LemFi, a Nigerian-founded fintech company based in California, has acquired Pillar, a London-based startup focused on providing credit access to immigrants. Speaking to Semafor, LemFi CEO Ridwan Olalere confirmed that the deal was finalized in May. He said the acquisition will pave the way for LemFi to launch a credit card feature within its app. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by either company. LemFi acquires Pillar Ashutosh Bhatt and Adam Lewis founded Pillar in 2021, after both working at Revoult. It raised £13 million less than
Join our Patreon for extra-long episodes and ad-free content. In this episode, Techish hosts Michael and Abadesi break down startup hype culture, especially all the smoke and mirrors around AI. They chat about tweaking revenue numbers, investors turning a blind eye, and why tech needs more ethics and less ego. They also chat about Apple’s latest WWDC drops, MAGA influencers in the White House, and why good journalism still matters. Chapters00:25 Unicorn Faked Its AI With 700 Indian Engineers? 16:09 Can Liquid Glass Rescue Apple From Its Flop Era? 25:18
Shaquille O’Neal will pay $1.8 million to settle claims that he deceived investors by promoting a now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, CBNC reports. The case had been pending since November 2022. The FTX Class Action Lawsuit The class action lawsuit also includes notable celebrities such as Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Steph Curry, Naomi Osaka, Larry David, and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. However, O’Neal was the only celebrity defendant to remain associated with the company after he was served legal papers. After avoiding rocess servers for months, O’Neal was served with two complaints during
Fireflies.ai, the AI meeting assistant used by 75% of Fortune 500 companies, has reached a $1 billion valuation. Co-founders Krish Ramineni and Sam Udotong met while studying at the University of Pennsylvania and later at MIT, according to Tech Funding News. Udotong is a Nigerian American with a background in aerospace engineering and computer science. Ramineni, who is originally from India, worked at Microsoft before co-founding Fireflies. What is Fireflies? Fireflies enables workers to summarize key information from meetings. It currently serves over 20 million people and more than 500,00 organizations. Its
McDonald’s has settled a $10 billion lawsuit by Byron Allen, who accused the company of racial bias by excluding Black-owned media from much of its advertising budget, Reuters reports. The settlement between McDonald’s and two of Allen’s companies, Entertainment Studios Networks and the Weather Group, was announced on June 13, 2025. Financial details have not been disclosed and McDonald’s denies any wrongdoing. Byron Allen’s lawsuit against McDonald’s Allen’s lawsuit claims that McDonald’s created a separate “African American tier” with significantly lower advertising budgets for Black-owned media. He argues that this
Elon Musk’s Starlink has gradually expanded its presence in Africa, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) being the latest African country to grant the company permission to operate. The Gambia, a country with an underdeveloped broadband infrastructure, would be an ideal region for Starlink to run in. So, when the US government arrived in The Gambia, it framed Starlink’s entry as part of the broader Digital Transformation for Africa (DTA) initiative, a White House-led effort to improve internet access across Africa. However, critics, including Lamin Jabbi of Gambia’s
London-based startup Definely, a legal tech company, has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round to help lawyers streamline their work with the aid of AI. Paris-based VC firm Revaia led the funding round, with participation from Alumni Ventures, Beacon Capital, Clio, Octopus Ventures, Zrosk Investment Management, The Raine Group, and Cornerstone VC, according to Vest Bee. “We are proud to lead Definely’s Series B and support a company that is setting the standard for AI-powered legal technology,” Morgan Kessous, Partner at Revaia, said. What is Definely? Founded by
Tubi is collaborating with Kickstarter to offer distribution opportunities to producers who utilize the crowdfunding platform to support independent filmmaking. From the beginning of fall, more than 20 movies that “uniquely resonate with Tubi fandoms” will begin exclusively streaming on the platform. Tubi also plans to invest in Kickstarter’s FilmStream Collective Fund, which focuses on providing financial support to early-career filmmakers to help them complete their projects. Both Tubi and Kickstarter will also pledge to 10 specific Kickstarter campaigns to help them meet their funding goals. These 10 films will
References to DEI on annual reports of FTSE 100 companies in the UK have declined, according to The Observer. Mentions of DEI, as well as the number of pages containing the phrase and revisions on it, fell by more than 16% compared to the annual reports for 85 companies in 2023 and 2024. While references to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and revisions on the term decreased by 22%, the data points to influence from the US after President Trump revoked a six-decade-old executive order that prohibited workplace discrimination by
Khaby Lame has left the US after being briefly detained by immigration agents for allegedly overstaying his visa, according to The Guardian. The TikTok star, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained on Friday, 6 June, at an airport in Las Vegas. A spokesperson for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told the Guardian in a statement that he was released on the same day and has since left the country. Lame had arrived in the US on 30 April and had allegedly overstayed the terms of
