A group of British Caribbean professionals has launched the Caribbean Tech Collective, an initiative designed to bring together Caribbean founders, professionals, and investors in the tech industry, according to The Voice. The Caribbean Tech Community Only 4% of people in the tech industry identify as Black in the UK, with Africans making up a significant amount of that number. The Voice reported that tech startups receive under 0.1% of global venture capital funding in the Caribbean. In 2023, venture capital investment in Caribbean tech just reached $215 million, and there
Ankor AI, a startup founded by Kyle Rowley, has just raised $1.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Upfin, according to Tech Funding News. Juni, Pleo, Moss, and Klarna also participated in the funding round. Former basketball player Rowley founded the Swedish fintech company after spending four years working with different finance teams. During this time, he observed the challenges of accessing financial data, particularly for e-commerce brands seeking credit or a precise cash flow. “I met smart operators who knew exactly what needed to be done, but
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
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
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
Construction tech startup Litehaus has raised €1.46 million ($1.58 million) in a pre-seed round co-led by Cornerstone VC and Explorer Fund. Claster Group and angel investor Pascal Levy also participated in the pre-seed round. The fund will help simplify the home-building process in Europe. Husband-and-wife duo Thibault and Simi Launay set out to buy a house in Portugal nearly five years ago. However, they faced a 14-month delay, 20% budget overruns, and mismanagement involving over 10 subcontractors. “We realized if we’re struggling with this, so are millions of others,” Thibault told
Entrepreneur Nina Mohanty raised $2 million for Bloom Money, an app designed to help immigrant communities save money. The app, which was founded in 2021, allows immigrants based in the UK to save money collectively, a practice also known as “money circles.” Helping immigrants save money Mohanty worked with banks like Starling Bank, Klarna, and Mastercard and realized they don’t really understand how immigrant communities manage their money. “At a certain point, I just realized I got very frustrated wondering who was building for immigrant communities because I was building
Amazon has become a staple of modern life, with millions relying on it for everyday purchases. But few of us stop to consider how our packages magically reach our homes. What if I told you that a robot helped make it happen? On May 7th, Amazon invited POCIT on a sponsored trip to its “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany. This is the first in a series of events that will give the media exclusive access to an Amazon innovation center. We were given a sneak peek into Amazon,
Wave Ventures, Europe’s largest Gen Z-run VC fund, has announced its third fund, which is €7 million ($7.8 million), tripling the size of its previous fund. The fund is supported by a diverse group of investors, such as Slack, Bolt, Skype, Supercell, Wolt, Silo AI, and Smartly.io, as well as European early-stage VCs, and family offices, according to a press release. The fund comes at a crucial time for early-stage investing across the Nordics and Baltics. The quick advancement of generative AI, no-code tools, and open-source technologies makes entrepreneurship more
Nearly half of the facial recognition in London last year occurred in areas with a higher proportion of Black residents than the city’s average, The Voice Newspaper reports. Researchers from a political group in London circulated figures highlighting live facial recognition (LFR), which was used 180 times in 2024. More than half of these occurrences were in places with a larger Black population than the city’s average. How many faces were scanned? Across London, around two million people had their faces scanned, but only 804 arrests were made, which is
