 |  | | Saturday, January 18, 2020 • By Walter Thompson | |
| | | As ever, our reporters covered a lot of ground this week: Jake Bright dove deeply into Goldman Sachs’ history of investing in African startups, while Darrell Etherington and Brian Heater looked at how hardware companies are shipping home robots, exoskeletons and other products that are bringing new interest to a sector known for products that are more often conceptual than market-ready. We also covered Visa’s Plaid acquisition, uncertainty in the cannabis industry, recent developments in commercial space, looked into Pinterest’s yearly diversity report and much more. Thanks for reading! Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Photo bMario Tama/Getty Images / Getty Images | | TechCrunch sat down with Amnon Shashua, Mobileye's president and CEO and Intel senior vice president, to find out why and how — yep, acquisitions are in the future — the company will hit its mark. Read more | | | |
| |  | | We caught up with Formlabs co-founder and CEO Maxim Lobovsky at CES, where he outlined how the company has grown, what it's focusing on today and what he sees as the holy grail project in the industry. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: David Becker / Getty Images | | After a week at CES — including several behind-the-scenes conversations with investors and startups — the consensus seems to be that the show is slowly embracing the more serious side of robotics. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Jorg Greuel / Getty Images | | If the government escalates its assault on encryption and wins, it will lead to a dangerous precedent that will put ordinary people at increased risk. Read more | | | |
| |  | | The ten-year-old fund brought aboard Ian Friedman, former co-head of Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Venture Capital & Growth Equity, as a general partner. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: carloscastilla / Getty Images | | A special entry: we're looking at a company that isn't yet at the $100 million ARR mark. It's 60% of the way there, but with a twist — it’s bootstrapped. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Jose Luis Stephens/EyeEm / Getty Images | | Space as an investment target is trending upwards in the VC community, but specialist firm Space Angels has been focused on the sector longer than most. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: hapabapa / Getty Images | | When Visa bought Plaid this week for $5.3 billion, a figure that was twice its private valuation, it was a clear signal that traditional financial services companies are looking for ways to modernize their approach to business. Read more | | | |
| |  | | The venerable American investment bank and financial services firm has backed startups from Kenya to Nigeria and taken a significant stake in e-commerce venture Jumia, which listed on the NYSE in 2019. Read more | | | |
| |  | | The company released its latest diversity report, showing slight gains in representation of underrepresented minorities while also hitting its three hiring goals. Read more | | | |
| |  | | The SoftBank-backed budget hotel startup is releasing staff, reducing capacity and pulling out of some locations altogether. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: PressFocus/MB Media / Getty Images | | Lee Trink has spent nearly his entire career in the entertainment business. The former president of Capitol Records is now the head of FaZe Clan, an esports juggernaut that is one of the most recognizable names in the wildly popular phenomenon of competitive gaming. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Sai Pee/EyeEm / Getty Images | | We interviewed partner Julia Hawkins about the opportunities and risks related to femtech investing in light of the fund's early backing for Ferly, a female-founded startup with a subscription app that describes itself as an audio guide to "mindful sex." Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Betsy Joles/Bloomberg / Getty Images | | Despite the highly polarizing run-up to the election, however, both the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) have taken measures to foster entrepreneurship in Taiwan. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Ben McLeod / Getty Images | | How are cannabis-focused startups faring? We explore the question through the lens of fundraising and the public market results of public cannabis companies in Canada. Read more | | | |
| |  | | We spoke with CEO and co-founder Edith Harbaugh, about where the idea for LaunchDarkly came from, how their product is being embraced by product managers and marketing teams and the company's plans to expand with offices around the world. Read more | | | |
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