Qatar fund invests $1B in Ambani’s Reliance Retail at $100B valuation
Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is investing $1 billion in Reliance Retail as India’s largest retail chain looks to expand its operations and enter new categories. The Qatar Investment Authority’s check will secure it a 0.99% stake in Reliance Retail Ventures, valuing the Indian com
Not a traditional founder? Learn how to use it to your advantage at TC Disrupt 2023
The list of reasons why venture investors don’t fund diverse startups is long, legion and ludicrous, to put it politely. Nontraditional founders still face a ridiculous uphill slog. Here's some good news: If you don't fit the “pale, male from Yale” stereotype, you can use your exp
Mucker Capital backs ScribeUp's 'fully-automated' approach to managing subscriptions
Most of our product subscriptions sit passively in the background and keep sending us things until we don't want them anymore. However, what happens when we don’t want the subscription in the first place?
Enter ScribeUp, a free subscription management company that is taking a proactive ap
Dipp uses AI to fix bottlenecks between marketing and design teams
Before founding dipp, Jennifer Chen and Mikhail Abramov spent 15 years working as art directors in New York City. During that time, Chen says they realized that the marketing, sales and design process has stayed the same, despite new technology and tools being introduced to the market, and is often
Friend.tech hype is skyrocketing, but will it actually reach the stars?
Since Friend.tech opened its invite-only beta test 11 days ago, the decentralized social-focused app has quickly attracted a lot of users, even catching the attention of big name crypto influencers, NBA players and OnlyFans creators. But can it convert all the early hype to meaningful, lasting trac
VC Office Hours: Why the sex tech industry could benefit from today’s politics
Despite the potential for technology to radically transform it, the sex tech industry isn’t actually discussed much. In most of the world, sex is still a taboo topic, and funding for the industry isn't as robust as one might assume.
Of course, sex being tabooed doesn’t help, but par
Twiga lays off 33% of its staff, disbands in-house delivery and introduces logistics marketplace
Twiga will conduct another round of layoffs to keep its business afloat amid macroeconomic headwinds that have made capital harder to raise, and forced venture-backed companies to scale down their operations. The Kenyan B2B e-commerce platform said it is laying off 283 employees, representing 33% o
B2B inventory marketplace Ghost reappears with $30M Series B to expand outside US
Ghost, providing a B2B marketplace for surplus inventory, is back with fresh funds in the way of a $30 million Series B round.
It's been one year since Josh Kaplan and Dee Murthy launched Ghost's members-only marketplace, with $20 million in Series A capital, to help brands and retailers di
VCs should give up on the winner-takes-all approach to investing
Venture capital is the business of hitting home runs. But must a startup have the potential to capture the vast majority of market share in its category to earn an investment? I don’t think so.
A few days ago, the co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack, Marco Zappacosta, came on technewss's Fou
IP for startups: When (not) to patent your inventions
When it comes to intellectual property, “patents” might spring to mind. A good patent can give startups a competitive edge, and once you've been granted one, nobody can come and mess with your technology, right? Not so fast. A lot is changing in the patents world, and things can quickly sta
A tale of two payments companies
Welcome back to The Interchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. There was plenty going on as usual — with fintech investors sounding off, payments companies seeing big stock moves and much more.
One other note, you can find Mary Ann on technewss'
Deal Dive: Forecasting rain on DTC’s Parade
You don’t need me to tell you that startups haven’t been doing great since the funding slowdown and valuation reset started back in 2022. But while some companies will be able to survive on cash reserves or be propped up on inside funding, others will be forced to either liquidate or e
Bad CTOs mean startups have millions of dollars’ worth of cap table dead weight
Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.
This week, I've been looking at the evolution of tech startups. The journey from two or three co-founders to an exit or an acquisition is long and arduous, and it turns out that a lot of VCs aren't particularly p
I've never seen so many crap startups
Startups are so full of shit right now.
The pipes are jammed and there are so many companies that are full to bursting with the desire to un-pack them.
We've just been through determining the shape of this year's technewss Startup Battlefield 200 and we are seeing a hug