Startups/VC Letâs take our time today in the world of startups, it being Friday and all. First up, we have a great piece from Rebecca Bellan digging into a host of startups that are helping emerging middle classes around the world get places. This list includes, and I quote, âSwvl, Treepz, Jatri, SafeBoda, Urbvan, Chalo and Buser,â among others. If you are into the transportation tech beat, itâs a great read. Next up, Andy Stinnes, a general partner at Cloud Apps Capital Partners, wrote an essay for the blog today discussing that while the present-day venture capital bull market (more here) is a general good for founders, âcloser inspection reveals that these trends are a lot more nuanced and apply very unequally across the funding continuum from seed to the late stage.â If you are looking to raise capital, itâs worth your time. Moving along, our own Taylor Hatmaker did yeomanâs work digging into Core, a metaverse environment where she wandered around, finding the landscape to be both great-looking and âseamless.â If you want a peek into what could be the future of gaming and social interaction, this is for you. And, before we get to the rest of our startup rundown, I wrote an imaginary interview with a made-up CEO concerning a fictional IPO. For more context, head here. SoundCloud lands Pandora partnership, new radio station: As Spotify grew to become a music behemoth, SoundCloud stuck closer to the underground. And it survived, which some didnât expect. Today, the upstart music service announced a deal with Pandora that could help bring it a bit more audience. Clubhouse adds âmusic modeâ: Sticking to a musical theme for another measure or two, Clubhouse has built out a way for musicians to better stream their music live on the service. So, I suppose Clubhouse can now also be coffeehouse? And, finally, Spot AI leaves stealth with its security cam search tool: Flush with $22 million and freshly denuded of its âstealthâ tag, Spot AI is out in the public view today, which is fitting as its core product deals with security cameras and how they are ingested. The company âreadsâ footage from the devices, allowing the video itself to be searchable. Which is cool, if vaguely creepy. |
