Don't miss these Don't count Europe out: Europe's position in the world of deep tech – the hard stuff replete with both technology and business risk – has been a question for some time. The good news is, a lot of smart money is betting that Europe does indeed have a long-term seat at the deep tech table: Venture firm Elaia's third deep tech seed fund, DTS3, has reached a first close of €60 million. The fund is expected to reach €120 million by early next year. Solana, meme tokens rise once again: Covering crypto is like watching a particularly stubborn boxer in the ring. No matter what sort of battering the industry takes, it eventually gets back on its feet and continues where it left off — meaning, there's a lot of technical work happening to make blockchains more useful and powerful. The current crypto thaw has pushed up the value of well-known tokens associated with the bitcoin and ethereum blockchains, as well as the worth of Solana – a former venture darling – and other less popular crypto tokens like 'dogwifhat,' 'jeo boden,' 'doland tremp' tokens. OmniRetail shows it's possible to run a profitable e-commerce biz: Venture investment has slowed in Africa over the past couple of years, and many unprofitable e-commerce businesses in the region are suffering due to the lack of funding. OmniRetail's asset-light model may be the right strategy to mimic in these times, given that the company says it's currently profitable dating back to last November. Lago's open-source billing platform raises $22M: Today's French startup in the news is Lago, which started off building marketing tools before pivoting into billing, a space it discovered was even more broken among potential customers. The company's $15 million Series A and $7 million seed round were funded by FirstMark, SignalFire, Y Combinator, New Wave, Addition and others. Meet your future robot overlords helpers: If you are worried about having to deal with AI-robot overlords, the robotics industry's actual progress should put you at ease. Reflex Robotics drew crowds at an industry event thanks to its wheeled robot that can quickly snag goods from shelves at various heights. If that doesn't bake your noodle, how about inventory management with a drone that files from a robotic base? No? Then check out TruckBot, which appears to be a robotic arm-slash-conveyer belt. Companies are today building focused tools to help remove some human drudgery from the world. That's good, as long as the robots don't realize we're giving them all the worst jobs, and strike back file a grievance. Ireland leaked COVID vax data: The Irish government fixed a vulnerability two years ago in its national COVID-19 vaccination portal that exposed the vaccination records of around a million residents. Why is a security fix from years ago in the news today? The details of the vulnerability were not disclosed until this week, a delay that was predicated on "attempts to coordinate public disclosure with the government agency that stalled and ended." See, everyone is bad at cybersecurity! Lightspeed's Alex Kayyal will talk Series A pitfalls at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024: That's going to happen in Boston next month, so see you there! There’s still more to read: - Over in India, Reliance is buying Paramount Global's 13% stake in Viacom18 for $517 million.
- Nigerian identity verification and anti-money laundering startup Youverify just landed a $2.5 million deal from a corporate investor.
- Amazon's generative AI push for sellers continues with a tool to help retailers build new listings.
- Proton Mail has a new desktop app, but it is only available to paying customers.
- And to close out, the EU is investigating AliExpress for breaching Digital Services Act (DSA) rules.
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