Vivid Money raises $73 million to build a European financial super app

German startup Vivid Money has raised a new $73 million Series B funding round (€60 million) led by Greenoaks with existing investor Ribbit Capital also participating. Following today’s funding round, Vivid Money has reached a valuation of $436 million (€360 million). Vivid Money could be considered as a Revolut competitor designed specifically for the Eurozone. […]

Here are all the startups pitching today at Venture Day Minsk

Venture Day Minsk (organised by tech startup hub Imaguru) is run annually, but because of the pandemic and the political situation in Belarus it has gone virtual. Even Imaguru itself has had to switch to online-only operations after Lukashenko’s thugs shut down its physical space. If you want to support them, check out their startups, […]

EU adopts rules on one-hour takedowns for terrorist content

The European Parliament approved a new law on terrorist content takedowns yesterday, paving the way for one-hour removals to become the legal standard across the EU. The regulation “addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online” will come into force shortly after publication in the EU’s Official Journal — and start applying 12 months after that. […]

Paxos raises $300 million to build a cryptocurrency infrastructure giant

Paxos has raised a $300 million Series D funding round led by Oak HC/FT. With today’s funding the round, the company is now valued at $2.4 billion. The company has been building infrastructure and white-label services for enterprise clients that want to offer cryptocurrency products to their own customers. In particular, Paxos has partnered with […]

The J&J vaccine is back. Next comes trust.

Seema Shah, a bioethicist at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, says that though the pause wasn’t ideal, forging ahead on distributing the Johnson & Johnson shot without stopping to investigate the clots would have been worse.  “I keep thinking about the counterfactual,” says. “If the FDA hadn’t paused, what kind of signal would that have […]

The climate solution actually adding millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere

How California’s Forest Carbon Offset Rules Allow Inflated Climate Benefits One way the California Air Resources Board determines the number of credits for a project is by comparing the carbon stored in that forest against regional averages. The bigger the difference between the two, the more credits, and money, landowners can earn.  The regional CO2 […]

Taster grabs $37 million for its native online restaurants

French startup Taster has raised a $37 million Series B funding round from Octopus Venture, Battery Ventures, LocalGlobe, HeartCore, Rakuten, GFC and Founders Future. The company operates dozens of restaurants that only exist on food delivery platforms. You can’t book a table as there is no table. Taster has been focusing on five street food-inspired […]

Apple sales bounce back in China as Huawei loses smartphone crown

Huawei’s smartphone rivals in China are quickly divvying up the market share it has lost over the past year. 92.4 million units of smartphones were shipped in China during the first quarter, with Vivo claiming the crown with a 23% share and its sister company Oppo following closely behind with 22%, according to market research […]