Technical

Remedial Health , a Nigerian startup digitizing pharmacies and bringing efficiency to the pharmaceutical value chain, has raised $12 million Series A equity-debt funding, to scale operations in the West African country. Fintech VC firm QED Investors co-led the round, banking on embedded financial opportunities like payments, and lending in the pharmaceutical sector. This is QED’s third investment in Africa after its involvement in the Moniepoint (formerly TeamApt ), and Flapkap deals last year. Ventures Platform, also co-led the round, which saw the participation of existing investors like Y Combinator, Tencent and Gaingels. Pharmacies and hospitals use Remedial Health’s platform to order pharmaceutical products sourced from reliable and trusted manufacturers and verified distributors. This helps to stem erratic prices, and the supply of fake and substandard products that are behind thousands of preventable deaths in Nigeria, and Africa at large. It also ensures a proper handling of...

Vineet Rao, co-founder and chief executive of Indian social commerce DealShare, has stepped down from the top role, the Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global-backed startup said Monday. Rao will work with the startup’s board to identify the next chief executive, the Monday statement added. The startup, which did not say why Rao was stepping down, has been scrambling to find ways to find stickiness in its business for quarters. It said Monday that DealShare has served over 10 million customers since launch in 2018 and intends to pivot to a hybrid model with an expansion into offline. The Jaipur-headquartered startup, which has raised nearly $400 million , allows customers in groups to make purchases. “In its continuous quest to drive profitable growth, DealShare aspires to pivot to a hybrid online and offline model to enhance its services, and increase its customer retention & share of wallet,” a DealShare spokesperson said in a statement. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/HuKhDBg

After weeks of changes to its social handles, branding on its interface, a redirect on the web, and lots of chatter from its owner, Twitter the app has finally changed its name on the App Store to X. The single-letter name may have an exception: Apple typically doesn’t allow developers name their apps as a single character. Last week, Twitter rebranded its iOS and Android apps , replacing the old bird logo, and screenshots in the App Store, with the new ‘X’ logo. However, the company wasn’t able to change its actual listed name on the App Store. As developers pointed out, this is because the App Store Connect — the portal that lets developers manage their apps — shows an error when developers try to use just one character as the app name. Despite that, today Apple seems finally to have granted Elon Musk’s X Corp. — the official owner of Twitter — an exception to have a single-letter app name. We have reached out to Apple for a comment, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. X...

Italy’s competition authority has settled a probe of Google focused on data portability after accepting commitments from the tech giant that look set to make it easier for users to take their data elsewhere, the AGCM said today . The watchdog opened the investigation last summer , acting on a complaint by a local company which operates a direct marketing platform, called Weople. Its owner, Hoda, had complained Google’s data portability offer — aka Takeout — is extremely complicated and discourages users from porting their data elsewhere. The Italian company has a commercial reason to want to smooth the path of data portability since the Weople service works by encouraging users to port data from third parties, such as social media platforms and loyalty card schemes, in order to populate so-called virtual data deposit boxes. Per an explainer on its website, data deposited in virtual spaces on the Weople platform is encrypted and tokenized — a process Hoda claims renders personal data...

The battle between two of China’s largest e-commerce firms is heating up, as they take the cutthroat tactics that have long been around in the country to the international markets they both covet. Chinese e-commerce deals giant Pinduoduo’s affiliate, Temu, which is aggressively expanding overseas , recently filed a court document in the U.S. accusing fast fashion giant Shein of anti-competitive practices. Specifically, Temu claims that Shein has been “forcing exclusive dealing arrangements on clothing manufacturers.” This allegation is reminiscent of Alibaba’s infamous “choosing one from two” policy, where vendors were asked to sell exclusively on Alibaba’s platforms and skip its archrival, Pinduoduo. As part of its sweeping crackdown on the tech industry, the Chinese government launched a probe into Alibaba in late 2020 over its monopolistic practices. TechCrunch has reached out to Shein and Temu for comment on the case. Since then, China has proposed an anti-monopoly law to re...

Social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) has reinstated the account of Kanye West (who legally goes by Ye) after he was banned last year for posting a picture of Swastika merged with the Star of David . Last December, months after Elon Musk took over the platform, Ye created a tweetstorm by posting a series of antisemitic comments along with a picture that violated the social network’s rules. At that time, Ye also posted an “unflattering” picture of Musk, but the Tesla CEO clarified that the rapper-producer wasn’t banned because of that. Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari. Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022 Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ye’s account won’t be eligible for monetization and ads will not appear next to his posts. Last week, X rolled out an ad revenue-sharing ...

