Source: To boost greenhouse productivity, Skytree is using space station CO2 scrubbers
Summary
Skytree, a startup spun out of the European Space Agency in 2014, is among the few companies that can claim a direct inheritance in commercialising direct air capture of CO2. Its initial product was aimed at electric vehicles and later moved to developing CO2 scrubbers to remove CO2 from greenhouses.
Facts
Source: YouTube is lowering the barrier to be eligible for its monetization program
Summary
YouTube is allowing access to monetization tools under the YouTube Partner Program to more creators by lowering the threshold required. They have made changes by allowing access to U.S-based creators who have more than 20,000 subscribers and have made at least three public videos in the last 90 days.
Fact
Source: This little wearable is designed to detect blood flow to the brain
Summary
STAT Health has launched an earpiece for measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF) using the ear as a “biometric gold mine”. The device is designed to help understand how CBF relates to conditions including long Covid, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The wearable, known as STAT, is small enough to fit with most earbuds and continuously attuned to monitor blood flow, measuring information that could provide valuable insight for medical professionals.
Fact
Source: Kodem comes out of stealth with $25M to tackle application security
Summary
Israeli start-up Kodem, founded by security experts from NSO Group, has raised $25m to develop a platform offering application security solutions. NSO has attracted the wrong sort of attention recently, being publicly linked to the development of spyware, but Kodem’s CEO Aviv Mussinger has been keen to distance himself from that side of the Israeli security firm. The focus of Kodem is on helping protect companies against attacks through a new approach to identifying potential vulnerabilities by analysing runtime data.
Fact
💰 Kodem has raised $25m to develop its application security platform in seed funding led by TPY Capital and Greylock Partners and a Series A from Greylock alone.
Source: Party planning platform Punchbowl’s owner is acquiring Timehop
Summary
Punchbowl, an online party-planning platform, has acquired Timehop, an app displaying photo memories across various platforms, and has also rebranded to create a parent company called Sincere Corporation. Timehop product will continue to work on memory space, and some employees from Timehop are moving to Sincere, including former Timehop CEO Matt Roul.
Fact
💼 Sincere Corporation has been created as a parent company for online party planning platform Punchbowl, which has acquired Timehop, an app that displays photo memories from various platforms.📈 With a peak of 13.5 million downloads in 2014, the Timehop app’s popularity waned in the latter part of the decade, with only 140,000 downloads in 2021.💰 Sincere is a subscription company, and its CEO indicates that it is thinking about introducing subscriptions to Timehop as part of the rebranding.