NotCo gets its horn following $235M round to expand plant-based food products

NotCo, a food technology company making plant-based milk and meat replacements, wrapped up another funding round this year, a $235 million Series D round that gives it a $1.5 billion valuation. Tiger Global led the round and was joined by new investors, including DFJ Growth Fund, the social impact

Despite controversies and bans, facial recognition startups are flush with VC cash

If efforts by states and cities to pass privacy regulations curbing the use of facial recognition are anything to go by, you might fear the worst for the companies building the technology. But a recent influx of investor cash suggests the facial recognition startup sector is thriving, not suffering

Spinn taps into $40M to create better coffee brewing, discovery experiences

When you are a coffee lover, taste matters, and Spinn is brewing up some fresh funding in the way of a $20 million funding round, led by Spark Capital, to bring connected coffee to new customers through its hardware-enabled coffee marketplace. Joining Spark in the round were Amazon's Alexa Fund

One of Nigeria’s high-profile angel investors is launching a fund for African startups

Olumide Soyombo is one of the well-known active angel investors in Nigeria tech startups and Africa at large. Since he began angel investing in 2014, Soyombo has invested in 33 startups, including Stripe-owned Paystack, PiggyVest and TeamApt. Today, the investor is announcing the launch of Voltron

Sproutl is an online marketplace for gardeners founded by former Farfetch executives

Meet Sproutl, a marketplace for gardeners living in the U.K. The startup founded by former Farfetch executives has raised a $9 million seed round. It wants to make gardening more accessible by providing a curated list of items, relevant advice as well as inspiration. Index Ventures is leading the r

Data-driven iteration helped China's Genki Forest become a $6B beverage giant in 5 years

China's e-commerce and industrial ecosystem is as different from the Western world as its culture. The country took decades to earn its reputation as the Factory of the World, but it now boasts a supply chain and manufacturing ability that few countries can match. Creative use of the country

The DL on CockroachDB

As college students at Berkeley, Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis created a successful open-source graphics program, GIMP, which got the attention of Google. The duo ultimately joined Google, and even personally got kudos from Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Kimball and Mattis quickly rose to prominenc

China roundup: Kai-Fu Lee’s first Europe bet, WeRide buys a truck startup

Hello and welcome back to technewss's China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. Despite the geopolitical headwinds for foreign tech firms to enter China, many companies, especially those that find a depen

Sequoia’s Mike Vernal outlines how to design feedback loops in the search for product-market fit

Sequoia’s Mike Vernal has worn many hats. He was VP of product and engineering at Facebook for eight years before getting into investment. His portfolio includes Houseparty, Threads, Canvas, Citizen, PicsArt and more, and he continues to invest in companies across a broad spectrum of stages a

Daily Crunch: Bitcoin ‘is a big part of our future,’ says Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

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. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 23, 2021. It's been an interesting week for the crypto faithful. One eye-catching piece of news came from Twitter a

Automakers have battery anxiety, so they’re taking control of the supply

Battery joint ventures have become the hot must-have deal for automakers that have set ambitious targets to deliver millions of electric vehicles in the next few years. It’s no longer just about securing a supply of cells. The string of partnerships and joint ventures show that automakers are

Peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround fined nearly $1M by DC’s attorney general

Getaround was fined nearly $1 million by the Washington, D.C. Office of the attorney general for operating without a license and other violations, part of a settlement of what the peer-to-peer car rental startup calls “politically motivated allegations.” The AG's office started investigatin

Extra Crunch roundup: Finding GTM, China’s edtech clampdown and how to define growth

Early-stage startups tend to claim that their go-to-market strategy is fully operational. In reality, GTM is a stark numbers game, and even with a solid plan in place, it can be easily foiled by common problems like turf battles and poor communication. Finding GTM fit is a milestone for any startup

Pro tips from the team behind Kickstarter’s most funded app

Here at memoryOS, we have a saying we repeat often: “Most of the Kickstarter happens before the actual Kickstarter.” Preparation is the key. But even if you understand that most of the work is done in advance, you should still prepare yourself for some sleepless nights after the launch date. Th