AI is ready to take on a massive healthcare challenge

Which disease results in the highest total economic burden per annum? If you guessed diabetes, cancer, heart disease or even obesity, you guessed wrong. Reaching a mammoth financial burden of $966 billion in 2019, the cost of rare diseases far outpaced diabetes ($327 billion), cancer ($174 billion)

Fewer than 24 hours to save $100 to attend TC Sessions: Mobility 2021

Calling all frazzled procrastinators, feet-draggers, lollygaggers and last-minute decision makers. The best price on passes to TC Sessions: Mobility 2021, which takes place on June 9, disappears in mere hours. It's now o'clock, baby. Shift your EV into gear, hail a robotaxi or tell Mr. Scot

BigBrain aims to bring live mobile trivia back to glory

If you ask Nik Bonaddio why he wanted to build a new mobile trivia app, his answer is simple. “In my life, I’ve got very few true passions: I love trivia and I love sports,” Bonaddio told me. “I’ve already started a sports company, so I’ve got to start a trivia c

Freemium isn't a trend — it's the future of SaaS

As the COVID-19 lockdowns cascaded around the world last spring, companies large and small saw demand slow to a halt seemingly overnight. Enterprises weren't comfortable making big, long-term commitments when they had no clue what the future would hold. Innovative SaaS companies responded quick

Metafy adds $5.5M to its seed round as the market for games coaching grows

This morning Metafy, a distributed startup building a marketplace to match gamers with instructors, announced that it has closed an additional $5.5 million to its $3.15 million seed round. Call it a seed-2, seed-extension or merely a baby Series A; Forerunner Ventures, DCM and Seven Seven Six led t

TikTok’s new developer tools allow apps to offer ‘Login with TikTok,’ sound sharing, and more

TikTok is expanding its integrations with third-party apps. The company today announced the launch of two new tool sets for app developers, the TikTok Login Kit and Sound Kit, that will allow apps on mobile, web and consoles to authenticate users via their TikTok credentials, build experiences that

Snap to launch a new Creator Marketplace this month, initially focused on Lens Creators

Snap on Wednesday announced its plan to soon launch a Creator Marketplace, which will make it easier for businesses to find and partner with Snapchat creators, including Lens creators, AR creators and later, prominent Snapchat creators known as Snap Stars. At launch, the marketplace will focus on c

Valence unveils training program to help build pipeline of Black execs

Diversity has been linked with equity and inclusion because diversity is just one part of the equation when it comes to hiring Black employees. How do the companies they work for make people feel welcome and included, rather than isolated? How do Black employees find their way into management, up t

Comms expert and VC Caryn Marooney will detail how to get attention at TC Early Stage

We’re thrilled to announce Caryn Marooney is speaking at our upcoming technewss Early Stage virtual event in July. She spoke with us last year and we had to have her back. Just look at her resume. She was the co-founder and CEO of The Outcast Agency, one of Silicon Valley's best-regarded

Personal skin problems leads founder to launch skincare startup Nøie, raises $12M Series A

Inspired by his own problems with skin ailments, tech founder Daniel Jensen decided there had to be a better way. So, using an in-house tech platform, his Copenhagen-based startup Nøie developed its own database of skin profiles to better care for sensitive skin. Nøie has now raised $12 million i

Lightmatter’s photonic AI ambitions light up an $80M B round

AI is fundamental to many products and services today, but its hunger for data and computing cycles is bottomless. Lightmatter plans to leapfrog Moore’s law with its ultra-fast photonic chips specialized for AI work, and with a new $80 million round, the company is poised to take its light-po

Hamburgers and hot rods

I'm going to be honest with you: It was kind of a slow week for robotics news. Honestly, that's the first time I can say that since I started doing this thing weekly (happy 10 weeks to us, by the way). Of course, this stuff always ebbs and flows to a certain extent — even during what&

Turkey’s Ace Games raises $7M to develop casual and ‘hyper casual’ games

Ace Games, a Turkish mobile gaming company founded by a former Peak Games co-founder, has raised a $7 million seed funding round led by Actera Group. Co-investment has come from San Francisco's NFX. Former gaming entrepreneurs Kristian Segerstrale, Alexis Bonte and Kaan Gunay also participated.

Bitski raises $19 million from a16z to become the ‘Shopify for NFTs’

For every crypto-skeptic that see NFTs as yet another hype bubble, there’s an acolyte who sees NFTs as the key to unlocking the future of the creative web. Bitski, an SF-based startup that builds custom NFT storefronts for brands and creators, is banking on the latter and they have new invest