April 16, 2025

Digital frame maker Aura introduces the Aspen, a $299 frame with more intelligent features

Aura, a digital photo frames company founded by early Twitter employees, is introducing its latest model, Aspen, which adds new technology to the device and its accompanying mobile app. In addition to hosting your digital photos in its 12-inch HD display, the device now also allows you to add captions to your photos when they […]

The Download: dethroning SpaceX, and air-conditioning’s energy demands

April 3, 2025
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Rivals are rising to challenge the dominance of SpaceX SpaceX is a space launch juggernaut. In just two decades, the company has managed to edge out former aerospace heavyweights Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop…

Fuse raises $6.6M to fix a payment problem for companies expanding to MENA

April 3, 2025
Expanding into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains a costly and complex challenge for global businesses, thanks to fragmented regulations and banking systems. Dubai-based fintech Fuse aims to simplify that with a cross-border payments API and has raised $6.6 million in seed funding to make it happen. Founded in 2023 by George Davis, […]

Truecaller now has over 450M monthly active users

April 3, 2025
Caller ID app Truecaller said on Thursday that it crossed the 450 million user mark earlier this week. The company said that it added 50 million users in the past 10 months and 15.5 million users since the beginning of 2025. India is the company’s biggest user base, so it wasn’t surprising to see Truecaller […]

Fintech Plaid raises $575M at a $6.1B valuation, says it will not go public in 2025

April 3, 2025
Plaid, which connects bank accounts to financial applications, has sold about $575 million worth of common stock at a $6.1 billion post-money valuation, the fintech company confirmed to TechCrunch. The valuation is about less than half of the $13.4 billion that San Francisco-based Plaid was valued at when it raised a $425 million Series D […]

We should talk more about air-conditioning

April 3, 2025
Things are starting to warm up here in the New York City area, and it’s got me thinking once again about something that people aren’t talking about enough: energy demand for air conditioners.  I get it: Data centers are the shiny new thing to worry about. And I’m not saying we shouldn’t be thinking about…

Rivals are rising to challenge the dominance of SpaceX

April 3, 2025
SpaceX is a space launch juggernaut. In just two decades, the company has managed to edge out former aerospace heavyweights Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman to gain near-monopoly status over rocket launches in the US; it accounted for 87% of the country’s orbital launches in 2024, according to an analysis by SpaceNews. Since the mid-2010s,…

Y Combinator neobank Djamo raises $17M with 1M users across Francophone Africa

April 3, 2025
Djamo is one of several digital banking startups targeting Africa’s underbanked. But unlike many that focus on large markets like Nigeria, Egypt, or South Africa, Djamo has carved out a niche in Francophone West Africa, specifically Ivory Coast and more recently Senegal, where it now serves over one million customers. The Y Combinator-backed fintech just […]