding crunch.

Introducing Meta Verified: WhatsApp Business Users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia Now Have Access!

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Meta on Thursday said it is rolling out its Meta Verified program for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia, and eventually to more countries. The plan also lets businesses use their WhatsApp Business account from multiple devices. Until now, WhatsApp Business users had to use their personal phone numbers to service customer calls. With more than 200 million monthly users on WhatsApp Business, Meta is trying to build a full suite of solutions that businesses can tap for communicating with their customers. The company said existing commerce and payment services only cater to the top 200 million users.