Kayhan Space is making orbit safer with timely, automatic collision warnings for satellites

The orbital economy is heating up, but the infrastructure that supports it is starting to creak. Kayhan Space is a startup that makes sure your satellite doesn’t crash into another — or a launch or piece of space trash, for that matter — using modern data crunching techniques and a web-ac

BetterData taps the blockchain to help create better synthetic data

As the global data privacy regulatory landscape gets more convoluted and constrictive, engineering teams looking to use structured data to improve their products and AI models are being pushed to jump through plenty of hoops to stay compliant. BetterData, which is launching onstage at the TechCrunc

Intropic helps single-use plastics decompose from the inside out

Plastics are great for so many things, but they stay around for an awfully long time. Intropic leaps to the rescue with a set of enzymes that can be added to plastics at the very beginning of their life cycle, before it is even turned into products. The additives the company makes have been proof-

Reverion eyes commercial launch to draw more energy out of biogas

Born inside the Technical University of Munich, the engineers behind Reverion say they’ve had their heads down for seven years developing a way to get more electricity out of biogas and existing fuel-cell technology. Biogas comes from decomposing waste and is mostly made up of methane. It

Ally is building a dead-simple, no-code robot arm

“Both my dad and mom had their own business,” Ally Robotics founder and CEO Mitch Tolson tells technewss. “My mom had a sign company. Every single weekend and nights during the week, I was installing neon signs, welding up frames, digging trenches, holes for electrical, all of it.” The exe

Sundial Foods is taking 'chicken wings' in a new direction

Alternative proteins are coming in every shape and form, and Sundial Foods is making its mark in one of sports bars' favorite staples: wings. Co-founders Jessica Schwabach and Siwen Deng started the company in 2019 to create vegan chicken wings that look just like the traditional cut of meat. T

CVCs maintain stake in one-quarter of deals despite overall venture pullback

Last year’s record-breaking venture funding totals were fueled by crossover investors ranging from hedge funds to private equity firms. When market conditions soured at the beginning of 2022, most people assumed that all the nontraditional venture backers would retreat this year as well. That

Here's what's happening on day two of Disrupt

Day one of technewss Disrupt is in the rearview mirror, and what a great day it was! We hope you're well rested and well fed, because day two — October 19 — comes fully loaded with action, connection and opportunity. Latecomers still welcome: Buy a pass right here. All righ

Thunes integrates with Visa Direct’s digital payments network

Cross-border payments startup Thunes is partnering with Visa in a move that will add more than 1.5 billion new endpoints to Visa Direct's digital payments network. This enables many more consumers and small businesses to send funds to markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where digital wal

Nourish Ingredients gets $28.6M boost for its animal-free fats

Nourish Ingredients, a food tech company that creates animal-free fats using synthetic biology, secured $28.6 million in Series A funding, led by Horizons Ventures and supported by Main Sequence Ventures and Hostplus. We previously profiled the Australian company in 2021 when it raised $11 million.

Nigerian retail automation platform Bumpa raises $4M, led by Base10 Partners

Millions of small and medium businesses still operate inefficiently due to dependency on manual processes, which limits their capacity to grow and scale; this is despite contributing to about 48% of Nigeria's GDP in the last five years, But the tide is turning. Over the last couple of months, w

MaxAB, an Egyptian B2B e-commerce platform for food and grocery supplies, nabs $40M

Last year, MaxAB, the food and grocery B2B e-commerce and distribution platform serving a network of traditional retailers across Egypt and Morocco, raised its $55 million Series A in two tranches; the latter accompanied its acquisition of the Morocco-based and YC-backed WaystoCap. The moves signal

Holidu pockets $102M to keep growing its vacation rentals business in Europe

Munich-based software and services vacation rental startup, Holidu, has topped up its coffers with an oversubscribed €104 million (~$102 million) Series E funding round of equity and debt, led by existing investor 83North, after seeing its year-over-year revenue grow 100% in 2021. The round saw a

Egypt's Nexta to launch ‘next-gen banking’ app with fresh $3M

Nexta, an Egyptian startup that plans to launch its banking app in the coming months, has secured a $3 million investment from eFinance Group, a state-owned provider of digital payments solutions. This news follows the $2 million pre-seed round Nexta announced this March, which Egyptian early-stage