DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ U.S. startup Outrider raises $73 mln to scale up autonomous yard trucks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Nick Carey | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 19 (Reuters) - U.S. self-driving truck firm Outrider said on Thursday it has raised $73 million in funding to scale up its autonomous trucks operating in distribution yards for customers in e-commerce, manufacturing and other industries. It also includes fresh funding from American venture capital fund New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and the venture capital arm of industrial conglomerate Koch Industries. Outrider says its self-driving yard truck "hitches to and unhitches from trailers, robotically connects and disconnects trailer brake lines, backs semi-trailers with precision, interacts safely with loading docks, and keeps track of trailer locations throughout the yard." The company says its customers represent more than 20% of all yard trucks operating in North America, and have invested in joint product testing and pilot operations since 2019. Yard trucks are designed to move trailers and cargo containers in distribution yards.

☆ Amid the largest layoffs in Big Tech history, startups are having unprecedented success hiring top talent. But founders are still skeptical about hiring Big Tech employees.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Rosalie Chan | Katie Malone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Startups have had unprecedented success hiring top tech talent upending a decades long power imbalance. Suddenly, several thousand quality tech workers were job hunting, and it didn't seem like Big Tech would be hiring them back anytime soon. But lately, things have been changing, and his startup has become more attractive to former Big Tech workers, he said. "Just because they come from Big Tech companies does not mean they're quite suitable for my needs." Still, recruiters told Insider, startups rarely judge tech workers solely on whether they've worked at a Big Tech company or a startup.

☆ VCs say hybrid work, generative AI, and niche collaboration tools will be some of the top future-of-work trends that dominate 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Insider talked to VCs about the rising trends they say will revolutionize the way we work and live. Insider spoke with 15 venture capitalists about the trends and verticals they think are most likely to revolutionize the way we work and live today. Therefore, startups that will thrive going forward are those that embrace a mix of in-person and remote work, known as hybrid work, Thacker and other VCs said. An increase in workers caregiving for aging or sick family members is also supported by flexible work, the CRV general partner Kristin Baker Spohn said. "A lot of employees, whether it's the Great Resignation or the pandemic, found themselves changing the way that they work."

☆ Greece, Britain discussing Parthenon Sculptures return but deal not close, Athens says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Renee Maltezou | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

ATHENS, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The Greek government on Monday quashed local media reports that a deal with Britain over the repatriation of the Parthenon Sculptures to Athens was imminent but said the two sides were in talks on the long-running dispute. The museum, custodian of the sculptures known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, also reiterated it would not dismantle its collection. Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that there was "progress" and a sense of "momentum" in talks with Britain to reunite the sculptures in Greece. Citing a British official, Greece's ANT1 TV said on Sunday that the only way to return the sculptures to Greece without violating British law was "if the British Museum opened a kind of annex in Greece". In March, the United Nations' cultural agency UNESCO urged Greece and Britain to reach a settlement on the issue.

☆ Inside the stunning unraveling of Bright Health, a health-insurance upstart that rocketed to an $11.2 billion valuation and then cratered as it grew too fast
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Bright Health Group grew fast. "We're just starting to realize the full potential of our differentiated model, and we're excited about the future of Bright Health Group," Bright CEO G. Mike Mikan told analysts at that investor event. Bright Health is one of a handful of upstarts trying to take on the health-insurance industry. Clover Health; Bright Health; Oscar Health; Olivia Reaney/Business InsiderBreaking into the health-insurance industry is tough. Bright moves to cut expensesAs losses mounted in 2021, Bright scrambled to raise capital.

☆ Exclusive: Sentry, recently valued at over $3 billion, has acquired Codecov, a maker of software development tools
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Application monitoring service Sentry has acquired development tool maker Codecov. Sentry recently raised $90 million in Series E funding, which valued the company at more than $3 billion. Sentry, a startup that makes an application performance monitoring platform, said it has acquired Codecov, a startup that makes software development tools. The company, which has raised over $200 million to date from Accel, NEA, Bond and others, was recently valued at more than $3 billion. Combining the two services will allow Sentry to monitor for errors at every stage of the development process, Sentry CEO Milin Desai tells Insider.

