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The Wall Street Journal went under the hood of the lab-grown meat industry, also known as cultivated or cell-cultured meat, and the struggles within. The Journal particularly homed in on what’s going on at UPSIDE Foods, which received a blessing from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration related to its process for making cultivated chicken, essentially saying it was safe to eat and making it the first company to receive this approval. Eat Just, which has been selling its product in Singapore, the first nation to approve the sale of cultivated meat, followed , getting its “thumbs-up” from the FDA in March. WSJ’s story pays particular attention to UPSIDE Foods’ success at making small batches of its chicken product, as well as its lack of being able to produce large amounts of product at a low cost, or at even price parity with traditional meat — and to be fair, most cultivated meat companies struggle with this too. “Initially our chicken will be sold at a price premium,” UPSIDE fou...

There are oodles of advantages to having a diverse workforce, but, as inBeta founder James Nash points out , you can’t simply take your homogenous workforce, add diversity, stir and hope for the best. Often, something subtle gets in the way of diversity at startups: Companies depend on employee referrals in the beginning, but if a startup’s makeup is already not diverse, referrals aren’t going to change that. That’s for startups. In the world of venture capital, things are more pronounced: A warm introduction is the only way to get in front of investors at many VC funds. That’s great for people who are already hooked into the startup ecosystem, but you don’t have to look for very long to realize that this is not a very diverse group of people. “We’d love to hear from you. The best way to reach us is through someone we mutually know.” A VC firm's website For many companies, employee referrals are one of the main ways to attract new talent. That’s all good until you stop to thi...

There are oodles of advantages to having a diverse workforce, but, as inBeta founder James Nash points out , you can’t simply take your homogenous workforce, add diversity, stir and hope for the best. Often, something subtle gets in the way of diversity at startups: Companies depend on employee referrals in the beginning, but if a startup’s makeup is already not diverse, referrals aren’t going to change that. That’s for startups. In the world of venture capital, things are more pronounced: A warm introduction is the only way to get in front of investors at many VC funds. That’s great for people who are already hooked into the startup ecosystem, but you don’t have to look for very long to realize that this is not a very diverse group of people. “We’d love to hear from you. The best way to reach us is through someone we mutually know.” A VC firm's website For many companies, employee referrals are one of the main ways to attract new talent. That’s all good until you stop to thi...

Kim Keenan Contributor Share on Twitter The first female co-chair of the DC-based Internet Innovation Alliance , Kim Keenan has fought for digital equity for more than a decade, previously serving as president and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council (MMTC) and as general counsel and secretary of the NAACP. The finish line is within sight. “Internet for All,” as the Biden administration put it, will soon be a reality if America keeps its priorities straight. During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden set a high bar, “We’re going to buy American,” as the U.S. spends billions of dollars on new broadband connections. This is a smart strategy to create American jobs and boost the U.S. economy, but our leaders must not sacrifice speed in the race to close the digital divide in cases where “Buy American” isn’t yet a realistic option. Strengthened during the pandemic when all finally understood that broadband is a necessity, bipartisan...

Welcome to  The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up  here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, we’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s our job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know.  About a year ago, it seemed like myself and other colleagues were writing story after story about spend management companies raising tranches of venture capital — remember Mary Ann’s roundup story from basically this same time last year? On Friday, PitchBook’s Q1 2023 B2B fintech investment report showed that investment into enterprise fintech was $11.8 billion. Though it is a decrease from ...

Kim Keenan Contributor Share on Twitter The first female co-chair of the DC-based Internet Innovation Alliance , Kim Keenan has fought for digital equity for more than a decade, previously serving as president and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council (MMTC) and as general counsel and secretary of the NAACP. The finish line is within sight. “Internet for All,” as the Biden administration put it, will soon be a reality if America keeps its priorities straight. During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden set a high bar, “We’re going to buy American,” as the U.S. spends billions of dollars on new broadband connections. This is a smart strategy to create American jobs and boost the U.S. economy, but our leaders must not sacrifice speed in the race to close the digital divide in cases where “Buy American” isn’t yet a realistic option. Strengthened during the pandemic when all finally understood that broadband is a necessity, bipartisan...

