Friday, November 13, 2020

The challenge of closing the digital divide for students has proved daunting in N. Carolina, which has a large rural population lacking reliable internet access (Dan Levin/New York Times)

Dan Levin / New York Times:
The challenge of closing the digital divide for students has proved daunting in N. Carolina, which has a large rural population lacking reliable internet access  —  Millions of American students lack reliable internet access.  Some are learning in parking lots connected to Wi-Fi buses or crashing with relatives to get online.



SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch Delayed by 24 Hours Due to Bad Weather

NASA and SpaceX announced on Friday a 24-hour weather delay of their planned launch of four astronauts into orbit for NASA's first full-fledged human mission using a privately owned spacecraft. https://ift.tt/3psHfpR

Qualcomm Gets US Permission to Sell 4G Chips to Huawei in Exception to Ban

Qualcomm on Friday received a license from the US government to sell 4G mobile phone chips to China's Huawei, an exemption to US trade restrictions imposed amid rising tensions with China. https://ift.tt/3lxXMXb

ByteDance Gets 15-Day Extension on US Order to Divest TikTok

ByteDance has been granted a 15-day extension of a divestiture order that had directed the Chinese company to sell its TikTok short video-sharing app by Thursday. https://ift.tt/36yVkJQ

AlphaFlow, an online investment platform for real estate assets, raises $10M Series A led by Saluda Grade Ventures (Samantha Hurst/Crowdfund Insider)

Samantha Hurst / Crowdfund Insider:
AlphaFlow, an online investment platform for real estate assets, raises $10M Series A led by Saluda Grade Ventures  —  - Twitter- Facebook- LinkedIn- Pinterest- Reddit- HackerNews- Telegram- Weibo- Email- Print- Subscribe  —  AlphaFlow, an online investment platform for real estate assets …



GuideCX, which provides project management software for onboarding new customers, raises $10M Series A led by Sorenson Ventures (FinSMEs)

FinSMEs:
GuideCX, which provides project management software for onboarding new customers, raises $10M Series A led by Sorenson Ventures  —  GuideCX, a Salt Lake City, UT-based platform for onboarding new customers, raised $10m in Series A funding.  —  The round was led by Sorenson Ventures …



Google to stop free unlimited Photos backup: What you need to know and how will it actually impact you

https://ift.tt/3lIU5yd

Solv Health, which sells patient management software to health care providers, mainly urgent care clinics, raises $27M Series B+ led by Acrew Capital (Kia Kokalitcheva/Axios)

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Solv Health, which sells patient management software to health care providers, mainly urgent care clinics, raises $27M Series B+ led by Acrew Capital  —  Solv Health, a startup that sells health care providers digital tools to manage patients, has raised $27 million in new funding led by Acrew Capital …



Bonus: An extra week to save on tickets to TC Sessions: Space 2020

When you’re laser-focused on reaching beyond the stars, it’s hard to remember more earthly, mundane tasks. That’s why we’re giving you an extra week to score early-bird savings to TC Sessions: Space 2020 (December 16-17). So, to all you harried, procrastinating visionaries: take a breath, relax a bit and buy your pass before November 20 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

Join the two-day online conference to hear from and connect with the leading forces within the space industry. Learn how to secure grants for your space company, how and where the Air Force plans to spend $60 billion on R&D, what savvy space investors think and where they might place their bets. And that’s just the tip of the rocket.

Presentations range from asteroid mining, extra-planetary robotic research and the future of space exploration to human spaceflight, manufacturing in space and supply-chain issues. Here are just two stellar examples, and you’ll find many more in the event agenda. Start planning your time now.

Bridging Two Eras of Human Spaceflight: When Kathryn Lueders started working at NASA in 1992, it was the peak of the Space Shuttle era. As she begins her leadership of the Human Spaceflight Office this year, a new and exciting era is just beginning. Lueders will discuss the possibilities and challenges of the new systems and technologies that will put the first woman and the next man on the surface of the moon…and perhaps Mars.

Crafting the Kuiper Constellation: Amazon is set to create its own global constellation of LEO satellites — a very different type of gadget from what Amazon SVP of Device & Services Dave Limp is used to overseeing. He’ll tell us how Project Kuiper fits in with Amazon’s grand plans.

Looking for more ways to save? Bring the whole team with a group discount. Tickets cost $100 each — bring four team members and get the fifth one free. Discount passes for students cost $50, while current government, military and nonprofit employees pay $95. Plus, Extra Crunch subscribers get a 20% discount.

