French startup Biloba has raised a $1.7 million funding round (€1.4 million) a few months after launching its pediatrics app that lets you chat with a doctor whenever you have a question. In addition to raising some money, the startup also recently added in-app prescriptions. Biloba’s concept is surprisingly simple. It’s a mobile app that…
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Small businesses in Africa need digital banking services including plenty of credit. Although these businesses drive economic growth and contribute up to one-third of the continent’s GDP, they are often financially excluded from credit and other financial services due to their size and informality. One such company tackling this challenge in the eastern part of…
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The crypto industry as a whole has seen a momentous year of growth, heavily spurred on by the entrance of institutional investors adopting bitcoin due to its store of value properties. The 2020 spike bitcoin experienced was also accelerated by its global adoption as the number of global cryptocurrency users surpassed 100 million in Q3…
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TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey European founders and investors in cities outside the larger European capitals. Over the next few weeks, we will ask entrepreneurs in these cities to talk about their ecosystems, in their own words. This is your chance to put Gdańsk, Wroclaw, Krakow and Poznan on the…
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Students, government employees, and members of non-profit organizations can get access to Extra Crunch at a discounted rate of $50/year (plus tax). That’s 50% off our annual price point. You’ll also be grandfathered in at the discounted price for future years until you cancel. How to claim the discount: Use a government, non-profit, .edu or…
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Decentralized finance startup MOUND, known for its yield farming aggregator Pancake Bunny, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Binance Labs. Other participants included IDEO CoLab, SparkLabs Korea and Handshake co-founder Andrew Lee. Built on Binance Smart Chain, a blockchain for developing high-performance DeFi apps, MOUND says Pancake Bunny now has more than…
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Microsoft makes a big healthcare tech acquisition, Twitter is building a presence in Africa and Apple may be cooking up some new smart home products. This is your Daily Crunch for April 12, 2021. The big story: Microsoft acquires Nuance for $19.7B Microsoft announced this morning that it’s acquiring speech-to-text company Nuance Communications for $19.7…
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Ben Sun Contributor A month ago, Coupang arrived on Wall Street with a bang. The South Korean e-commerce giant — buoyed by $12 billion in 2020 revenue — raised $4.55 billion in its IPO and hit a valuation as high as $109 billion. It is the biggest U.S. IPO of the year so far, and…
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Blue Origin is making progress toward its goal of flying human astronauts aboard its spacecraft, with a plan to run an “astronaut rehearsal” during a launch it has planned for Wednesday, April 14. The launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital, reusable rocket will be a key step in verifying the vehicle for paying human…
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WeRide, the Chinese autonomous vehicle startup that recently raised $310 million, has received a permit to test driverless vehicles on public roads in San Jose, California. WeRide is the seventh company, following AutoX, Baidu, Cruise, Nuro Waymo and Zoox, to receive a driverless testing permit. In the early days of autonomous vehicle development, testing permits…
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