Fidelity has slashed the estimated worth of its holding in SaaS startup Gupshup by over 20% in a month and by more than 50% since the original investment in the latest brutal markdown across private markets. The U.S. asset manager valued its holding in Gupshup at $8.08 million at the end of June, down from $10.15 million a month prior , according to a monthly disclosure. Fidelity originally invested $16.2 million from its Blue Chip Growth Fund in Gupshup in mid-2021 in a funding round that valued the business messaging services provider at $1.4 billion . The business messaging platform, which started its journey in India 17 years ago, raised $340 million in 2021 from a clutch of investors including Tiger Global, Think Investments and Malabar Investments. Fidelity slightly improved the value of its holdings in Reddit, Discord, Twitter-parent X Holdings and Indian e-commerce Meesho in the month of June, it disclosed in the filing. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/x9gzCLZ

Walmart paid $1.4 billion to buy out Tiger Global’s remaining holding of Flipkart shares as the retail giant further expands its stake in the Indian e-commerce startup. The transaction took place in recent days and Tiger Global, which has cashed most of its Flipkart shares earlier, overall made a return of $3.5 billion on an investment of $1.2 billion, the New York-headquartered hedge fund told investors, according to a person familiar with the matter. Wall Street Journal first reported on the deal. Flipkart is the only Indian startup in which Tiger Global had invested more than $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The U.S. investment giant has poured over $6 billion on Indian startups altogether. The secondary Flipkart shares sale valued the Bengaluru-headquartered at $35 billion. Flipkart was valued at $37.6 billion in a funding round in 2021, but has since internally cut its worth by about $5 billion following the split of payments startup PhonePe . Walm...

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here —  just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free.  Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. Hey frens! I’m back from vacation and who-wee — a lot happened this week from automaker earnings and the Tesla range inflation drama to Waymo tapping the brakes on self-driving and Cruise expanding to yet another city. One other note, you can find me on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast , a place where I will show up on a semi-regular basis, including this episode that came out Friday! Onward! Want to reach out with a tip, comment or complaint? Email Kirsten at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com . Reminder that you can drop us a note at  tips@techcrunch.com .  If you prefer to remain anonymous ,  click here to contact us , whi...

Lately I’ve been thinking about media publishing startups (think Semafor and Puck) and their fundraising rounds. Semafor recently raised a $44 million seed round, and Puck raised a $7 million Series A in 2021. The Messenger, among the newest in the industry, recently raised $50 million. Publishing media jobs are uncertain, pushing those with an entrepreneurial spirit to start their own companies, giving them more ownership over their work. But compare their experience to that of Dana Amihere, who is still trying to find support and funding for her news media startup. She launched AfroLA News in 2022 to cover the Black community in Los Angeles. So far, she won’t even touch venture capital. The outlook is bleak for people who look like her, she said. People in the startup world keep telling her things are getting better, but “ Who are things improving for?” she asked. “Knowing what the landscape looks like, it almost feels more worthwhile to dedicate the limited time I do have to oth...

Automakers appear to have had an awakening last week: Electric vehicles are the future, and if they want to continue selling cars, they have to think beyond the car. I’m not talking about subscriptions, though; I’m talking about charging. For years, major auto manufacturers were happy to leave the infrastructure to someone else. Tesla was the lone exception, building a globe-spanning network of speedy and reliable chargers that have placated range-anxious car shoppers who have bought the company’s EVs in droves. Other automakers, though, failed to connect the EV charging experience with EV sales. Perhaps it’s because infrastructure is unfamiliar territory. Or maybe they actually weren’t that interested in selling EVs. Whatever the case, automakers’ recent come-to-Jesus moment culminated in an announcement last week that seven of the largest would be forming a joint venture to build a massive charging network across North America. Consisting of no fewer than 30,000 charge points off...

In this week’s edition of The Interchange, we get into M&As in the fintech space as AngelList nabbed a startup and Uplift got bought for less than it raised in venture funding. We get into those deals and much more. Want to receive this in your inbox every Sunday? Sign up here . Shopify’s credit bet, Jeeves’ update and AngelList’s second buy Last week, Shopify announced a new offering — Shopify Credit, a business credit card designed exclusively for its merchants. The new product marked Shopify ’s first pay-in-full business credit card, said Shopify president Harley Finkelstein. It is powered by Stripe and issued by Celtic Bank, “and accepted everywhere Visa is,” he added. My editor and I were intrigued by the fact that Shopify insisted it would charge no fees — no late fees, no foreign transaction fees, and no interest. But upon further digging into the fine print, as fellow fintech enthusiast Sar Haribhakti tweeted about, it turns out that Shopify is also describing the new o...

