Parallel Domain says autonomous driving won’t scale without synthetic data

Achieving autonomous driving safely requires near endless hours of training software on every situation that could possibly arise before putting a vehicle on the road. Historically, autonomy companies have collected hordes of real-world data with which to train their algorithms, but it’s impo

Goodera makes corporate volunteering events easier, even for remote and hybrid workplaces

Corporate volunteering is on the rise as a way to increase a company's social impact while boosting employee engagement. Managing volunteer programs, however, can get tricky. Goodera wants to make it easier with an end-to-end platform that includes pre-vetted volunteer opportunities and trained

Tiger Global-backed Algorithmiq to collaborate with IBM over drug discovery using Quantum

Algorithmiq, a Helsinki-based quantum computing startup, has pulled in a deal with IBM to super-charge its exploration of quantum algorithms applied to the life sciences. The collaboration will attempt to dramatically cut the time and cost of drug discovery and development. The widely accepted maxi

Thailand’s Beam simplifies checkout for social commerce

The social commerce market is already worth more than $13 billion in Southeast Asia, but the checkout process is filled with friction. Many sellers don't have online storefronts and instead use social media and messaging apps, which means payment is made by switching to banking apps or wallets.

Daily Crunch: High-precision induction stove startup Impulse powers up with $20M Series A

To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Greetings on this fine Tuesday. There was a lot of news today, so I'm not going to waste time and instead will get right to what you came here for. — Christ

Ring launches pilot program to let local agencies share updates and ‘safety information’

Ring today announced that local government agencies will be able to have an official presence on the company’s Neighbors app. Beginning with the City of North Port and Pinellas County Government in Florida and the City of Fulton in New York, the new program will allow government organizations

Unit’s banking-as-a-service platform is getting into the charge card game

If the banking-as-a-service fintech Unit does its job right, it will be ubiquitous among businesses and simultaneously have a name unknown to the end user. The company gives companies a way to embed financial services into their product — and after already launching debit cards, Unit is officiall

Maven, now valued at $1.35 billion, is answering a countrywide demand: More fertility benefits

Maven, a women's health clinic and benefits platform, has had no shortage of macroeconomic plot twists: From investors questioning its market size to the still on-going pandemic to, most recently, the startling overturn of Roe v. Wade. But CEO and founder Kate Ryder stays optimistic. “This is

YC, Khosla-backed Atmos lands $12.5M to design custom dream homes

Atmos, a startup which has built an online marketplace that teams up homebuyers with builders and land developers to design and build custom homes, has emerged from stealth today with $12.5 million raised in Series A funding round led by Khosla Ventures. Founded in 2018, San Francisco-based Atmos t

Yahaha raises $40M more for its user-generated, low-code immersive gaming platform

Yahaha, a Helsinki- and Shanghai-based immersive, user-generated, low-code gaming platform founded by a group of Chinese gaming vets, made a splash in January when it announced a cumulative $50 million in funding ahead of its alpha launch in April. Now, with 100,000 creators and hundreds of thousan

5 sustainable best practices for bootstrapped startups

No matter how successful your startup is, you’ll always need to pay bills and ensure healthy future cash flows. Times of plenty can lull you into thinking funds will always flow into your bank account, because that's been your reality so far, but the cruel reality is that capital sources

AI-driven fashion platform Shoptrue constantly learns its users shopping habits

An A.I.-powered online fashion marketplace, Shoptrue, is launching its website into beta today with plans for a public release early next year. The site blends artificial intelligence and personalized recommendations with taste-driven shopping, the company says, which helps give users a source for

Impacked packs up $2.5M to give the packaging industry a greener tint

Packaging is a trillion-dollar-per-year industry that, by and large, has some sustainability challenges. Impacked is a B2B company that’s bringing green tech to the forefront for everything from jars, tubes and pouches to bottles. The company raised a $2.5 million seed funding round led by Te

AI-powered media editing app Descript lands fresh cash from OpenAI

Descript, the audio and video editing platform founded in 2017 by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, has raised $50 million in a Series C round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, a tranche through which OpenAI and its partners, including Microsoft, are investing in early-stage companies. Descript is the