VC Lindy Fishburne on the seemingly sudden democratization of science

Deep science investor Lindy Fishburne cofounded the seed- and early-stage venture firm Breakout Ventures several years ago, after cofounding Breakout Labs within the Thiel Foundation back in 2011, and she has amassed a wide array of stakes in the process. Among her firm’s portfolio companies

A first look at Coursera's S-1 filing

After technewss broke the news yesterday that Coursera was planning to file its S-1 today, the edtech company officially dropped the document Friday evening. Coursera was last valued at $2.4 billion by the private markets, when it most recently raised a Series F round in October 2020 that was wort

Snowflake latest enterprise company to feel Wall Street’s wrath after good quarter

Snowflake reported earnings this week, and the results look strong with revenue more than doubling year-over-year. However, while the company’s fourth quarter revenue rose 117% to $190.5 million, it apparently wasn’t good enough for investors, who have sent the company’s stock tum

The owner of Anki’s assets plans to relaunch Cozmo and Vector this year

Good robots don't die — they just have their assets sold off to the highest bidder. Digital Dream Labs was there to sweep up IP in the wake of Anki's premature implosion, back in 2019. The Pittsburgh-based edtech company had initially planned to relaunch Vector and Cozmo at some point

Deep Science: AI adventures in arts and letters

There’s more AI news out there than anyone can possibly keep up with. But you can stay tolerably up to date on the most interesting developments with this column, which collects AI and machine learning advancements from around the world and explains why they might be important to tech, startu

How the Biden administration is approaching crypto regulations

It's hard to imagine a worse scenario than the one left behind by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.  The draconian regulatory proposals were Mnuchin's own personal vendetta, according to Bitcoin veterans like Square Crypto developer Matt Corallo and Coin Center director Jerry Brito

Tesla has closed its forums to launch a social platform and fans are not happy

Tesla plans to shut down the forums section on its website as it launches a new social platform called the Tesla Engagement Platform, a move that’s raised the ire of a community of its most ardent supporters. Tesla first announced the new engagement platform with a notice at the top of its fo

California bill would require all self-driving vehicles to be zero emission by 2025

California might be the first state to give self-driving cars a deadline to electrify. In mid-February, a bill was quietly introduced into the California State Legislature that would require all autonomous vehicles to also be zero emission by 2025. Proposed Bill SB 500, which was introduced by Sena

How and when to hire your first product manager

In the world of early-stage startups, job titles are often a formality. In reality, each employee may handle a dozen responsibilities outside their job description. The choose-your-own-adventure type of work style is part of the magic of startups and often why generalists thrive here. However, as a

UK’s MHRA says it has ‘concerns’ about Babylon Health — and flags legal gap around triage chatbots

The U.K.’s medical device regulator has admitted it has concerns about VC-backed AI chatbot maker Babylon Health. It made the admission in a letter sent to a clinician who’s been raising the alarm about Babylon’s approach toward patient safety and corporate governance since 2017.

Dan Siroker’s new startup Scribe automates Zoom note-taking

Optimizely co-founder Dan Siroker said the idea for his new startup Scribe goes back to a couple of personal experiences — and although Scribe’s first product is focused on Zoom, those experiences weren’t Zoom-related at all. Instead, Siroker recalled starting to go deaf and then havi

How Rani Therapeutics’ robotic pill could change subcutaneous injection treatment

A new auto-injecting pill might soon become a replacement for subcutaneous injection treatments. The idea for this so-called robotic pill came out of a research project around eight years ago from InCube Labs — a life sciences lab operated by Rani Therapeutics Chairman and CEO Mir Imran, who has

Address cybersecurity challenges before rolling out robotic process automation

Robotic process automation (RPA) is making a major impact across every industry. But many don't know how common the technology is and may not realize that they are interacting with it regularly. RPA is a growing megatrend — by 2022, Gartner predicts that 90% of organizations globally will hav

Eco raises $26M in a16z-led round to scale its digital cryptocurrency platform

"speakable-summary" dir="ltr">?Eco, which has built out a digital global cryptocurrency platform, announced Friday that it has raised $26 million in a funding round led by a16z Crypto. Founded in 2018, the SF-based startup's platform is designed to be used as a payment tool around the world fo