Hone Capital, a Silicon Valley firm, is being probed by the FBI

According to the FT, the FBI is now poking around nine-year-old Hone Capital, a Palo Alto, Ca.-based venture firm funded by a Chinese private equity firm, to determine whether some of its capital came from the Chinese government — and if it shared sensitive startup data with Beijing. Origin

Salesforce snatches up Zoomin, a tool for organizing company knowledge

Salesforce is on a buying spree. After snatching up data management firm Own earlier in the month, Salesforce today announced its plans to buy Zoomin, an enterprise knowledge platform. Zoomin — which we’ve covered a handful of times before — unifies a company’s docs, like product u

Commvault acquires data backup provider Clumio

It must be M&A season. Commvault, a publicly traded data protection and management software company, announced Tuesday that it intends to acquire data backup and recovery provider Clumio for an undisclosed sum. The deal is expected to close in early October. Commvault says it

The best Twitter alternatives worth checking out

We'll be straight with you. There's no 1:1 Twitter replacement, but there are plenty of social apps that might be worth substituting into your obsessive timeline-checking routines if you're done with Twitter for whatever reason (we can think of plenty). Twitter's current situation

EGYM, a connected fitness startup conceived after the founder hit a wall at the gym, lands $200M at a $1.2B+ valuation

Getting healthy is big business these days. Now a startup that's come up with a unique approach leveraging tech to help people with their exercise regimes is announcing a big round of funding, putting some weight behind its own push for growth.  Munich-based EGYM — a startup taking a ve

The beloved Rodecaster board gets a video production counterpart

Like much of the podcasting world, we loved the Rodecaster Pro when it launched toward the end of 2018. It's taken a half-dozen years, but microphone maker Rode is finally extending the user-friendly line into the world of video. The Rodecaster Video faces much stiffer competition than the ori

How one female VC is teaching kids about startups and women in tech

Deena Shakir, an investor at Lux Capital, struggled to explain to her three young kids what exactly her job was. She first tried buying a Chia Pet, where kids plant chia seeds on a figurine “to show them how seeds can grow into something amazing.”  Shakir, who's invested in health tech co

Northvolt lays off 1,600 workers, but it's not the end for Europe's battery champion

When is raising $14 billion not enough? When you're a battery startup. Northvolt, Europe's attempt at building a competitor to Asia's battery manufacturing powerhouses, announced on Monday that it had halted work on a factory expansion and laid off 1,600 employees, or about 20% of the

OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

OpenAI announced it is rolling out Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) to an expanded set of ChatGPT’s paying customers on Tuesday. The audio feature, which makes ChatGPT more natural to speak with, will initially roll out to customers in ChatGPT’s Plus and Teams tiers. Enterprise and Edu custome

Nothing launches a slick pair of $149 open-ear headphones

Few hardware startups have ramped up to a full product line as quickly as Nothing. The London-based firm announced on Tuesday yet another take on earbuds with the Ear Open. As the name suggestions, these are open-ear devices, designed to maintain a sense of situational awareness, rather than the dr

Toyota Ventures' Jim Adler says climate tech startups need to secure future buyers

Jim Adler, founder and general partner at Toyota Ventures, is concerned that climate technology gains could fall into the “valley of death” if companies fail to drum up enough demand to survive.  And he's not wrong to be worried.  Climate tech investments in the

From dinners with Travis Kalanick to fired after maternity leave: One of CloudKitchens' earliest employees is suing

Isabella Vincenza, one of CloudKitchens’ earliest employees, never imagined she would be suing her now-former employer. Hired as a full-time salesperson in 2018, she became a mainstay at President's Club dinners hosted by CEO Travis Kalanick at his Bel Air home throughout 2020 and 2021.

Rivian reveals first $10M in grants for long-promised Rivian Foundation

Rivian has revealed the first $10 million worth of grants from the Rivian Foundation, three years after the EV maker vowed the philanthropy would receive 1% of its equity to make the “natural world” a “stakeholder in our success.” Rivian Foundation launched Monday a website

Moxie, which helps nurses launch medspas, raises a preemptive Series B from Lachy Groom

Moxie helps nurses open medspas by providing them with most of the tools they need to run their businesses, from billing software and marketing services to discounted supplies. The startup has raised a $10 million Series B led by existing investor Lachy Groom, a solo VC, with participation from Sig