Author: pekandesigns

Addionics, an Israeli/U.K. startup that is developed next-generation rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and other applications, has raised $6 million in funding. The round is led by Next Gear Ventures, and includes a $2.5 million grant as part of the European Union’s Horizon2020 innovation competition. Founded by former Imperial College London academics, Addionics has created […]

The Los Angeles-based venture capital studio focused on blockchain and fintech startups, which longtime venture investor Tim Draper now calls home, has added a new venture partner to its team. Draper Goren Holm, the firm Draper manages alongside co-founders Alon Goren and Josef Holm, said Rodney Sampson has joined the crew as a venture partner. […]

Development of artificial intelligence agents tends to frequently be measured by their performance in games, but there’s a good reason for that: Games tend to offer a wide proficiency curve, in terms of being relatively simple to grasp the basics, but difficult to master, and they almost always have a built-in scoring system to evaluate […]

Spotify and Warner Music Group have renewed their global licensing partnership, the two said on Wednesday, confirming that the giant music label’s songs will now be available on the Sweden-headquartered firm’s platform in India. In a joint statement, the two companies said, “Spotify and Warner Music Group are pleased to announce a renewed global licensing […]

Since 2012, Dr. Jeanne Loring, the founder of the eponymous Loring Lab at Scripps Research, has been thinking about how to use pluripotent stem cells as a potential treatment for Parkinson Disease. Now, eight years later, Aspen Neuroscience, the company she founded to bring her research to market has raised $70 million in funding and […]

Tina Sharkey, the founder and former CEO of the recently closed D2C brand Brandless, has today been appointed to the board of directors of PBS. Sharkey is an independent board member. Before her time at Brandless, Sharkey spent years in the media world. She scaled Johnson & Johnson’s platform for new and expecting moms called […]

Genomics health technology startup Color is doing its part to address the global COVID-19 pandemic, and has detailed the steps it’s taking to support expansion of testing efforts in a new blog post and letter from CEO Othman Laraki on Tuesday. The efforts include development of a high-throughput lab that can process as many as […]

Amazon faces worker complaints over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, General Motors says it’s moving fast to manufacture face masks and we’ve got some numbers quantifying the video conferencing boom. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 31, 2020. 1. Amazon warehouse workers are walking out and Whole Foods workers are striking Yesterday, warehouse workers […]

Virtual reality has been two years away from mainstream adoption for the past six years. In that time, huge companies have made big VR bets only to walk away, countless VR startups have faded or flared out and investment has slowed significantly. Building an attractive VR product for large enterprises to train employees remotely has […]