On a balmy day in mid-April, thousands of people queued in line to enter the Hong Kong Convention Center where the city’s inaugural web3 festival was underway. Most had flown in from mainland China, but many others had trekked from Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and even the U.S. to see what the city had to offer to crypto ventures at a time regulation over digital assets is intensifying in the U.S. In February, Hong Kong proposed a set of welcoming rules to regulate crypto-related activities. Under the new legal regime, retail investors will be allowed to trade certain digital assets on licensed exchanges, replacing a 2018 framework that restricted trading to only accredited investors . The city is also paving the way to legalize stablecoins. One startup, which is backed by popular exchange KuCoin and USDC issuer Circle , recently launched an offshore Chinese yuan (CNH)-pegged stablecoin, the first of its kind in Greater China. To create a favorable environment for web3 bu...

India’s crime-fighting agency searched three premises of edtech giant Byju’s and its founder Byju Raveendran, it said Saturday, and seized various “incriminating” documents and digital data. The Enforcement Directorate said it conducted the searches under the provisions of the nation’s anti-money laundering law, but declined to elaborate. The agency has conducted several similar probes in recent months, including at crypto firms WazirX and CoinSwitch Kuber , phonemaker Vivo and news broadcaster the BBC. The agency said “various” complaints from private individuals prompted the investigation. As part of the probe into Byju’s, which is ongoing, ED said it summoned Raveendran “several” times but the founder “remained evasive and never appeared during the investigation.” The probe has so far found that Byju’s raised about $3.4 billion in foreign direct investment during the period of 2011 to 2023. During this period, the startup remitted about $1.1 billion to foreign entities and label...

India’s crime-fighting agency searched three premises of edtech giant Byju’s and its founder Byju Raveendran, it said Saturday, and seized various “incriminating” documents and digital data. The Enforcement Directorate said it conducted the searches under the provisions of the nation’s anti-money laundering law, but declined to elaborate. The agency has conducted several similar probes in recent months, including at crypto firms WazirX and CoinSwitch Kuber , phonemaker Vivo and news broadcaster the BBC. The agency said “various” complaints from private individuals prompted the investigation. As part of the probe into Byju’s, which is ongoing, ED said it summoned Raveendran “several” times but the founder “remained evasive and never appeared during the investigation.” The probe has so far found that Byju’s raised about $3.4 billion in foreign direct investment during the period of 2011 to 2023. During this period, the startup remitted about $1.1 billion to foreign entities and label...

OpenAI , the startup behind the widely used conversational AI model ChatGPT, has closed its new funding round of over $10.3 billion, TechCrunch has learned. VC firms including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive and K2 Global are in the round, according to documents seen by TechCrunch. A source tells us Founders Fund is also investing. Altogether the VCs have put in just over $300 million at a valuation of $27 billion – $29 billion. This is alongside a big investment from Microsoft announced earlier this year , a person familiar with the development told TechCrunch. The size of Microsoft’s investment is believed to be around $10 billion, a figure we confirmed with our source. If all this is accurate, this is the closing of the round that the Wall Street Journal reported was in the works in January. We confirmed that was when discussions started, amid a viral surge of interest in OpenAI and its business. While Microsoft’s investment comes with a strong strateg...

OpenAI , the startup behind the widely used conversational AI model ChatGPT, has closed its new funding round of over $10.3 billion, TechCrunch has learned. VC firms including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive and K2 Global are in the round, according to documents seen by TechCrunch. A source tells us Founders Fund is also investing. Altogether the VCs have put in just over $300 million at a valuation of $27 billion – $29 billion. This is alongside a big investment from Microsoft announced earlier this year , a person familiar with the development told TechCrunch. The size of Microsoft’s investment is believed to be around $10 billion, a figure we confirmed with our source. If all this is accurate, this is the closing of the round that the Wall Street Journal reported was in the works in January. We confirmed that was when discussions started, amid a viral surge of interest in OpenAI and its business. While Microsoft’s investment comes with a strong strateg...

States have taxed motorists at the pump for more than a century . Yet, as electric cars gain ground, what happens when folks stop refueling altogether? State lawmakers are increasingly imposing annual fees on EV owners, arguing they should pay up because they still rely on public infrastructure to get around. Texas is on track to become the latest state to levy such a tax, following more than a dozen others , including Georgia, Michigan and Ohio. The Texas Senate passed SB 505 at the end of March. This week, the state’s House has cleared a similar bill, sending it on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The latest version of the bill lays out a $200 yearly registration fee for electric vehicles, with exceptions carved out for slow “ Neighborhood Electric Vehicles ,” as well as autocycles, mopeds and motorcycles. The bill states that the resulting fees “must be deposited to the credit of the state highway fund.” Though Texas is certainly not alone in moving forward with such a bill, its $200...