COVID-19
As Silicon Valley Bank collapsed before our eyes on Thursday, a founder told me that the world felt like it did when COVID-19 first bared its teeth. I scoffed at…
A new approach to vaccines with a machine learning twist could put an end to boosters and seasonal variant shots, according to MIT researchers. This “pan-variant” vaccine would ignore the…
Early in the pandemic, a number of researchers, startups and institutions developed AI systems that they claimed could diagnose COVID-19 from the sound of a person’s cough. At the time,…
Virtual research institute battles Long COVID with backing from Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin
A new nonprofit “startup” is emerging from stealth today with $15 million in funding from Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin, with a focus squarely on studying and treating Long COVID. While…
Biotech company Senzo just raised a $2 million round at a $20 million pre-money valuation to further extend options for lateral flow diagnostics. “Lateral flow,” in this case, is the…
Facebook, no stranger to misinformation on its platform, attempted an uncharacteristically bold move as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold around the world: instead of merely labelling posts that discouraged vaccination…
Future COVID-19 vaccine boosters won’t have to go through a traditional, lengthy clinical trial process to attain emergency use authorization in the U.S., according to a report in Reuters. An…
It’s nearly been two months since we started this accidental weekly column about layoffs happening within startups. Workforce reductions have impacted startup employees in every massive sector, from crypto to…
Canada sunsets its COVID Alert app based on the iOS and Android exposure notification API
The government of Canada today announced that it is ending use of the app it commissioned based on the COVID-19 exposure alert API developed jointly by Google and Apple as…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized use of the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and BioNTech, and from Moderna, for kids between six months and five years of age.…
Featured Article
Caught COVID-19 abroad? Good luck, you might get stuck
The idea of being stranded on a Caribbean island might not sound like the worst thing in the world after two years of a pandemic, but speaking from experience, it’s not as fun as it sounds. I caught COVID-19 while on vacation overseas. Somehow, my partner did not. But for…
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our…
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It’s been a tough few years for Berlin-based femtech hardware startup Inne, which came out of stealth R&D in the fall of 2019, shortly before COVID-19 hit Europe. By January…
Depending on your business, your job and your living situation, the pandemic showed that many workers didn’t need to be sitting in a cubby farm inside a big building to…
Airbnb today announced that it will soon no longer offer refunds for COVID-19-related circumstances, including cases where a guest or host becomes sick with COVID-19 — reflecting an update to…
Could it be that companies that fell out of favor due to COVID-induced shifts in the economy are best prepared to excel this year?
China is allowing the public to take COVID-19 rapid antigen self-tests for the first time as infection numbers hit a two-year high in recent days. Online marketplaces including JD.com and…
Featured Podcast
Welcome to the it’s-so-subtle pivot season
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As late-stage tech startups face the changing environment in the public markets, their early-stage counterparts are in a different world altogether. The cohort has had access to ample capital in recent quarters,…
Companies once believed they could rely on algorithms to catch inappropriate content and intervene with public relations in high-profile cases. Today, the challenges are bigger and more complicated.
Featured Article
Hopin’ into lessons from Peloton
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. In the beginning of the pandemic, we learned which companies were unprepared to handle a cataclysmic event. Now, as the world slowly starts to reopen in light…
News broke today (shoutout CNBC for the scoop) that Peloton is halting production of its hardware for a bit. Compare and contrast the following headlines, the first from May 2020…
One year, 10 months and eight days after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans will be able to order free, at-home tests from the government.
Twitter bans Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s personal account over COVID-19 misinformation
Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) “for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” according to the company. Her official government account remains active.…
Two years into a worldwide pandemic, outfits around the globe are wrestling with how to resume their in-person operations safely. Consider that Apple just scrapped its office-return deadline, while Google,…
The semiconductor shortage is going to continue to cause disruptions, so it is up to businesses to make changes now to set up their organizations as future-proof.
Featured Article
A security bug in health app Docket exposed COVID-19 vaccine records
A security bug in the health app Docket exposed the private information of residents vaccinated against COVID-19 in New Jersey and Utah, where the app received endorsements from state officials. Docket lets residents download and carry a digital copy of their immunizations by pulling their vaccination records from their state’s…
What factors would make people want to come into the office? SAP research found four: peer-to-peer learning, collaboration, community-building and intention.
Apple has yet to issue a mandate similar to Google’s that would require all employees to be vaccinated, but it’s tightening its COVID-19 protocols nonetheless. According to Bloomberg, the tech…
SkyCell raises a $35 million series C round and enters COVID-19 vaccine distribution market
SkyCell, a Swiss company developing smart containers for transporting medicines and vaccines, is announcing a significant round of funding. On top of a $62 million round that closed last year,…
