Seedstars Africa Ventures, the pan-African early-stage fund for startups, has appointed Bruce Nsereko-Lule as its new general partner, to help it deploy more capital and provide the much-needed technical support for founders across the continent. Seedstars Africa Ventures – which is part of Seedstars Group, an accelerator and VC that is active globally in over 30 emerging markets – provides early-stage capital of up to $2 million in seed and Series A rounds. The fund counts the French equity firm LBO France among its limited partners, and has, so far, invested over $5 million in five startups ..read more

Lightyear, a Dutch startup developing a long-range solar-powered car, today announced that it has raised €86 million ($85 million) as it prepares to begin production of its first vehicle in the coming months. While recent history is littered with examples of prototype solar-powered vehicles, the burgeoning electric car movement has so far been mostly limited to automobiles that need to be plugged into the grid to charge, or hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) that self-charge while driving. A number of companies are pushing to make solar-powered cars a mass-market reality, however, such as Germany ..read more

The vegan food market was pegged as a $27 billion industry last year, a figure that’s expected to more than double within a decade. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the major food and beverage incumbents such as Nestlé, which launched a plant-based dairy line under the Wunda brand last year, while rival Unilever has been doubling down on its vegan offerings. But any company looking to develop successful plant-based food alternatives often face challenges when trying to replicate certain goods traditionally made from animal-based ingredients. Dairy, in particular, has its problems, as recreating t ..read more

Tailor, a Japan-based back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, said today it has raised $4.3 million in seed funding from Y Combinator and Global Brain. Founded in 2021 by Yo Shibata and Misato Takahashi, Tailor provides a headless ERP platform, meaning an ERP without a front end, instead delivering data from back-office systems like finance and procurement to other applications via API, Shibata told TechCrunch. Legacy ERPs provided by companies such as SAP, Oracle and NetSuite (which is owned by Oracle) and local players like OBIC, are difficult to customize for users, according ..read more

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. Happy Labor Day! Due to the scheduling of the newsletter, I’ll have finished writing this by the time NASA makes the second launch attempt of the Artemis I mission. By now, you probably already know how it all went down anyway! In this issue: SpaceX lands more astronaut transportation missions Starlink is coming to Royal Caribbean News from Axiom Space, Ursa Major and more By the way… TechCrunch Disrupt finally returns — live and in person — to San Francisco on October 18-20. Use this link to receive 15% off passes (excluding online and expo). NASA orders fiv ..read more

Fermentation has a long, rich history in food production, from beer and wine, to yogurt and cheese, leavened bread and coffee, miso and tempeh, sauerkraut and kimchi, to name just a few of the tasty things we can consume thanks to a chemical process thought to date back to the neolithic period. But if this 2017-founded Finnish startup, Solar Foods, has its way fermentation could have a very special place in the future of human food too. The industrial biotech startup is working on bringing a novel protein to market — one it says will offer a nutritious, sustainable alternative to animal-derive ..read more

Binance, the issuer of the world’s third largest stablecoin, said on Monday it will convert customers’ holdings in three rival stablecoins USDC, USDP and TUSD into its own stablecoin on September 29 to “enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users” in a move that has baffled many enthusiasts. As a result of the move, the world’s largest crypto exchange said it will remove spot, future and margin trading with USDC, USDP and TUSD pairs. “This will not affect users’ choice of withdrawal: users will continue to be able to withdraw funds in USDC, USDP and TUSD at a 1:1 ratio to their BUSD den ..read more

I have yet to type on a keyboard that feels as good as Mode Designs’ Sonnet. There have definitely been a few days in the last few weeks since the company sent me a prototype unit to test where getting to type on the Sonnet was one of my main motivators to start writing. With prices starting at $299 without switches and keycaps, it’s not the most expensive of custom keyboards out there (though the price can quickly creep up to double that as you add a few options), but Mode got virtually everything right here, and thanks to its range of options, the Boston- and San Francisco-based company allo ..read more

To mark down your portfolio or not mark down your portfolio? That is a question many venture capitalists are grappling with right now. But first, what does that mean? VCs keep a running tab of the value of each fund and entire portfolio based on the prior valuations each company raised at. The value of each company generally only gets updated when it raises a round at a new valuation, and firms typically do a full valuation audit at the end of each year. While, yes, venture capitalists only have to audit the value of their portfolios once a year for their LPs, it’s generally considered good fa ..read more

This February, Africa and emerging market-focused Nestcoin raised a pre-seed round to build, operate and invest in its web3 applications, including crypto content platform Breach Club and gaming guild Metaverse Magna (MVM). Nine months after its launch last December, the latter has completed a seed sale token round of $3.2 million at a $30M fully diluted valuation.  MVM, incubated in partnership with a multi-strategy blockchain investment fund, Old Fashion Research (OFR), welcomed participation from investors including South Korean video game developer Wemade, Japan-based blockchain-focus ..read more