☆ Check out the pitch deck Dandelion Energy, a green-energy company that began at Google's research division X, used to raise $70 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dandelion Energy came out of a project that started years ago at X, Google's research effort. Dandelion Energy could provide a way for homeowners to defray these costs. In 2015, Dandelion Energy started as a project of what was then known as Google X, now just X, Google's research arm. Dandelion Energy has raised a total of about $136 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including LenX, the venture division of the homebuilding company Lennar, according to the company. Take a look at the pitch deck Dandelion Energy used to raise $70 million in new funding.

☆ 100-hour workweeks and a bit of luck: How a 25-year-old CEO raised $50 million for his new drug discovery startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Andrew Dunn | Sarah Braner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

In June, Charm said it raised $50 million, valuing the firm at $100 million to $150 million. Charm has raised $50 million from top investorsDemis Hassabis, the CEO and a cofounder of DeepMind Technologies. In the spring, Aithani raised the $37 million million round that was announced in June, with investors like Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst joining OrbiMed and F-Prime Capital. The raise values Charm at between $100 million and $150 million, Aithani said, and brings the company's total funding to $50 million. This article was corrected on August 19 to show that Charm has raised two rounds of funding totaling $50 million.

But zero-emissions sources accounted for almost 74% of the total increase in generation, with thermal generators, overwhelmingly coal, contributing just 26%. Generation from wind farms increased by 100 billion kWh (22%) compared with the previous year, while output from solar power increased by 45 billion kWh (30%). There were smaller proportional contributions to growth from thermal generators (63 billion kWh, just 1%), hydro-electric units (28 billion kWh, 3%) and nuclear (4 billion kWh, 1%). Wind farm capacity increased 17% while solar capacity increased 29% in the first nine months of 2022, compared with the same period of 2021. In absolute terms, coal-fired generation is still rising, but the growth rate has halved over the last decade, and coal generation has been growing more slowly than generation as a whole.

☆ In a tech downturn, breakout stars of venture capital are going abroad to hunt for funding. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The flow of capital motivated more investors to split from established firms and raise their own funds, but it hasn't always been easy. For years they've gone abroad to raise capital from limited partners, mostly wealthy individuals and family offices. This isn't new territory for international investors. He continues to use his personal wealth to back startups and venture funds mostly stateside, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Brianne Kimmel's Worklife Ventures. Even those with ties to international investors may struggle to raise funds as fears of a global recession escalate.

☆ After FTX's collapse, VCs across industries are finally admitting to crypto's failures — and they're preparing for 'more blows to come'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Investors stuck to crypto startups they considered "safe bets," but FTX's failure challenges that idea. Crypto startups held yacht parties through the summer and into early fall at events such as NFT.NYC and Messari Mainnet. "The whole crypto space is a high-leverage space, and it's susceptible to cascading failures." The events of the past week are unlikely to whet risk-averse LPs' appetite for crypto, investors told Insider. Even so, several investors who have backed crypto startups told Insider that despite the industry's recent travails, they remain believers in the technology.

☆ Scoop: Andreessen Horowitz beats out Benchmark and NEA to lead Series A funding round for Partiful, the 'Eventbrite for Gen Z'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Ben Bergman | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Andreessen Horowitz beat out other firms to lead Partiful's series A round, according to sources. Neither the cofounders of Partiful nor Andreessen Horowitz responded to a request for comment. After an intense bidding war, Andreessen Horowitz beat out rival VC firms, including Benchmark and New Enterprise Associates, to lead Partiful's series A funding round, according to three people with knowledge of the financing who were not authorized to speak publicly. Andreessen Horowitz also did not respond to a request for comment. Venture investors, eager to find the next buzzy consumer app, have marveled at Partiful's growth.

