Amira Learning raises $11M to put its AI-powered literacy tutor in post-COVID classrooms

School closures due to the pandemic have interrupted the learning processes of millions of kids, and without individual attention from teachers, reading skills in particular are taking a hit. Amira Learning aims to address this with an app that reads along with students, intelligently correcting er

Bird, Lime and Veo selected for NYC e-scooter pilot

Lime, Bird and Veo have scored coveted permits to New York City’s first e-scooter pilot. The New York City Department of Transportation, which originally released a request for proposals in October for the pilot that was meant to start in early March, made its selections public Wednesday. Th

Check out the tech leaders joining us on Extra Crunch Live in May

Extra Crunch Live, our weekly event series that connects founders with tech leaders, is really picking up speed. Recently, we had a conversation with Accel’s Dan Levine and Scale’s Alexandr Wang about how sometimes, unconventional VC deals are the best deals. We’ve also taken a wa

Dear Sophie: How can I get an H-1B without the lottery?

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies. “Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says

Toyota taps Apex.AI for its autonomous vehicle operating system

Automakers shifting to all-electric and tech-laden vehicles have discovered that software — and more aptly software that is free of bugs and can be updated wirelessly — has become a consistent speed bump on the road to attracting customers. It is an issue that plagued Volkswagen’s launch

Gay dating site Manhunt hacked, thousands of accounts stolen

Manhunt, a gay dating app that claims to have 6 million male members, has confirmed it was hit by a data breach in February after a hacker gained access to the company’s accounts database. In a notice filed with the Washington attorney general’s office, Manhunt said the hacker “ga

Amazon’s latest Echo Buds are a shameless Apple knockoff

This is Amazon’s latest hardware product: The redesigned Alexa earbuds. technewss covered the announcement here, where the specs and capabilities are listed. I’m sure they work fine, too, but the case design is a blatant rip-off of Apple’s AirPod Pros. This is just lazy.

I can’t believe it’s not meat! Mycelium meat replacement company aims for summer launch of first products

Meati, a company turning mycelium (the structural fibers of fungi) into healthier meat replacements for consumers, is prepping for a big summer rollout. Co-founder Tyler Huggins expects to have the first samples of its whole-cut steak and chicken products in select restaurants around the country &#

Astranis raises $250M at a $1.4B valuation for smaller, cheaper geostationary communications satellites

Space startup Astranis has raised a $250 million Series C round to provide it with a capital injection to help scale manufacturing of its unique MicroGEO satellites — geostationary communications satellites that are much smaller than the typical massive, expensive spacecraft used in that orbital

Creatively raises $5M to help creative professionals showcase and find work

Creatively — a startup that helps designers, photographers, illustrators and other creative professionals showcase their work and find their next job — is announcing that it has raised in $5 million. Founded by Stacey Bendet (founder and CEO of fashion company Alicia + Olivia) and Joe Indriolo

PlexTrac raises $10M Series A round for its collaboration-centric security platform

PlexTrac, a Boise, ID-based security service that aims to provide a unified workflow automation platform for red and blue teams, today announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A funding round led by Noro-Moseley Partners and Madrona Venture Group. StageDot0 ventures also participated in th

Instagram’s new test lets you choose if you want to hide ‘Likes,’ Facebook test to follow

Instagram today will begin a new test around hiding Like counts on users’ posts, following its experiments in this area which first began in 2019. This time, however, Instagram is not enabling or disabling the feature for more users. Instead, it will begin to explore a new option where users

Large-scale CO2 removal startup Carbo Culture raises $6.2M Seed led by True Ventures

Carbo Culture — a startup that has scaled an industrial process to create large-scale CO2 removal using woody waste from agriculture and forests — has raised $6.2 million in seed a financing round led by Silicon Valley VC True Ventures. The round was co-led by European early-stage venture firm

Ireland opens GDPR investigation into Facebook leak

Facebook’s lead data supervisor in the European Union has opened an investigation into whether the tech giant violated data protection rules vis-a-vis the leak of data reported earlier this month. Here’s the Irish Data Protection Commission’s statement: “The Data Protection Comm