Leafly and Jane partner to build a better online cannabis shopping experience

Today, two giants of the cannabis industry are announcing a partnership to create an improved retail experience for consumers and dispensaries alike. Through this partnership, Leafly and Jane’s technology solutions will offer dispensaries powerful tools to sync online e-commerce with in-store

Okta launches its new open-source design system with a focus on accessibility

Identity and access management service Okta today launched its new design system, both for its own corporate and brand use, but also as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license. The Odyssey Design System, as the company calls it, is similar to the likes of Google’s Material Design

Microsoft launches Viva, its new take on the old intranet

Microsoft today launched Viva, a new “employee experience platform,” or, in non-marketing terms, its new take on the intranet sites most large companies tend to offer their employees. This includes standard features like access to internal communications built on integrations with Share

Tovala, the smart oven and meal kit service, heats up with $30M more in funding

"Page 1"> With more of us spending significant amounts of time at home because of COVID-19, our attention has turned increasingly to how and what we eat. Even for those who like to cook, but especially for those who might not have the time or inclination, it can be a challenge to come up with tasty,

A growing number of startups are creating APIs to assess and offset corporate carbon emissions

It was only a matter of time before application programming interfaces came for the carbon credit offsets — the voluntary programs that allow companies to cancel out their greenhouse gas emissions (on paper) by financing renewable energy projects or carbon sequestration projects globally. Mas

Joompay launches its bill-splitting payment app across Europe to take on TransferWise and others

Joompay, a startup with an iOS and Android app similar to Venmo and TransferWise, has now launched in Europe after obtaining a Luxembourg Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license. The app allows people to send and receive money with anyone, instantly and for free. However, it enters a crowded mar

23andMe set to go public via a Virgin Group SPAC merger

Genetics testing and genome research company 23andMe is set to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) VG Acquisition Corp., a vehicle set up by Richard Branson and his company Virgin Group. The transaction is expected to result in 23andMe having around $984 million i

Brazil’s Monkey nabs $6M Series A for financial marketplace

Monkey, a financial marketplace for receivables in Latin America, has raised $6 million in Series A funding. Quona Capital and Kinea Ventures co-led the round. The São Paulo-based startup was founded in 2016 by a trio that includes former Citi investment banker Gustavo Müller, Bru

Aflorithmic nabs $1.3M for AI-driven personalized audio-as-a-service

London and Barcelona based audio-as-a-service SaaS startup Aflorithmic has scooped up $1.3 million in seed funding from Crowd Media Holdings, an Australia-based company focused on influencer-based ‘social commerce’ and marketing. It’s taking a 10% stake in Aflorithmic, per a press

Former Paytm execs team up to chase gold in India

Most Indians can’t access credit from formal financial institutions because they don’t have a credit score of any form to prove their creditworthiness. As an alternative, they look at informal institutions such as pawn shops or, more recently, apps that offer loans without any paperwork

BigChange raises $102M for a platform to help manage service fleets

We talk a lot these days about the future of work and the proliferation of new and better tools for distributed workforces, but companies focused on developing fleet management software — even if they have not really been viewed as “tech startups” — have been working on this

ManoMano's sales are growing rapidly for its home improvement e-commerce platform

It's been a year since I covered ManoMano, the French e-commerce platform focused on DIY, home improvement and gardening products. And 2020 has been a successful year as the company's gross merchandise volume doubled to €1.2 billion ($1.45 billion at today's rate). ManoMano's sale

This insurtech alleges its venture backer founded and funded a copycat: a founder’s ‘nightmare’

Relationships can be messy, including between startup founders and their venture investors. But in a case that takes messy to an extreme, an insurtech company in Santa Monica, California called Sure is alleging that its Series A investor used privileged information to launch a very similar, New Yor

Will Carbon and Shahry usher in a wave of buy now, pay later services in Africa?

Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, Quadpay. These are some of the big global players in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) movement. They allow shoppers to purchase products online and pay in installments with nominal or no fees, and have become more prominent due to how the pandemic accelerated e-commerce marke