Astroscale raises $51 million in Series E funding to fuel its orbital sustainability ambitions

On-orbit service and logistics startup Astroscale has raised a $51 million Series E funding round, bringing its total raised to date to $191 million thus far. The Japan-based company has been focused on delivering new solutions for orbital end-of-life — meaning ways to make orbital operations

Kayhan Space wants to be the air traffic control service for satellites in space

Kayhan Space, the Boulder, Colorado and Atlanta-based company launched from Techstars’ virtual space-focused accelerator, wants nothing more than to be the air traffic control service for satellites in space. Founded by two childhood friends, Araz Feyzi and Siamak Hesar, who grew up in Iran a

Kegg, a connected fertility tracker and Kegel trainer for women, launches out of beta

Fertility tracking has seen an explosion of startup activity in recent years. Femtech startup Lady Technologies is adding to this rich mix with the full U.S. launch of a dual-purpose device, called kegg, that’s designed to measure hormonal changes in a woman’s cervical fluid to help her

Commercializing the open-source FingerprintJS browser fingerprinting tech nabs Chicago entrepreneur $4M

Chicago-based serial entrepreneur Dan Pinto has raised new cash and launched a new company looking to commercialize a years-old open-source project that purports to solve one of the web’s hardest problems — fraud prevention. The company he launched in January, FingerprintJS, touts itsel

Watch Blue Origin launch its reusable New Shepard rocket live, with a key NASA system test on board

Blue Origin is set to return to active flight today, after a hiatus of nearly a year since its last launch in December 2019. Today’s launch is a mission for the company’s New Shepard reusable sub-orbital rocket — a record-setting sixth flight for this particular rocket, which fir

Cyberpion raises $8.25M in seed funding to help businesses secure assets beyond their firewall

Hijacking a company’s DNS or injecting code into third-party tools are the kind of attacks that many companies aren’t equipped to handle. Cyberpion, a new security startup founded by a number of experienced security experts, aims to help enterprises identify and neutralize these kinds o

South Korea pushes for AI semiconductors as global demand grows

The South Korean government has made no secret of its ambition to be a key player in the global artificial intelligence industry, including making the semiconductors powering AI functionalities. This week, the country’s information and communications technology regulator announced plans to de

Qatalog, the ‘virtual workspace’ rebundling SaaS tools to help teams function better, raises $15M

Qatalog, a London-based startup that has developed a “virtual workspace” that brings together disparate SaaS tools to help teams function better, is disclosing $15 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is European venture capital firm Atomico, with participation from Salesforce

Kahoot picks up $215M from SoftBank for its user-generated, gamified e-learning platform

After announcing a modest $28 million raise earlier this year, the user-generated gamified e-learning platform Kahoot today announced a much bigger round to double down on the current surge in demand for remote education. The Norwegian startup — which has clocked 1.3 billion “participating

Landscape site launches with the aim of becoming the ‘Glassdoor for VC’

You've probably heard of Glassdoor, which exists to allow employees to rate companies anonymously. Now a U.K. entrepreneur has decided to address the thorny issue of rating venture capitalists. Landscape, a new review platform for tech startup founders to discover and find investment opportunit

Hong Kong and New York-based Easyship joins Shopify Plus’ tech partner program

Easyship, a logistics startup that allows e-commerce sellers to add multiple carriers to their stores, announced it has joined the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program. Easyship is headquartered in Hong Kong and New York. Co-founder Tommaso Tamburnotti told technewss it is the only shipping app

Why are VCs launching SPACs? Amish Jani of FirstMark shares his firm’s rationale

It’s happening slowly but surely. With every passing week, more venture firms are beginning to announce SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies formed to raise capital through an IPO in order to acquire and thus take public other companies. The veritable blitz of SPACs formed by inves

Malaysian on-demand work platform GoGet lands $2 million Series A

GoGet, a Malaysian on-demand work platform, announced today that it has raised a $2 million Series A led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The platform currently has 20,000 gig workers, who are called “GoGetters,” and has onboarded 5,000 businesses, including Lazada Malaysia, IKEA Malaysia

OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei leaves the company to start a new venture

Carl Pei, who co-founded the smartphone giant OnePlus in his 20s, has left the company, two sources familiar with the matter told technewss. Pei played an instrumental role in designing the OnePlus smartphone lineup over the years, including the recently launched OnePlus Nord, which has been the c