Numan, the European subscription service covering erectile dysfunction (ED) and men’s wellness/health needs more generally, has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by White Star Capital, with participation from existing investors Novator, Vostok New Global, Anthemis Exponential, Colle Capital, and new investor Hanwha Group. The new round will be used to […]
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 […]
Putin’s crackdown: how Russia’s journalists became ‘foreign agents’
Will an oppressive new law stifle independent media outlets – or lead to a weakening of the president’s authoritarian regime?Usually the bad news is dumped late on Friday when most Muscovites are heading out for the evening: a new list of names of jour…
‘My son misses his Papa’: Brexit rules force families to split
Partners and spouses are being kept apart by Home Office delays in processing revised versions of entry permits to BritainA British woman has told how she had to separate her six-year-old son from his French father because post-Brexit rules prohibited …
An actor, two big bees and a lot of experts: a week spent tackling the planet’s problems
World’s largest conservation summit since Covid-19 brought 4,000 people to Marseille to showcase issues and solutions from coral reefs to land protection At times in Marseille’s early autumn sun, pre-pandemic life felt tantalisingly close at the world’…
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 […]
Microsoft acquires TakeLessons, an online and in-person tutoring platform, to ramp up its edtech play
Microsoft said in January this year that Teams, its online collaboration platform, was being used by over 100 million students — boosted in no small part by the Covid-19 pandemic and many schools going partly or fully remote. Now, it’s made another acquisition to continue expanding its position in the education market. The company has […]
Moulin Rouge gets ready for reopening – in pictures
Moulin Rouge performed a full dress rehearsal two days ahead of the reopening of the cabaret following an 18-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Moulin Rouge and Le Lido, emblems of the crazy Parisian nights since 1889, will open again on 1…
UK dials up the spin on data reform, claiming ‘simplified’ rules will drive ‘responsible’ data sharing
The U.K. government has announced a consultation on plans to shake up the national data protection regime, as it looks at how to diverge from European Union rules following Brexit. It’s also a year since the U.K. published a national data strategy in which said it wanted pandemic levels of data sharing to become Britain’s […]