☆ Forethought: 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Forethought, founded by alumni of Dropbox , Palantir and Autonomy in 2017, is a customer service AI platform that predicts and prioritizes service requests, and helps human agents access the data they need to resolve tasks fast. With the volume of customer service queries spreading across industries and digital platforms, Forethought says its approach "goes beyond an AI chatbot" using data analysis of past cases as well as sentiment analysis to reduce wait times ands backlog, and move more customers into a self-service resolution. The company announced a $65 million Series C funding round in December 2021 and has raised $92 million to date. Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashton Kutcher, Robert Downey Jr. and LL Cool J have invested in Forethought's technology. Additional investors include Steadfast Financial, NEA, Sound, Geodesic Capital and K9 Ventures, among others.

☆ How Y Combinator-backed Web3 startup Courtyard raised $7 million and plans to redefine NFTs and the marketplace for digital collectibles
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Y Combinator-backed Web3 startup Courtyard has raised $7 million in seed funding led by NEA. Nicolas le Jeune was working at YouTube when he caught the NFT bug. Le Jeune, Courtyard's CEO, cofounded the startup with Paulin Andurand, who serves as the company's CTO. Le Jeune and Andurand launched a proof of concept by buying up packs of Pokémon cards with money lent from a friend. Fortunately, le Jeune and Andurand had already begun to make inroads with investors.

☆ Why Randi Weingarten Supports Harvard’s Discrimination
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Allysia Finley | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

You almost have to admire the chutzpah of the teachers unions. Even as they fight to keep poor minority kids trapped in failing public schools, they plead that racial preferences in college admissions are necessary to compensate for these students’ inferior K-12 education. High-achieving Asian-American and white students must be discriminated against to make up for the educational “privileges” that unions deny minorities. That’s the argument advanced by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers in their friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Harvard and the University of North Carolina in cases the Supreme Court will hear on Monday concerning the legality of racial preferences. “Our schools, from K-12 to higher education, still struggle to provide equitable opportunities for students of color,” the NEA laments.

☆ How to Avoid the 5 Worst Living Room Design Mistakes
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Nina Molina | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

DO IT (BEAUTIFULLY) RIGHT In a local semi-detached house by Warsaw design firm Colombe Studio, carefully chosen décor doesn’t crowd the room or the view, resulting in a truly inviting living room. THE RELATIVELY NARROW function of a bedroom or dining room largely dictates those spaces’ décor. With so much asked of living rooms, the potential for decorating missteps can daunt even experts. “The worst error I see in living rooms is overcrowding,” said the founder of New York City’s Nea Studio. Meanwhile, Aileen Warren, of Jackson Warren Interiors in Houston, warns against filling the room with every stick of furniture on your wish list.

☆ For the first time in years, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are 'weak' and VCs are eager to back alternatives, they say.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

VCs see an opportunity to back the next big social network and take on existing giants. "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they're weak, and they're just losing that edge," one investor said. And there may be room for even more young social media companies to rise. For her, identity verification and responsible content moderation are non-negotiable in any new social platform that she backs. "There is a sense of decline for some of these large social media platforms," Lee said.

☆ 15 best skin care products for rosacea and redness
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Mili Godio | Mili Godio Is An Associate Reporter For Select On Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +20 min

SKIP AHEAD Best products for rosacea | How to best manage rosacea | What type of products should you avoid with rosacea? The best products for rosacea in 2022Our expertssaid that a skin routine with gentle, non-abrasive products is best for people with rosacea. Cetaphil’s Gentle Skin Cleanser is recommended by dermatologists thanks to its gentle, non-foaming formula that helps hydrate and soothe rosacea-prone skin. Clinique’s Redness Solutions skin care line offers everything from cleansers to sunscreens that can be beneficial for those with redness and rosacea. Like Avene, La Roche-Posay is a French brand that makes gentle products for sensitive skin — our experts recommended this brand for both rosacea and acne-prone skin.

☆ The female venture capitalist creating billions in a new world of work beyond the office
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Rebecca Fannin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Worklife Ventures holds weekly meetings for its portfolio company founders to seek advice from successful Silicon Valley operators. You have to have an eye out for people and for new tools," Kimmel said. Worklife Ventures is betting on good returns from its 50 investments in startups, and with nine of them as unicorns, the stakes are high. With venture funds typically having a 10-year life cycle before investment returns are tallied, Worklife Ventures still has a ways to go. Join us October 25 - 26, 2022 for the CNBC Work Summit — Dislocation, Negotiation, and Determination: The World of Work Right Now.

