Tag: Europe

‘You have to be a moron to think libertarianism is real’

Merus Capital’s Salman Ullah says COVID-19 highlights why Germany is an attractive place to invest Steve O’Hear @sohear / 7 hours Could the coronavirus crisis — and the way different countries have responded — make Silicon Valley VCs more bullish on European startups? That’s the thesis put forward by Salman…

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EU data portal launches to support COVID-19 research

The European Commission has launched a data portal for scientists studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus to speed up access to data sets and tools in order to bolster research efforts by encouraging data reuse and open science. The COVID-19 Data Portal is intended to accelerate regional efforts to combat the virus…

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Alan raises another $54.4 million for its health insurance product

French startup Alan has raised a $54.4 million (€50 million) Series C funding round. Temasek is leading the round with existing investors (such as Index Ventures) also participating. Overall, Alan has raised $136 million (€125 million) over the past four years. Alan has built a health insurance product for the…

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UK gov announces ‘Future Fund’, pledging £250M match funding for startups impacted by coronavirus

After mounting pressure from the U.K. tech startup ecosystem, and much debate, the British government today unveiled plans for a new “Future Fund” designed to ensure high-growth companies — namely, startups — across the U.K. receive enough investment to remain viable during the coronavirus crisis. Initially, the U.K. government is…

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Early Monzo employee Simon Balmain is joining Sphere, the group chat app founded by ex-Yahoo Nick D’Aloisio

If you have ever attended (or tuned into) one of Monzo’s many community events, you are likely familiar with the work of Simon Balmain. An early employee of the challenger bank, he has played a long term role in helping to build Monzo’s customer support and community efforts and was…

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Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google

A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose. The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked…

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