Small and medium businesses regularly face cashflow problems. But if that’s an already-inconvenient predicament, it has been exacerbated to the breaking point for too many during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, a UK startup called MarketFinance — which has built a loans platform to help SMBs stay afloat through those leaner times — is announcing a […]
America is a Pyramid Scheme
America is a pyramid scheme. “It relies on people buying into the American Dream and then working hard to get to the top. But of course – almost no one does. Beneath each successful person in America is a downline of unpaid and underpaid labor.” So re…
Airwallex raises $200M at a $4B valuation to double down on business banking
Business, now more than ever before, is going digital, and today a startup that’s building a vertically integrated solution to meet business banking needs is announcing a big round of funding to tap into the opportunity. Airwallex — which provides business banking services both directly to businesses themselves, as well as via a set of […]
What could stop the startup boom?
Similar to how certain macroeconomic conditions have provided a long-term boost, a reversal of those conditions could do the opposite.
As UK Gov reaches out to tech, investors threaten to ‘pull capital’ over M&A regulator over-reach
UK competition regulators are spooking tech investors in the country with an implied threat to clamp down on startup M&A, according to a new survey of the industry. As the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer engaged with the tech industry at a ‘Chatham House’ style event today, the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) think-tank […]
Commercetools raises $140M at a $1.9B valuation as ‘headless’ commerce continues to boom
E-commerce these days is now a major part of every retailer’s strategy, so technology builders and platforms that are helping them compete better on digital screens are seeing a huge boost in business. In the latest turn, Commercetools — a provider of e-commerce APIs that larger retailers can use to build customized payment, check-out, social […]
Billogram, provider of a payments platform specifically for recurring billing, raises $45M
Payments made a huge shift to digital platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic — purchasing moved online for many consumers and businesses; and a large proportion of those continuing to buy and sell in-person went cash-free. Today a startup that has been focusing on one specific aspect of payments — recurring billing — is announcing a […]
壊れた資本主義をつくり直すためのコモンズと民主主義
いま、富の著しい不平等が民主主義や経済の在り方そのものを根幹から揺るがしている。パンデミックや環境危機によって脆弱さを増した社会がレジリエンスを取り戻すには、コモンズや外部不経済を包摂した新しい富の分配システムが必要だ。『WIRED』UK版が特集した「FIXING THE POST-COVID ECONOMY」からふたりの論客による提言を紹介しよう。
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Tech can help solve US cities’ affordability crisis
Maria Rioumine Contributor Share on Twitter Maria Rioumine is the CEO and co-founder of Agora. U.S. cities are in the midst of an affordability crisis. Just between May 2020 and May 2021, home prices saw their biggest annual increase in more than two decades and construction material prices increased by 24%. The cost of renting […]
Iceland’s Crowberry Capital launches $90M seed and early-stage fund aimed at Nordics
Crowberry Capital, operating in Reykjavik and Copenhagen, has launched Crowberry II: a $90 million seed and early-stage fund aimed at startups in the Nordic region. A second close — bringing in an additional $40 million — is planned for July 2022. The EIF (European Investment Fund) is the lead LP on the fund, after putting […]