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This week's most interesting startup stories
As the fallout from the end of 0% interest rates continues, SoftBank-backed Norwegian online supermarket delivery startup Oda has announced it will cut 150 jobs and refocus on Norway and Sweden, aiming to turn a profit next year.
While it's never good news when employees are laid off, Oda co-founder Jon Kåre Stene, now a partner at venture capital firm Skyfall Ventures, hopes that this “may stimulate the birth of some new startups in the Norwegian tech industry or strengthen those already on their journey.” Europe is already home to several startup factories (think Skype), and now it may be Norway's turn.
With 150 employees being laid off from Oda, we hope they will move on to something better. Image courtesy of Oda
Hardware is Hard, Episode 234: We already knew the launch of Humane's Ai Pin was far from smooth. Now the startup is urging customers to stop using the charging case over concerns of the battery catching fire. Humane says this is “out of an abundance of caution” and based on one complaint, but it's unlikely to help the company's cause.
Reinventing the walkie-talkie: The two co-founders of French startup ten ten have been getting little sleep these days because of the growing popularity of their original social app, which has been downloaded 1 million times locally and 6 million worldwide.
Lawsuits, fines, and evictions: things aren't going well for AI mortgage startup LoanSnap. The company, which has backers like Reid Hoffman, Richard Branson, and The Chainsmokers, is facing growing uncertainty and deep fears for its employees' futures.
Falling from a height: The inside story of Fisker's collapse is fascinating, as reported by TechCrunch. Sean O'Kane worked on the investigation for weeks, and the results are a tale of hubris, power struggles, and repeated failures to establish the fundamental processes that any car manufacturer should be built on.
We will dance again: Firefly co-founder and CTO Joseph “Sefi” Genis was one of hundreds killed by Hamas on October 7. Now, the Israeli startup is forging ahead.
Most interesting fundraising this week
Solutions by Text (SBT), which lets you pay bills and apply for loans by text message, has raised $110 million in funding, but as TechCrunch's Mary Ann Azevedo points out, “this isn't your typical startup fundraising.” The company was founded in 2008 and has been bootstrapped ever since.
Another difference between SBT and the average startup is that it is EBITDA positive and is working towards being fully profitable this year, according to CEO David Baxter, who took over in 2021.
The company, founded by brothers Danny and Mike Cantrell, has undergone a turnaround under Baxter's direction.
“We've really transformed the business from a founder-led, family-owned, lifestyle business to a business that processes roughly 20 million messages per month,” Baxter told TechCrunch.
Sword Health is an AI-powered virtual physical therapy startup. Image credit: Sword Health/Company Living the Sword: AI-powered virtual physical therapy startup Sword Health has raised a $30 million primary and $130 million secondary funding round, bringing its valuation to $3 billion. That’s a 50% increase from its Series D valuation in November 2021. Designing an EV in 18 months: Swiss startup Neural Concept has raised $27 million to reduce electric vehicle design time to 18 months, a strong selling point as Europe and the US look to reduce the production costs of EVs to compete with China. You Can See Why: GetWhy, a consumer research technology company that uses AI to help companies conduct market research and extract insights from video-based interviews, has raised $34.5 million from California-based VC firm PeakSpan Capital and others. Where's Your Head?: Austrian startup Storyblok has raised $80 million to add more AI to its “headless” content management system (CMS) for non-technical people.
More TechCrunch articles you shouldn't miss…
The Ticketmaster antitrust lawsuit had some wondering if this might offer hope to ticket-selling upstarts.
And now Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, has acknowledged that Ticketmaster was hacked. If your personal information was compromised, that's not a good thing. But if it's another step toward getting alternatives, there may be a silver lining.
Other top stories:
Showing it in action: SAP is spending a whopping $1.5 billion in cash to acquire digital adoption platform provider WalkMe. Big savings: Private equity firm Bridgepoint has signed a deal to buy a majority stake in French “intranet super app” LumApps for $650 million, which could spur further acquisitions. Discovered in filings: We knew Salesforce acquired Spiff in February. Now we know how much it paid for the sales commission management company: $419 million, including $374 million in cash. 11 figures: Spanish startups hit €100 billion in total value last year as the tech scene continues to mature. And yet the $191 billion Cambridge ecosystem alone is almost twice as valuable as Spain's.
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