Delivery robot startup Starship Technologies banks $25m
From keeping the house clean to doing laundry, we can give more time to tasks that involve our intellectual faculties thanks to robots. And as robotics is becoming better understood, the amount of robotics startups are bound to scale and secure more investment.
Starship Technologies, the automotive robotic startup, is no exception. On Thursday June 7 the 2014-founded firm announced an additional $25m in seed funding in a boon for the autonomous technology sector. The round includes investments from experienced business moguls like Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder of Airbnb, Jaan Tallinn, founding engineer of Skype, and Gary Barber, former chairman and CEO of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Commenting on future plans, Janus Friis, co-founder of Starship said the scaleup will start deployment of robots globally, especially in university campuses in the US and the UK. The company has an additional benefit as it will be using the expertise of former Airbnb executive Lex Bayer, the newly named CEO of Starship. After Just Eat has been seen rolling up the streets with robots by Starship, robotic delivery cars are no more the technology of tomorrow but rather today.
Self-driven vehicles to revolutionise transport in the UK
Being a pro at parallel parking has never been an easy skill to develop – or having to park without human intervention. But the UK’s vehicles post-Brexit will change lanes as driverless cars will be on British roads by 2021 following UK government plans to allot £30m of investment in automative businesses to make self-parking cars a reality.
Companies which are testing and developing self-driven parking have been invited by the government to pitch their idea and bag an initial investment of £5m. This project will be funded through Meridian, the government’s branch aiming to develop the autonomous vehicle sector in the UK.
As robots have started delivering pizza and Amazon parcels already, self-driven cars are not a surprise.
In the midst of cancelled trains throughout UK and traffic woes, a self-driven car would be a blessing, giving Brits one less subject to complain about. With the way technology is progressing, the next decade might even see flying cars.
E-commerce saves the day as the high street crash continues
It’s the end of an era for the UK high street. From the past few months, established stores such as Marks and Spencer and Maplin have been closing down.
But the increasing list of casualties has had a new addition. House of Fraser announced the closure of 31 stores out of the 59 which will see 6,000 job cuts. This includes its huge flagship store on Oxford Street. The “brutal” closures are part of a Company Voluntary Arrangement, which will be approved by creditors on June 22. As part of the process, House of Fraser also plans to relocate its Baker Street head office and Granite House office in Glasgow to new locations to cut costs.
Elsewhere, Poundworld, the discount retailer which has 5,000 staff members, filed a notice to appoint an administrator and is looking for potential buyers.
Although the high street continues to witness disaster, the online sector might be the reason the demand is redirected. Amazon announced the addition of 2,500 new jobs in the next six months increasing its workforce to 27,500 by the end of the year. Is e-commerce the hero or villain of retail?
More women should take the lead in startups
While women are struggling to break the glass ceiling thanks to comments made by certain company heads on one hand, research from The Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, and MassChallenge, the startup accelerator, shone light on the fact that women-led startups earn double compared to those by men.
The research analysed 350 alumni companies that took part in the MassChallenge programme and showed that even though female entrepreneurs receive less VC funding, companies under the helm of a woman gave the return of 78¢ for every $1 of funding as opposed to 31¢ by those founded by men. This resulted in investors being able to earn an additional $85m in a span of five years.
The gender pay gap has been all over the headlines this year and, with the challenges in the business sector as well, it seems like women do have it harder in spite of them being able to make more realistic assumptions than men. The Qatar chief along with the CEOs of FTSE 350 companies might beg to differ on this one – but the numbers speak for themselves.
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