Former ButcherBox execs leverage meat shipment expertise into new D2C startup • TechCrunch

Former ButcherBox execs leverage meat shipment expertise into new D2C startup • ProWellTech

As ButcherBox’s former head of logistics, Juan Meisel knows how to get perishable items from A to Z, and now he wants to do the same for Grip, a perishable shipping company he is bringing out of stealth mode with $2 million pre-seed funding. Dubbed a “smart logistics engine,” Grip’s technology sits on top of…

Smartex sews up $24.7M to put smarter eyes on textile manufacturing • TechCrunch

Smartex sews up $24.7M to put smarter eyes on textile manufacturing • ProWellTech

A lot of things might spring to mind when you hear “fashion,” but taking care of the planet generally isn’t on that list. Smartex just raised a couple of bolts’ worth of cash, sowing up a round of funding to bring smart tech to fabric manufacturing. The hope is to be able to detect textile…

Dropit picks up $25M to digitize brick-and-mortar stores and unify inventories • TechCrunch

Dropit picks up $25M to digitize brick-and-mortar stores and unify inventories • ProWellTech

Dropit, a retail technology platform that bridges the digital divide by unifying merchants’ online and in-store inventories, has raised $25 million in a Series C round of funding. Founded in 2014, London-based Dropit counts retail brands including L’Occitane, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Estee Lauder as customers, in addition to shopping malls. At its core, Dropit…

Privilège Ventures launches $20M fund investing in women-led startups • TechCrunch

Privilège Ventures launches $20M fund investing in women-led startups • ProWellTech

Lugano, Switzerland-based venture capital fund Privilège Ventures just launched its fourth fund. The CHF 20 million (just over $20 million) fund is earmarked for women-led early-stage startups across Europe. “We don’t just want to support women,” Jacqueline Ruedin Rüsch, founding general partner at Privilège Ventures said in an interview with ProWellTech. “The data shows women…

WhatsApp officially launches its new discussion group feature, Communities • TechCrunch

WhatsApp officially launches its new discussion group feature, Communities • ProWellTech

WhatsApp today is officially launching Communities, the new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups that first entered into testing earlier this year. Designed to help organizations, clubs, schools, and other private groups better communicate and stay organized, Communities bring a number of new features to the messaging platform, including admin controls, support for sub-groups…

Meet Seoul-based accelerator SparkLabs’ 19th batch of startups • TechCrunch

Meet Seoul-based accelerator SparkLabs’ 19th batch of startups • ProWellTech

SparkLabs Korea, a Seoul-based seed to early-stage accelerator, held a demo Day on Thursday for its 19th cohort of companies. The latest demo day marks its tenth year after SparkLabs launched its accelerator program in December 2012. The accelerator has backed more than 270 startups since its inception in 2012, co-founder and partner of SparkLabs…

George Hotz, aka 'geohot,' is leaving Comma.ai for a lofty AI project • TechCrunch

George Hotz, aka ‘geohot,’ is leaving Comma.ai for a lofty AI project • ProWellTech

Four years ago, Comma.ai founder George Hotz turned to his board — of which he is the only member — and fired himself as CEO. At the time, the goal for the famed iPhone and PlayStation 3 hacker, known as geohot, was to build out a new research division to focus on behavioral models that…

3 investors explain how finance-focused proptech startups can survive the downturn • TechCrunch

3 investors explain how finance-focused proptech startups can survive the downturn • ProWellTech

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, interest rates for mortgages dropped to historic lows. Predictably, home buyers made hay, taking full advantage of the favorable financial environment to pick up new homes and refinancing mortgages on their existing homes. Startups operating in the financial side of the real estate tech market suddenly faced…