Ada Ventures secures £63mn for ‘Inclusive Alpha’ fund

Mar12
by on March 12, 2024 at 5:00 am
Posted In: Uncategorized


It is no secret that VC investing has a diversity and inclusion problem. Fortunately, there are funders out there who are committed to ushering in positive changes. This includes Ada Ventures, a UK-based VC firm with a portfolio that is 14x more diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity than the country’s average venture fund. Today, it just announced the close of its oversubscribed £63mn second fund. Ada Ventures is also top of the chart amongst other impact-driven funds, with 1.4x higher diversity than the average. As many as 74% of portfolio founders are from an underrepresented background, 48% of…

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UK fusion startup breaks pressure record using giant ‘gun’ machine

Mar08
by on March 8, 2024 at 2:58 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized


A British startup has set a new pressure record using the world’s strongest pulsed power machine, as it looks to forge a cheaper, faster path to fusion energy.  First Light Fusion launched a projectile at over 20 kilometres per second (72,000 kph) into a piece of quartz crystal producing pressure upwards of 1.85 terapascals — almost four times the pressure found at Earth’s core.   The startup achieved the feat using the Z Machine, a nuclear-era device located in Albuquerque, US. With a peak power of 80 trillion watts — more than the world’s entire electricity grid — it electromagnetically…

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Sharing the AI journey: Amplifying female founder voices

Mar08
by on March 8, 2024 at 2:16 pm
Posted In: spotify


In October last year, researchers at the Alan Turing Institute sounded the alarm that there was an “urgent issue” of gender imbalance in artificial intelligence investment. No one, unfortunately, was surprised. However, it is always good to have the data. The report found that female-founded companies accounted for only 3% of AI startup VC funding over the past decade. While the study focused solely on the UK, similar findings have been reported in other countries. With the boom in generative AI, the importance of diverse founder perspectives to counteract bias in a technology set to become ever more omnipresent throughout…

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Experts call for stricter femtech laws to safeguard women’s data

Mar08
by on March 8, 2024 at 1:02 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized


It’s hard to imagine more intimate data than that collected by female technologies or “femtech.” These apps and devices not only monitor women’s menstrual cycles but also record their sexual encounters, orgasms, and pregnancies. A new study shows that many femtech companies do not adequately safeguard such sensitive information. Some may even intentionally leak personal data to third parties. The research, led by Dr Maryam Mehrnezhad at the Royal Holloway University in London, is part of a four-year investigation into cybersecurity, privacy, trust, and bias issues in the femtech sector. Under the study, the team examined popular fertility apps, smart…

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EU’s new attack on big tech risks becoming ‘missed opportunity’

Mar07
by on March 7, 2024 at 5:17 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized


The EU’s strictest-ever crackdown on big tech has only just begun, but critics fear it’s already missing the targets. Called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the landmark law aims to curb the power of tech giants. Under the rules, the EU can designate companies that dominate a marketplace as “gatekeepers.” This forces them to make their services open to competitors.  Whatsapp, for instance, has to become interoperable with third-party messaging services. Mobile operating systems, meanwhile, must provide access to alternative app stores. As the rules came into force today, the EU had designated six gatekeepers: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta,…

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