☆ Thoma Bravo to take software firm ForgeRock private in $2.3 bln deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Oct 11 (Reuters) - ForgeRock (FORG.N) said on Tuesday it will be acquired by buyout firm Thoma Bravo in an all-cash deal valued at about $2.3 billion, just over a year after the digital identity management company went public. ForgeRock shareholders will receive $23.25 for each share held, which represents a premium of about 53.4% to the stock's last closing price. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterShares of ForgeRock jumped 50% to $22.76 before the bell. San Francisco-based ForgeRock provides identity and access management solutions for consumers, workforce and internet of things devices. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh KuberOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - JetBlue (JBLU.O) Chief Executive Robin Hayes staunchly defended his company's alliance with larger rival American Airlines (AAL.O) on Wednesday, denying the U.S. government's allegations that the agreement would defang the low-cost carrier. Hayes said that JetBlue did not consult with American on pricing in the northeast or anywhere else, and did not pull its punches in competing with American. For example, he said, JetBlue had 150 or 160 departures a day at JFK before the alliance but is now up to about 200, using what had been American slots. "We entered the Northeast Alliance because it will allow JetBlue to accelerate our business model in the northeast," he said, adding that JetBlue, which has a reputation in the industry of being a disruptor, had no plans to change. JetBlue also has a plan in place to buy low cost rival Spirit SAVE.N, a deal that is expected to face a tough antitrust review.

☆ Workiva gets takeover interest from Thoma Bravo, TPG - Bloomberg News
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Sept 28 (Reuters) - Cloud-based data platform Workiva (WK.N) has received takeover interest from private equity firms Thoma Bravo and TPG (TPG.O), Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday citing sources familiar with the matter. Private equity firms have taken several software companies including Anaplan and Zendesk Inc private this year. Thoma Bravo this year has acquired cybersecurity firm SailPoint, agreed to buy Ping Identity Holding (PING.N) and has expressed interest in British firm Darktrace Plc (DARK.L) and Australia's Nearmap (NEA.AX). Workiva, which currently has a market value of $3.4 billion, told Reuters it would not comment on market rumors and speculation. Thoma Bravo and TPG did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

☆ Justice Department's fight with JetBlue and American Airlines heads to court
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Leslie Josephs | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

An American Airlines plane lands on a runway near a parked JetBlue plane at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on July 16, 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Justice Department heads to court in Boston on Tuesday in hopes of undoing a year-and-a-half-old pact between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways in the Northeast U.S. Last September, the Justice Department along with the attorneys general of six states and the District of Columbia sued to block the partnership, which was approved in the final days of the Trump administration. The antitrust trial will be a test for President Joe Biden's Justice Department, which has been tasked with taking a hard stance against threats to competition. Earlier this month, a federal judge denied the Justice Department's bid to block UnitedHealth's acquisition of Change Healthcare.

☆ See the presentations that cutting-edge biotech companies have used to raise millions from top investors
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Leah Rosenbaum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Funding for biotech companies soared in 2021 to nearly $47 billion — a record for the industry. Insider rounded up all the biotech pitch decks we've published, from those seeking early-stage funding to presentations for late-stage rounds, that have helped companies raise money from investors. Here's the 24-slide pitch deck the company used to raise $175 million from investors like Leaps by Bayer. Here is the 24-slide pitch deck the company used to raise $120 million and prepare for regulatory approval in Japan. In late-stage funding rounds, the investors might also be different or used to backing bigger companies.

☆ See the presentation that convinced Gwyneth Paltrow and NEA to back digital menopause-care startup Evernow
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Evernow raised $28.5 million in a Series A round in April that NEA, a VC firm, led. NEA led the startup's $28.5 million Series A in April. Jackson said Evernow picked angel investors who have used their platforms to speak out about various issues in women's health. Evernow provided Insider with the presentation the company used to raise $28.5 million in Series A funding. See the 18-slide presentation Evernow used to land a $28.5 million Series A from investors like Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Barrymore, and NEA.

Search resuls for: "nea"

25 mentions found