Step into a virtual spotlight and showcase your startup in our expo: An Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package ($360 gets you three tickets, digital exhibition space and the ability to generate leads). Bonus: Exhibiting startups each get five minutes to pitch live to attendees around the world.

As you reach for the stars, connect with the experts and opportunities at TC Sessions: Space 2020 to help make your galactic dreams a reality. You have an extra week. Now, breathe, relax and buy your early-bird pass before November 20 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

Is your company interested in sponsoring TC Sessions: Space 2020? Click here to talk with us about available opportunities.

Post-COVID tech-leveraged economy may be more difficult for some workers, Fed Chairman says

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes that were already happening in the economy and these changes may make it more difficult for out-of-work individuals to return to the workforce.

Post-COVID tech-leveraged economy may be more difficult for some workers, Fed Chairman says

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes that were already happening in the economy and these changes may make it more difficult for out-of-work individuals to return to the workforce. https://ift.tt/3kDn3y9 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

NextView Ventures closes its fourth fund with $89 million

NextView Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital fund, has raised an $89.6 million fund, according to SEC filings. The firm’s fourth fund, its largest to date, is oversubscribed, with early documents indicating a $70 million goal. The NextView Ventures team did not immediately respond to request for comment.

NextView Ventures was launched in 2010 by Rob Go, a former partner at Spark Capital; Dave Beisel, who clocked time at Venrock and Masthead Venture Partners; and Lee Hower, a former investor at Point Judith Capital. Melody Koh joined as a partner three years ago, and most recently, the fund brought on former journalist Leah Fessler as an investor.

The fund, which has offices in New York as well as Boston, invests in consumer and software-as-a-service enterprise startups at the pre-seed and seed stage. Its portfolio includes Ellevest, an investing platform for women; Grove Collaborative, a sustainable goods subscription platform; and ThredUp, which has confidentially filed for IPO. In April, NextView launched a virtual accelerator for startups to build a more robust pipeline for deal flow. The firm invested $200,000 for an 8% equity stake in a number of pre-seed and seed startups focused on “the everyday economy.

More Boston coverage

A hot Boston VC Summer

13 Boston investors reflect on COVID-19

Local accelerators provide a boon to area startups

Despite the pandemic, Boston’s startup scene has continued to attract record numbers in venture capital volume. In fact, according to PitchBook data, Boston-area startups raised more private capital during summer 2020 than they did in summer 2019, suggesting that the pandemic has been a boon to startups in aggregate.

More recently, my colleague Alex Wilhelm and I wrote about how the Boston area is growing its demographic footprint in venture capital. In Q3 2019, New England drove 9.3% of U.S. venture deals, and 10.3% of U.S. venture dollars. In Q3 2020, those numbers were 9.3% of U.S. venture deals, and 12.7% of U.S. venture dollars. The percentage change is notable, especially amid volatile times.

NextView’s new fund is yet another signal of the city’s ability to attract institutional investment. Its previous fund was raised in 2017 at a $50 million close.

AI services company C3.ai files for IPO, reports revenue of $157M in the fiscal year ending April 2020, up 71% YoY, and a deficit of $293M at the end of July (Tiernan Ray/ZDNet)

Tiernan Ray / ZDNet:
AI services company C3.ai files for IPO, reports revenue of $157M in the fiscal year ending April 2020, up 71% YoY, and a deficit of $293M at the end of July  —  The software-as-a-service company that has been using masses of GPUs to run deep learning programs plans to list under the ticker “AI.”



Ticketmaster's UK wing fined ~$1.6M by the UK ICO after a report found they failed to put appropriate security measures in place prior to their 2018 data breach (Shoshana Wodinsky/Gizmodo)

Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
Ticketmaster's UK wing fined ~$1.6M by the UK ICO after a report found they failed to put appropriate security measures in place prior to their 2018 data breach  —  Ticketmaster's UK wing has been fined £1.25 million pounds (roughly $1.6 millions) following an investigation …



Facebook plans to use machine learning to sort its moderation queue prior to human review, prioritizing viral and potentially severe content first (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Facebook plans to use machine learning to sort its moderation queue prior to human review, prioritizing viral and potentially severe content first  —  Facebook says it's using AI to prioritize potentially problematic posts for human moderators to review as it works to more quickly remove content that violates its community guidelines.



Chinese optical transceiver maker Ligent jumps 19% in its Hong Kong debut, giving it a ~$4.6B market cap, after raising ~$727M, the latest Hong Kong AI IPO (Sangmi Cha/Bloomberg)

Sangmi Cha / Bloomberg : Chinese optical transceiver maker Ligent jumps 19% in its Hong Kong debut, giving it a ~$4.6B market cap, after ...