The World Economic Forum states that Africa has an average annual demand for 2.4 million cars and 300,000 commercial vehicles. This demand is increasing because of a continent-wide increase in disposable income, strong middle-class growth and rapid urbanization. But while most cars meeting this demand are used, car ownership in Africa is less than 45 … Read more
German AI start-up Aleph Alpha has raised a Series B funding round of $500 million from a consortium of seven new investors, as well as existing investors from previous rounds. Founded in 2019, Aleph Alpha’s funding may be dwarfed by that of Microsoft-backed OpenAI ($11.3B), but the startup makes great play of the fact that … Read more
A Japanese fund focused on early-stage, Asian deep tech startups is doubling down on the opportunity, despite a wider slowdown investing in moonshots globally. Tokyo-based Beyond Next Ventures is targeting up to ¥25 billion (about $168 million) for BNV Fund 3, its third fund, and today, the venture capital firm said it completed a first … Read more
It’s 7:30 in the morning, and Tom Chi is in a philosophical mood. Maybe it’s because he was once an astrophysicist, a profession prone to thinking expansively. Maybe it’s because his mother is a Buddhist. Or maybe it’s because his 3-year-old venture capital firm just raised $375 million. “Sometimes I say that I typically think … Read more
Mecho Autotech, a startup providing automotive spare components, car repairs and upkeep companies, has raised a $2.4 million pre-Sequence A spherical. The agency targets the Nigerian market, the place 90% of the nation’s greater than 12 million registered automobiles (primarily used) require common upkeep to keep away from recurring breakdowns. Its major enterprise connects car … Read more
Only a couple extra weeks till 20 of the world’s high early-stage startups take to the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 to compete for an equity-free, $100,000 grand prize and everlasting glory. They’ll face robust questions from our judges and should stand out in opposition to a crowd of super-star founders. We’re excited to … Read more
Earlier this week, the New York Instances shone a lightweight on among the desperation that founders are experiencing as they try to fail to safe compute energy for his or her nascent synthetic intelligence startups, due to the large firms (and even wealthy nations) racing to grab them up. One founder reportedly stated of the … Read more
Dan Gwak has had a extra various life than many buyers. He grew up in Jakarta, the son of Korean dad and mom who ran a transport enterprise. After highschool, he headed to Cornell within the U.S., and have become an affiliate at The Carlyle Group. The whole lot was shifting up and to the … Read more
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his safety element depart the corporate’s native workplace in Washington, January 27, 2023. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters Elon Musk’s a number of ventures and the relationships between them are dealing with elevated scrutiny because the Tesla CEO continues so as to add extra to his plate. Throughout Tesla’s second-quarter earnings … Read more
Final week, we talked with Kindred Ventures, a small, nine-year-old, San Francisco-based early-stage enterprise agency that, regardless of investing in a whole lot of nascent startups — greater than 100 so far — takes a generalist method, investing in AI, local weather tech, client web corporations, crypto offers, fintech startups, well being startups, mobility startups … Read more