Curtsy, a clothing resale app and competitor to recently IPO‘d Poshmark, announced today it has raised 11 million in Series A funding for its startup focused on the Gen Z market. The app, which evolved out of an earlier effort for renting dresses, now allows women to list their clothes, shoes and accessories for resale, []

ULesson, an edtech startup based in Nigeria that sells digital curriculum to students through SD cards, has raised 7.5 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Owl Ventures, which closed over half a billion in new fund money just months ago. Other participants include LocalGlobe and existing investors, including TLcom Capital and []

Following Joseph Biden‘s swearing in as the 46th President of the United States, Amazon is offering help in the administration‘s stated goals for rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine. In a letter provided to TechCrunch, Worldwide Consumer CEO Dave Clark congratulates Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, while promising, ‘to assist you in reaching your goal []

What is your sense as to how the new administration will change business, corporate and startup founder immigration to the U.S.?

TikTok is testing a new video QA feature that allows creators to more directly respond to their audience‘s questions with either text or video answers, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature works across both video and livestreams (TikTok LIVE), but is currently only available to select creators who have opted into the test, we []

The massive shift to remote work due to COVID-19 has resulted in a huge reduction in emissions from vehicles and other sources, but it comes with costs of its own. A new study puts tentative carbon costs on the connectivity and data infrastructure that make working from home possible - and gives you an excuse []

Ironhack, a company offering programming bootcamps across Europe and North and South America, has raised 20 million in its latest round of funding. The Miami-based company with locations in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Lisbon, Madrid, Mexico City, Miami, Paris and Sao Paulo said it will use the money to build out more virtual offerings to compliment []

Thank you again for your support. We‘re looking forward to hanging out with you more, even if it‘s just online.

WhiteHouse.gov, the official website for all Presidential actions and efforts, is among the first things to be changed up under the freshly inaugurated President Biden. A fashionable dark mode appeared, a large text toggle for straining eyes, and the webmaster has committed to making the whole site conform to the latest accessibility guidelines. The look []

Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the U.K. challenger bank entirely at the end of the month, staff were informed earlier today. Blomfield held the role of CEO until May last year when he assumed the newly created title of president and resigned from the Monzo board. However, having been given the time and space []

In a speech to the European Parliament today marking the inauguration of US president Joe Biden, the president of the European Commission has called for Europe and the US to join forces on regulating tech giants, warning of the risks of unfiltered hate speech and disinformation being weaponized to attack and undermine democracies. Ursula von []

Investors and businesses should not overlook how quickly President Biden will move on policy especially as it relates to the future of work and getting the U.S. economy back on track.

This morning, as America itself resets, let‘s take a moment to understand last year just a little bit better as we get into this new one.

Researchers at MIT have developed a new method for growing plant tissues in a lab sort of like how companies and researchers are approaching lab-grown meat. The process would be able to produce wood and fibre in a lab environment, and researchers have already demonstrated how it works in concept by growing simple structures []

SpaceX has launched its 17th batch of Starlink satellites during its first mission of 2021, using a Falcon 9 rocket that was flying for the eighth time, and that landed again, recording a record for its reusability program. This puts the total Starlink constellation size at almost 1,000, as the company has expanded its beta []

Fyllo has acquired DataOwl, a company offering marketing and loyalty tools for cannabis retailers. Fyllo said it already works with 320 cannabis retailers across 25 states (plus Puerto Rico and Jamaica). According to Chief Marketing Officer Conrad Lisco, this acquisition allows the company to offer the industry‘s first end-to-end marketing solution, combining consumer data, digital []

A four-year antitrust investigation into PC games geo-blocking in the European Union by distribution platform Valve and five games publishers has led to fines totalling 7.8 million (~9.4M) after the Commission confirmed today that the bloc‘s rules had been breached. The geo-blocking practices investigated since 2017 concerned around 100 PC video games of different genres, []

Rocket Lab has launched its 18th mission, and the first of 2021, as of 8:26 PM NZT (2:30 AM EST). The Another One Leaves The Crust‘ mission took off from Rocket Lab‘s Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand, and flew a single communications microsatellite on behalf of client OHB Group, a []

HiPeople, a HR tech startup based in Berlin that wants to automate the reference checking process, has raised 3 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Mattias Ljungman‘s Moonfire, with participation from Capnamic Ventures, and Cherry Ventures. It follows a 1.1 million pre-seed in late 2019. Notably, the seed round was closed fully remote, []

Barcelona-based Landbot, a no-code‘ chatbot builder, has bagged a 8M Series A led by the Spanish-Israeli VC firm Swanlaab, alongside support from Spain‘s innovation-focused public agency, CDTI. Previous investors Nauta Capital, Encomenda and Bankinter also participated in the round. We last chatted to Landbot back in 2018 when it raised a 2.2M seed and had []

Alibaba‘s billionaire founder resurfaced as he spoke to 100 rural teachers through a video, three months after his last public appearance in October, sending the e-commerce firm‘s shares up more than 8% in Hong Kong. The video was first posted on a news portal backed by the government of Zhejiang, the eastern province where Alibaba []

Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who had been sentenced to 18 months in prison on one count of stealing trade secrets, has received a pardon from President Donald Trump. The full pardon, which was one of 73 issued late Tuesday evening, means Levandowski will avoid a prison cell. The president also []

Wattpad, the 14-year-old, Toronto-based, venture-backed storytelling platform with reach into a number of verticals, is being acquired by Naver, the South Korean conglomerate, in a 600 million cash-and-stock deal. Naver plans to incorporate at least part of the business into another of its holdings, the 16-year-old publishing portal Webtoon, which Naver launched in 2004, brought []

I‘ve spent more time than I care to mention over the last several years wondering aloud about the value of in-person trade shows. There‘s something seemingly antiquated in the idea of jamming a bunch of people in a room, walking from booth to booth. Sure, they‘ve fulfilled an important need in the past, but aren‘t []