Mike Butcher
TechCrunch
United Kingdom
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Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
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Recent articles by Mike:
How about earning crypto tokens to carbon-offset your Uber rides? –
Most of us, by now, are aware that all sorts of crazy stuff is happening to the planet’s climate, and the blame is pretty much universally recognized as lying with humans pumping more and more carbon into the atmosphere. Scientists are now saying tree planting, for instance, has to happen very, very quickly if we […] → Read More
New $47M fund, Fil Rouge Capital, is ready to boost Croatia’s growing startup scene –
Croatia has not exactly been known for a huge startup scene in the past, and probably the most famous tech company out of there in recent years has been Rimac Automobili, the startup out of Zagreb that created an electric supercar to rival anything Porsche might make. But the technical talent in the country remains […] → Read More
Launching out of YC, Blair is aiming to reshape the financing of college tuition –
It’s generally agreed that Higher Education in the United States has gradually become more and more unaffordable. Students are dependent on external financial resources for which many of them do not even qualify. Students that are able to secure a loan, often have to take on debts they can’t really afford. And if they don’t […] → Read More
Can a radical new event disrupt how VCs raise funds, unlocking cash for Europe? –
For many years there’s been an accepted way to raise capital as a venture capital fund. Essentially, GPs (General Partners who set up and run venture capital firms) go ‘cap in hand’ to LPs (Limited Partners who invest into their VC firms) in pension funds, privately run ‘family offices’, ‘ultra-high net worths’ and other such […] → Read More
Journalist behind Cambridge Analytica story launches crowd-funder after libel threat –
There have been millions of words written about the story of how Cambridge Analytica (CA) was employed by the Trump campaign to affect the 2016 US election and the UK’s Brexit referendum via the use of millions of Facebook profiles it had illegally bought, not least our recent review and analysis of the recent Netflix […] → Read More
Biome Makers closes $4M to assess the quality of the ‘gut bacteria’ of a farm’s soil –
The agriculture industry faces huge problems of sustainability. The world’s population is increasing, leading to higher food demand, but this then threatens increasing deforestation, pesticide use, and some fertilizers that are responsible for greenhouse emissions. Farming can also be a source of carbon sequestration, but how to preserve that? Plus, land quality is being decreased […] → Read More
A Q&A with Multiple, the quiet agency behind many a startup’s success story –
Part of the reason Silicon Valley has become so powerful is that it supports a wide variety of these wider ecosystem players, and doesn’t just dole out cash to raw entrepreneurs who often are pretty experienced in company and brand building. Europe, it seemed, was finally growing up. Four years on and, I decided it […] → Read More
Trueface raises $3.7M to recognise that gun, as it’s being pulled, in real time –
Globally, millions of cameras are in deployed by companies and organizations every year. All you have to do is look up. Yes, there they are! But the petabytes of data collected by these cameras really only become useful after something untoward has occurred. They can very rarely influence an action in “real-time”. Trueface is a […] → Read More
Reports claims all three new iPhones planned for 2020 will support 5G –
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo — sometimes described as “the most accurate Apple analyst in the world” — has written a new note to investors saying that the three iPhones expected to launch in 2020 will feature support for 5G. In previous Kuo reports, it’s said the 2020 iPhones could be available in new sizes: a […] → Read More
‘The Great Hack’: Netflix doc unpacks Cambridge Analytica, Trump, Brexit and democracy’s death –
There are probably many of us who’d wish quite a lot of the last couple of years could be thrown into that temple fire, but this documentary is the first I’ve seen to expertly unpick what has become the real-world dumpster fire that is social media, dark advertising and global politics which have all become […] → Read More
It looks like TiTok has acquired Jukedeck, a pioneering music AI UK startup –
Jukedeck, a pioneering AI startup out of the UK which could interpret video and automatically set music to it, has reportedly been acquired by hot social media startup TikTok. Jukedeck was previously a TechCrunch London 2015 Battlefield winner. Jukedeck had raised £2.5M, largely from Cambridge Innovation Capital, but also included investors Parkwalk Advisors, Backed VC […] → Read More
Tiny UK startup takes on Google’s Wing in the race to a drone traffic control system –
A future where drones can easily and cheaply do many useful things such as deliver packages, undertake search and rescue missions, deliver urgent medical supplies, not to mention unclogging our roads with flying taxis seems like a future worth shooting for. But before all this can happen, we need to make sure the thousands of […] → Read More
UK DeepTech VC IQ Capital launches new $125M growth fund, closes third VC fund at $175M –
IQ Capital, a UK-based deep tech fund which has invested in startups such as Paragraf, Senseye and Funderbeam, has launched a new $125 million ‘Growth Opportunities Fund’ and closed its third venture fund, IQ Capital Fund III, at $175 million. This brings the total new capital to be invested to over $300 million. National Grid […] → Read More
Negative? How a Navy veteran refused to accept a ‘no’ to his battery invention –
The journey for Trevor Jackson started, as many things do in tech, with research. He’d become fascinated by the experiments done, not with lithium batteries, which had come to dominate the battery industry, but with so-called ‘Aluminum-air’ batteries. Technically described at “(Al)/air” batteries, these are the – almost – untold story from the battery world. […] → Read More
Runa Capital closes $70M for its third fund aimed at early-stage DeepTech –
Runa Capital, an international VC firm HQ’d in Silicon Valley says it has now closed $70 million for its third fund aimed at backing early-stage startups in so-called ‘DeepTech’. Runa says it is aiming for a $135 million final target for Runa Fund III. Last year, its total funding in the U.S. increased by 30 […] → Read More
GetAccept’s workflow and e-signature platform for sales secures $7M Series A funding –
Many years ago every sales deal was sealed with a handshake between two people. Today, digitization has moved into the sales process, but it hasn’t necessarily improved the experience. In fact, it’s often become a more time-consuming affair because information and communications are scattered across multiple channels and the number of people involved in a […] → Read More
The winners of The Europas Awards 2019 display Europe’s continuing diversity and ambition –
The Europas Awards for European Tech Startups came around again last week (Thursday 27th June), and once again proved that Europe’s enormous diversity in startups continues to shine through on the world stage. Once again TechCrunch was the exclusive media sponsor of the awards, alongside new “tech, culture & society” event creator The Pathfounder. Attendees, […] → Read More
Pavegen, which harvests energy and data from footsteps, secures crowd and Hinduja Group funding –
Pavegen, a UK startup which harvests energy from people’s footsteps and also tracks that data, has raised £2.6m on its crowdfunding push having doubled its initial £950k target. The campaign secured funds from over 1,400 investors, including partnership and anchor investment from major global engineering conglomerate Hinduja Group and family investment firm Tamar Capital. The […] → Read More
Laundrapp and Zipjet merge to form largest on-demand laundry service in UK, seal new funding –
Two of Europe’s biggest on-demand laundry startups are merging today. Laundrapp from London and Zipjet from Berlin are confirming the completion of a previously-rumored merger through which the combined business will become the largest on-demand laundry business in the UK. Alongside this, the combined business has completed a funding round from existing investors including Toscafund, […] → Read More
A Q&A with Talis Capital as it raises $100m for 2019 and hits it’s 10th year –
Talis Capital – an early investor in Darktrace, Pirate Studios, Luminance and iwoca – announces today that it’s raised $100m for 2019, a record for the firm to date as it passes it’s 10th year of operation. In those ten years it’s done $600m in transactions as it seeks to invest in the fast-growing tech […] → Read More