World Of News

Just three months after capping what was the best year for Indian startups, having raised a record $14.5 billion in 2019 , they are beginning to struggle to raise new capital as prominent investors urge them to “prepare for the worst”, cut spending and warn that it could be challenging to secure additional money for the next few months. In an open letter to startup founders in India, ten global and local private equity and venture capitalist firms including Accel, Lightspeed, Sequoia Capital, and Matrix Partners cautioned that the current changes to the macro environment could make it difficult for a startup to close their next fundraising deal. The firms, which included Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners — some of the prominent names in India to back early-stage startups — asked founders to be prepared to not see their startups’ jump in the coming rounds and have a 12-18 month runway with what they raise. “Assumptions from bull market financings or even ...

Vericool , a Livermore, Calif.-based startup that’s replacing plastic coolers and packaging with plant-based products, has raised $19.1 million in a new round of financing. The company’s stated goal is to replace traditional packaging materials like polystyrene with plant-based insulating packaging materials. Its technology uses 100% recycled paper fibers and other plant-based materials, according to the company, and are curbside recyclable and compostable. Investors in the round include Radicle Impact Partners ,  The Ecosystem Integrity Fund ,  ID8 Investments  and  AiiM Partners , according to a statement. “We’re pleased to support Vericool because of the company’s track record of innovation, high-performance products, well-established patent portfolio and focus on environmental resilience. We are inspired by the company’s social justice commitment to address recidivism and provide workplace opportunity to formerly incarcerated individuals,” said Dan Skaff, m...

GM today announced manufacturing details around building much-needed medical face masks. According to the company’s press release , it took the company less than seven days to go from nothing to producing the first production-made mask. The automotive giant said today in a released statement it expects to deliver 20,000 masks on April 8 and soon after, able to produce 50,000 masks a day once the production line is at full capacity. These face masks are a vital piece of personal protective equipment (PPE) used by front-line healthcare staff to protect themselves against the virus-causing droplets that are spread by patients through coughing and sneezing in clinical settings. GM turned to global partners to create this manufacturing line within a week. The company sourced material from GM’s existing supply chain and acquired manufacturing equipment from JR Automation in Holland, Michigan, and Esys Automation in Auburn Hills, Michigan. As the company’s press release says, GM even create...

As companies get to grips with a wider (and, lately, more enforced) model of remote working, a startup that provides a platform to help track and manage all the devices that are accessing networked services — an essential component of cybersecurity policy — has raised a large round of growth funding. Axonius , a New York-based company that lets organizations manage and track the range of computing-based assets that are connecting to their networks — and then plug that data into some 100 different cybersecurity tools to analyse it — has picked up a Series C of $58 million, money it will use to continue investing in its technology (its R&D offices are in Tel Aviv, Israel) and expanding its business overall. The round is being led by prolific enterprise investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, with previous backers OpenView, Bessemer Venture Partners, YL Ventures, Vertex, and WTI also participating in the round. Dean Sysman, CEO and Co-Founder at Axonius, said in an interview that the...

In December 2019, Extra Crunch spoke to a group of investors leading the charge in health tech to discuss where they saw the most opportunity in the space leading into 2020 . At the time, respondents highlighted startups in digital therapeutics, telehealth and mental health that were improving medical practitioner efficiency or streamlining the distribution of care, amongst a variety of other digital health markets that were garnering the most attention. Where top VCs are investing in digital health In the months since, the COVID-19 crisis has debilitated national healthcare systems and the global economy. Weaknesses in healthcare systems have become clearer than ever, while startups and capital providers have struggled to operate while wide swaths of the market effectively shut down. Given significant volatility and the rapid changes seen in the worlds of healthcare, venture and startups broadly, we wanted to understand which inefficiencies might have been brought to light, w...

Let’s be real: Now isn’t the ideal time to launch a health tracker. For a majority of us, expectations have dramatically plummeted for step counts, workout minutes and other gamified metrics. But hardware launches will, for the most part, go on. Fitbit eschewed its normal press event this time out — for increasingly good reason — instead opting to launch the Charge 4 by way of press release. The line is modest, in a wearable category that’s begun to be dominated by smartwatches, but it’s a cornerstone product that continues to do well for the soon-to-be Google-owned hardware company. The biggest news here is built-in GPS — a big addition for the category — and Spotify control. The Spotify bit uses “Connect & Control,” requiring a premium account to play back music from playlists. Better news for those stuck at home are a number of yoga and other workouts directly accessible through a Fitbit Premium account. That’s available as a 90-day trial for new users. Other news: on-board...

Even as the pandemic forces Niantic to shift the way its outdoor-friendly titles are played, the gaming company is charging ahead with its efforts to build out an augmented reality platform which allows users to interact with the real world. Today, the studio behind Pokémon Go announced that it has acquired 6D.ai , a promising SF-based augmented reality startup focused on building software that allowed smartphone cameras to rapidly detect the 3D layouts of spaces around them. The companies didn’t share terms of the deal. Niantic’s bread-and-butter is mobile games, specifically Pokémon Go, but the company has raised nearly a half-billion dollars to do something more, building out a developer platform for augmented reality meant to rival what has been created by Facebook and Apple. Acquiring 6D.ai is an interesting step further there. Niantic is a consumer games company and 6D.ai was primarily working with enterprise clients. While Niantic will be shutting down 6D.ai’s existing dev...