Technology
Kubik, an Ethiopian plastics upcycling startup, is receiving new funding and plans to license its technology
Cubic, a plastics upcycling startup, has raised $1.9 million to extend its seed contract a couple of months after announcing its initial capital investment. The startup’s latest investment comes from African Renaissance Partners, an East African enterprise capital firm; Endgame Capital, an investor favoring climate change technologies; and King Philanthropies, a climate and extreme poverty investor.
The fresh capital comes because the startup scales its operations in Ethiopia after organising a factory in Addis Ababa, where it converts plastic waste into related constructing materials similar to bricks, columns, beams and jambs. Co-founder and CEO of Kubika Kidusa Asfawtold TechCrunch that the startup goals to double its operations in Addis Ababa because it lays the inspiration for pan-African growth from 2025.
Kubik’s approach is to convert plastic waste into “low-carbon, sustainable and affordable” constructing materials using proprietary technology that Asfaw says it should forfeit license to speed up pan-African development and eventual global growth.
“We want to solve the problems of cities, so we are thinking about making our business model truly circular. The way we have developed our business strategy is that we are currently in a focused phase of proving this model here in Ethiopia. We will expand it to several more markets to prove the variety of contexts in which this business model can operate. But over time, what we really want to do is evolve into a company that licenses this technology,” said Asfaw, who co-founded Kubik with Penda Marre in 2021
“This is how we feel like we are able to really scale. “It’s not about having factories around the world, but about the industry adopting a new way of producing materials globally,” he said.
He said their product allows developers to construct partitions without using cement, aggregates or steel, speeding up construction and reducing costs by “at least 40% less per square meter.” Cost is a key barrier in construction, and the supply of inexpensive or lower-cost constructing materials provides a greater option for developers of inexpensive housing projects.
Asfaw said Kubik’s materials had passed safety tests conducted by the European standards agency Intertek, which checked, amongst other things, strength, toxicity and flammability.
“We don’t want to sell something that is harmful to people. We did not start selling until these reports were available,” he said.
The startup currently processes 5,000 kilograms (with a capability of 45,000) of plastic waste per day. It has signed partnerships with corporations and the Addis Ababa Municipality for normal supplies of plastic waste. In the near future, it is considering product diversification to include paving stones and flooring materials.
It is estimated that on the planet produces 430 million tons of plastic per yr, two thirds intended for short-term use. Clearly, the world is choking on plastic waste, and while the situation is made worse by consumption trends in developed countries, in regions facing rapid urbanization and economic growth, similar to African citiesplastic waste is also getting uncontrolled, requiring urgent motion. In the approaching days, startups like Kubik will play a number one role in providing sustainable solutions to the threat.
Technology
Coatue raises $1 billion for AI betting
Coatue Management, a hedge fund that has invested heavily in tech startups throughout the pandemic boom, is raising $1 billion to support artificial intelligence corporations, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The funds that can contribute to the corporate’s flagship fund will probably be obtained primarily from institutional investors. However, the report shows that wealthy individuals with accounts at brokerage Raymond James and Associates can even spend money on Coatue.
Coatue, which manages nearly $50 billion in assets, invested in greater than 170 VC-backed corporations in 2021, based on PitchBook data. Since then, Coatue has dramatically slowed its pace of investing in startups, supporting only 81 corporations in 2022 and around 30 corporations in 2023.
However, the cross-border investor shouldn’t be done investing in private corporations. According to PitchBook data, in 2024 Coatue supported 29 startups. The company’s latest AI-focused investments include Glean, Scale AI and Skild AI, which is constructing a general-purpose AI robot. Philippe Laffont, founding father of Coatue (pictured above), said they’re particularly enthusiastic about humanoid robots with artificial intelligence-powered brains.
Technology
Mom and son Game Changer Academy founders help black gamers get 150,000. dollars in NIL transactions
Kendall Hamilton and his mother, Dr. Gigi, help Black gamers land lucrative name, image, likeness (NIL) deals and influence the industry through their organization Game Changer Academy.
In highschool, Hamilton rose to prominence as a player himself. Although his mother was initially concerned about his profession path, her support for Hamilton led to his promotion in Rocket League. Hamilton and his mother were among the many top ten players in the virtual game showing others Black families the right way to succeed in esports.
At Game Changer Academy, Hamilton is a performance improvement coach and mental health advocate. Thanks to his own success, he knows concerning the great opportunities the sport offers, akin to scholarships and NIL offers. Now he and his mother were working to make those offers available to other black players like him. So far, the mother and son duo have acquired over 150,000 for his or her clients. dollars.
As for Dr. Gigi, she uses her background in workforce development to help families turn passions into fruitful opportunities. She helped families learn the way gaming could lead on to scholarships and future offers. The licensed psychotherapist also wants to scale back the gap between black gamers and industrial success.
Their efforts are contributing to a greater emphasis on diverse players – 15% of them discover as black, in accordance with New Zoo. Understanding the potential financial gains from the booming industry, the duo stays committed to reaching Black youth captivated with esports to speed up their careers.
Their newest enterprise, Game On: Virtual Experience – Gaming, Mental Health, and Personal Development, hopes to proceed this mission. The event, which can happen on November 4, will connect players and inform them concerning the opportunity to shape their future in this industry. Additionally, there shall be speak about protecting your mental health while pursuing your passions while constructing an empire.
Game Changer Academy is diversifying the esports industry and preparing Black gamers to take the sector. Registration for the event is now open to all families with ready-to-play players.
Technology
Columbus says ransomware gang stole personal information of 500,000 Ohioans
The city of Columbus, the capital of Ohio, confirmed that hackers stole the personal information of 500,000 residents during a July ransomware attack.
In filing In an interview with Maine’s attorney general, Columbus confirmed that a “foreign threat actor” breached its network to access information including residents’ names, dates of birth, addresses, identification documents, social security numbers and checking account information .
Ohio’s most populous city, with about 900,000 people, said about half 1,000,000 people were affected, even though it didn’t confirm the precise number of victims.
The regulatory filing comes after Columbus was the goal of a ransomware attack on July 18 this 12 months by city officials he claimed “thwart” it by disconnecting your network from the Internet.
Rhysida, the ransomware gang accountable for last 12 months’s cyber attack on the British Library, claimed responsibility for the August attack on Columbus. At the time, the gang said it had stolen 6.5 terabytes of data from the Ohio city, including “databases, internal employee logins and passwords, a full server dump of city emergency services applications, and … access from city video cameras,” in response to local news reports.
Rhysida demanded 30 bitcoins, or roughly $1.9 million on the time of the cyberattack, as payment for the stolen data.
Two weeks after the cyberattack, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther told the general public that the stolen data was likely “corrupted” and “unusable.”
The accuracy of Ginther’s statement was called into query the day after David Leroy Ross, a cybersecurity researcher also often called Connor Goodwolf, revealed that the personal information of a whole lot of 1000’s of Columbus residents had been placed on the dark web.
In September, Columbus sued Ross, alleging that it “threatened to make stolen city data available to third parties who otherwise would not have readily available means to obtain stolen city data.” A judge issued a brief restraining order against Ross, stopping him from accessing the stolen data.
In a listing published Monday by TechCrunch on the leak site, Rhysida claims to have transferred 3.1 terabytes of “unsold” data stolen from Columbus, amounting to greater than 250,000 files.
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