If you’re adventurous with your food, or just like to keep up with the fast-moving food tech industry, here’s a roundup of this week’s stories and some notable news we weren’t able to cover. Supply Change Capital The venture capital fund madness we’ve seen all year has made its way to the food sector. This week, I wrote about Supply Change Capital , which closed on $40 million in capital commitments for its first fund, targeting investments in the global food industry. The female and Latina-owned firm is spearheaded by co-founders and managing partners Noramay Cadena and Shayna Harris, who met 14 years ago in business school. The firm has already made 15 investments, including in allergen-free snack food company Partake Foods , ingredients startup Michroma and alternative seafood maker Aqua Cultured Foods . Supply Change joins firms like Joyful Ventures, which debuted in June with $23 million , focused on investment in sustainable protein startups. Joyful was co-founded by Jenni...

Hey, friends, welcome to Week in Review (WiR) , TechCrunch’s roundup of the week in tech news. Life getting in the way of your daily TechCrunch habit? Not to worry. WiR will get you caught up in no time. This week, WiR covers the improving quality of AI porn generators and the ethical dilemmas they raise; Twitter rebranding to “X”; and hackers infecting Call of Duty with self-spreading malware. Elsewhere, we dive into a North Korean hacking group, foreign Chinese visitors’ newfound ability to go cashless, and the rollout of Sam Altman’s Worldcoin eyeball-scanning crypto project. As always, it’s a lot to get to, so let’s not delay. But first, a reminder that if you haven’t already, sign up here  to get WiR in your inbox every Saturday. Most read Twitter rebrands to “X”: This week, Twitter removed its iconic bird logo and adopted “X” as its new official branding. The move, which Elon Musk announced over the weekend , is a harbinger of the platform’s shift — perhaps more asp...

“Founders first” is the TechCrunch credo — this is the way — and you’ll find the very best and brightest minds in the startup ecosystem gathered at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 , taking place September 19–21 in San Francisco. This year, our programming spans nine stages, seven industries and dozens of breakout sessions and roundtable discussions (for starters). Disrupt is where founders go to grow, collaborate, network and find inspiration — and, who knows, maybe a term sheet. Founder opportunities at TechCrunch 2023 Let’s take a look at just some of the founders-first sessions and opportunities waiting for you. The Builder Stage Head to the Builder Stage for panels and interviews focused on the nuts and bolts of building and funding new tech enterprises — including these: What Do You Need to Raise a Series A Today? How to Build Intelligent Startup Ops that Will Scale with Your Business Seven new industry stages In addition to the Disrupt Stage (more on the folks you’ll see the...

Building a startup is hard enough but growing one in a category marred with Theranos-sized stigma is a new level of challenge. Vital Bio seems up for the test. The Toronto-based startup is building a machine, VitalOne, that can perform more than 50 blood tests — covering nearly all of those considered routine — and get patient results back in 20 minutes, not multiple days. Co-founder and CEO Vasu Nadella said that he got interested in the space because he and his co-founders have watched family members deal with chronic illness and know that being able to get quick diagnostic results is crucial for treatment. Plus, Nadella wanted to know why companies couldn’t seem to get the solution to this problem right. While Theranos failed for a variety of reasons, the other companies trying to build these quicker blood diagnostic tools had yet to ship products. He thought maybe he could crack the code. The startup launched in 2019 and built quietly until it debuted its device at the American ...

Trey Herr Contributor Trey Herr is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. Maia Hamin Contributor Maia Hamin is an associate director with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative. Will Loomis Contributor Share on Twitter Will Loomis is an associate director with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative. Stewart Scott Contributor Stewart Scott is an associate director with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative. The Biden administration’s 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy identified structural shortcomings in the state of cybersecurity, calling out the failure of market forces to adequately distribute responsibility for the security of data and digital systems. Most prominently, the strategy seeks to “rebalance responsibility [for security] to those best positioned.” Shortly after the strategy’s launch in March of this year, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) kicked off an effort to “shift the balance of cybersecuri...