Pet tech startup Digitail fetches $11M Sequence A led by Atomico • TechCrunch

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Hey, expensive readers! We’re again as soon as once more (like a renegade grasp) with a wall of nice tech information tales. Plug in some headphones and bop your head to that music whilst you make amends for what’s taking place on the market within the wider worlds. Keep in mind: There’s no such factor as a standing desk. It’s a dancing desk. Aw yessss. (We could have had slightly bit an excessive amount of espresso this morning. That may clarify our ailing habits.) — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch High 3

• Get your woof on: With pet possession up because the pandemic, veterinarians are being stretched to their limits. Right here comes Romania-based Digitail, an organization that automates the executive work for veterinarians to allow them to give attention to our four-legged mates. Mike stories that the corporate closed on $11 million in new funding to scale its operations within the U.S. and Canada.
• Your transfer: Amanda writes that proposed adjustments to Dungeons & Dragons’ Open Gaming License threatens a complete cohort of D&D content material creators, and they’re combating to guard their livelihoods.
• SBF begins a Substack: In an effort to elucidate his facet of the FTX debacle, Sam Bankman-Fried took to Substack to say, “I didn’t steal funds, and I actually didn’t stash billions away.” Mary Ann has extra.

Startups and VC

The outlook of investing in China is out of the blue brightening because the nation steadily phases out its draconian zero-COVID coverage, which has brought on disruptions in companies of all types and stored the nation’s borders shut for the final three years, Rita stories. For enterprise capitalists, the pandemic has been a tumultuous trip. Tony Wu, a accomplice at Northern Gentle Enterprise Capital, a China-focused VC agency with $4.5 billion property underneath administration, calls 2022 the “hardest” in his 15 years of investing in Chinese language startups.

One other fistful of headlines in your edification:

Why Africa had no unicorns final 12 months regardless of report fundraising haul

Picture Credit: Getty Photos

Unicorns have gotten an endangered species in Africa’s startup ecosystem, stories Tage Kene-Okafor.

Though funding within the area elevated barely in 2022, “no unicorns popped up all year long, in comparison with 5 in 2021,” he writes.

“So what occurred in Africa in 2022 that made it so … bizarre?”

And there’s extra for our trusty TC+ subscribers:

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Massive Tech Inc.

We began a few of this yesterday, however Natasha L brings us a warning article to different ad-funded applications to take heed of Meta’s advertisements being discovered illegal within the European Union. She writes that “simply because Fb has — for years — processed and profited off of Europeans’ knowledge by working illegal advertisements doesn’t imply different ad-funded platforms are going to get the identical free trip from the bloc’s regulators. Enforcement is right here finally.”

And we’ve got 5 extra for you: