Author: pekandesigns

Ada is on a mission to build chatbots powered by artificial intelligence. The company today is announcing a $19 million Series A that will go far in helping it reach that goal. The company sees the capital fueling international expansion and launching products into new verticals, as well as doubling down on employees. Chatbots were […]

UK AI chip startup Graphcore has announced a $200 million Series D round today that’s jointly led by an existing investor, European VC Atomico, along with new investor Sofina, an investment holding firm. Graphcore says the Series D values the company at $1.7BN. We’ve confirmed the valuation is $1.5BN before including the new capital raised. We’re also […]

Clearbanc is disrupting startup funding by providing companies cash to buy ads in exchange for a revenue share so they don’t have to sell as much equity to venture capitalists. That idea has proven so appealing that 1,000 companies seeking up to $1 billion total hit up Clearbanc since we reported it raised $70 million […]

It’s the end of an era. Earlier this month, Tumblr announced that it would delete all adult content from its platform on December 17. That day, friends, is today. The blogging platform has been furiously flagging posts as explicit since announcing the ban on December 3. Starting today, all of those flagged posts will be […]

France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire held a press conference earlier today to announce that France will tax big tech companies starting on January 1st, 2019. This has been a long-rumored tax reform, and it looks like France is changing the scope of the new tax. After a couple of years of negotiations at the […]

If you are a mother who has taken a break from full-time employment to raise kids, you may have also experienced the challenge that is jumping back into the working world after your break. You may find you need more time flexibility; you have been out of the job market for years and so your […]

Fintech startup N26 recently launched in the U.K. with a single product offering. You could sign up to a free account that gives you free payments around the world, but no insurance and no free withdrawals in foreign currencies. The company just added a second tier to its lineup in the U.K. And N26 is […]

RightHand Robotics announced a $23 million Series B this week. That brings the pick and place robotic arm manufacturer’s total funding up to around $34 million, including last year’s $8 million Series A. The robotics startup has impressed investors with the dexterity and speed of its robotic picking system, having recruited some big VC names […]

Late last week, onlookers captured video and images of a Kiwi delivery robot moments after catching fire on the U.C. Berkeley campus. The startup has been piloting the robots on the University campus for around two years now (we profiled them back in May), largely without incident, but this is no doubt not how it […]