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Better.com plans to lay off about 4,000 people this week, sources say Mar 08, 2022

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Online mortgage lender Better.com is poised to lay off roughly 50% of its staff of about 8,000 this week, according to sources familiar with internal happenings at the company.

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Infrastructure is broken, Gecko is using robotics to help fix it Mar 08, 2022

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Gecko Robotics’ mission statement is “To protect today’s critical infrastructure, and give form to tomorrow’s.”

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Environmental, social and governance tracking gets easier with ESGgo Mar 07, 2022

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You can’t swing an ethically sourced, locally produced, sustainably raised dead fish these days without hitting a set of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals in a company’s board meetings or annual reports.

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Volocopter raises $170M, now valued at $1.87B, to fuel the first commercial launches of its flying taxi fleet Mar 07, 2022

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Volocopter, the startup out of southern Germany (Bruchsal) that has been developing electric VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft and a business model for operating them in taxi-style fleets in urban areas, has picked up another big round of funding as it inches closer to its first commercial launches.

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YC-backed Blocknom wants to become the “Coinbase Earn of Southeast Asia” Mar 04, 2022

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Blocknom, a crypto-earning platform in Y Combinator’s current batch, has aspirations to become the “Coinbase Earn for Southeast Asia.” Today the company announced it has raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator, Number Capital and Magic Fund.

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Shares raises $40 million for its social investment app Mar 04, 2022

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Shares has closed a $40 million Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures. The company has been working on a mobile app that lets you easily buy and sell shares, but with a social twist.

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Microsoft partners with VCs, accelerators to back 10,000 startups in Africa Mar 03, 2022

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Microsoft has today announced plans to support 10,000 startups in Africa over the next five years through a series of initiatives including partnerships with accelerators and incubators across the continent.

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After raising $4 million, Emtech supports central banks across Africa, the Caribbean to deploy regulatory sandboxes Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

For fintechs to thrive in such a way that they remain meaningful to economies, a synergy between them and regulatory bodies is inevitable.

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Enterpret launches with $4.4M, NLP technology to decipher customer feedback Mar 02, 2022

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Enterpret is building and deploying customer-specific models, based on customer feedback, for product development teams.

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Live near an ocean? Kin Insurance’s data aims to more accurately predict home risk Mar 02, 2022

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By using data and technology to accurately price the risk, Kin Insurance is able to remove some of the costs of traditional insurance firms, like agents.

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