Mike Butcher
TechCrunch
United Kingdom
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Recent articles by Mike:
Still in stealth mode, Duffel raises $21.5m in Series A from Benchmark for its travel platform –
Ten months ago London startup hinted that it would be “a new way to book travel online, aiming at the booking experience ‘end to end’”, announced a healthy $4.7M funding round, but not much else. Today it goes further, announcing a $21.5m in Series A funding from VC giant Benchmark, which also backed Snap, Twitter […] → Read More
The rise of the gig economy helps London-based insurtech Zego to raise $42M –
A couple of years ago London-based startup Zego realised gig-economy workers would need insurance, and went on to raise a very healthy £6 million in Series A funding, led by Balderton Capital. Its first products were pay-as-you-go scooter and car insurance for food delivery workers. It’s now announced a $42million raise in one of the […] → Read More
The Finalists for The Europas Awards for European tech startups is released –
The The Europas Awards for European Tech Startups is coming, and today it releases its final shortlist after an intense round of public voting and judges’ delioberations. The awards will be held on 27 June 2019, in London, U.K. and TechCrunch is once more the exclusive media sponsor of the awards, alongside new “tech, culture […] → Read More
Robust.AI launches to build an industrial-grade cognitive platform for robots –
Despite the seemingly fantastical demonstration of walking and jumping robots, today’s robots are often stupid, brittle and inflexible, only capable of working in carefully-engineered environments, and unable to respond dynamically and sensibly in unexpected circumstances. Deep learning has been spectacularly successful in certain problems (facial recognition, object recognition, etc) but the… → Read More
PropTech startup Kodit.io raises $13M to automate house buying and selling –
As anyone who has ever tried to buy or sell a home knows, the entire process can be the most stressful of one’s life. Traditional real estate agents rarely make the process any less stressful, leaving the industry ripe for disruption by tech companies which can automate many of the existing processes. Startups like Offerpad […] → Read More
MMC Ventures launches fresh £52M seed fund aimed at London startups –
Synthesia is a London-based startup which recently achieved notoriety after powering the technology behind the recent global campaign showing Malaria survivors speaking through David Beckham to help raise awareness around the Malaria Must Die initiative. That is, at least now, well known. What was less well known until today was that to achieve this, Synthesia […] → Read More
Move over Ready Player One — the future of AR might be in furniture –
Last week Modsy, a San Francisco-based startup raised a large amount of funding – $37 million in C-round funding to be precise. And that followed a $23 million series B round in December 2017. Why the large amounts I hear you ask? Well, Modsy is developing a platform that lets property owners create virtual renderings […] → Read More
Out of stealth, Stratio emerges with predictive AI to stop your bus breaking down –
Remember that future we were promised where our vehicle magically tells us that we’re about to break down? Or actually never does? Or that the pick-up truck arrives before the driver even knows something wrong? That future is arriving. But like many things, the practical reality is that this technology starts to arrive in the […] → Read More
Seedlegals closes $4M Series A, led by Index Ventures, to automate startup fundraisings –
When SeedLegals launched in 2017 in the UK, I’d say many of us thought “why has that not been done before?”. After all, two things have happened which make this an obvious idea for a startup: startup funding rounds are now so common that there is no reason large amounts of automation could be done. […] → Read More
HolodeckVR raises €3M from Germany’s ProSiebenSat1 to put VR onto dodgems –
Consumer VR might not have taken off in the mainstream but it’s still fun to use, and it’s even more fun to use in groups. There is more of an arcade renaissance for VR going on right now, as well as location-based multi-user VR experiences. That’s the premise behind Munich-based HolodeckVR which is using proprietary […] → Read More
Seraphim Space Camp launches its latest mission, with 7 SpaceTech startups –
U.K. space accelerator Seraphim Space Camp appeared last year as the first ever UK SpaceTech accelerator and being, frankly, the only accelerator of its type, it has quickly shored-up a number of partnership links and hoovered up many of the startups in the… space. As is traditional with accelerators, it’s unveiled its latest cohort of […] → Read More
Pitch your startup at TechCrunch Berlin Office Hours, with Mike Butcher –
Berlin! TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin will be in December. Disrupt Berlin is where you’ll find the renowned Startup Battlefield competition, hundreds of startups in Startup Alley, Workshops and legendary networking at our After Parties… As part of our tour to promote Disrupt, you can come and pitch your tech startup to TechCrunch Editor-at-large Mike Butcher, in […] → Read More
Vote now in #TheEuropas Awards to find its hottest startups, and join Europe’s key players –
In partnership with TechCrunch, The Europas Awards, recognising the hottest tech startups in Europe since 2009, is now open for its public vote. We’ve sorted and sifted through a record number of entries this year to compile an editorially driven long list of some of Europe’s most exciting startups and investors. Voting is now live, […] → Read More
BookingBug relaunches as JRNI, as founder Shoosmith switches to Chief Architect role –
It’s been a long road for BookingBug, a software platform originally conceived because its founder had trouble coordinating dates for a squash match. Born out of the evergreen problem companies have in scheduling staff, since 2008 it’s gradually become a full-blown SaaS solution for a variety of customer journeys, of which scheduling is only one […] → Read More
Robotics startups won’t win without also incorporating AI, as Karakuri’s fundraise shows –
The constant refrain in the tech world is that the world is about to be rocked by the combination of AI and robots. Therefore you’d think that startups that build either AI or robots would be onto a winner. However, there’s a serious misunderstanding going on. What is becoming clear is that the closer companies […] → Read More
Tourlane raises a $47M C round led by Sequoia and Spark Capital –
There still exists an old-fashioned problem in travel: group travel which requires individuals and groups to plan and book personalized, multi-day tours online. → Read More
Capital.com powers Currency.com’s ‘world first’ in tokenising government bonds –
With the SEC recently releasing its long-awaited guidance on Crypto token issuers, it’s becoming clear that the crypto world is edging closer to the traditional financial world. → Read More
Early-stage US VC Joyance to scout for health and wellness startups in Europe –
Good news for European startups with a health or wellness bent. Joyance Partners, a $20M US VC firm that invests in early-stage startups in the health and ‘better living’ space is launching into the European market with a dedicated European partner. The move could be seen as taking advantage of leaps in the capability of […] → Read More
BenevolentAI starts AI collaboration with AstraZeneca to accelerate drug discovery –
BenevolentAI, is an AI company where AI actually means something. Founded in 2013, it focuses on ‘accelerating the journey from data to medicines.’ To achieve that, it’s raised a whopping $202 million to look at early drug discovery to late-stage clinical development and has a research facility in Cambridge, UK where there is plenty of […] → Read More
As measles returns, Indiegogo joins other tech platforms in banning Anti-Vaccine campaigns –
The last year has been the worst on record in the US for measles outbreaks since the disease was declared ‘eradicated’ in 2000. Even though vaccination rates across the country are still high, (according to the CDC) there remains some communities where disinformation campaigns which claim that ‘vaccines are dangerous’ (often called ‘anti-vaxx’ campaigns) have […] → Read More