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Hgen draws on Tesla and SpaceX experience to lower hydrogen costs

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Hydrogen could also be touted because the fuel of the longer term that’s poised to decarbonize shipping and industry, but 90 million metric tons now utilized in every part from fertilizer production to chemical production, 96% comes directly from natural gas, oil, or coal. For example, one of the crucial common methods is steam methane reforming, which essentially cooks the methane in order that the hydrogen comes off, releasing carbon dioxide in the method.

This can hardly be called a climate-friendly future.

That means there’s loads of room for corporations to try to bring down the value of hydrogen production. “There’s over $100 billion being spent on hydrogen for industrial applications right now,” said Molly Yang, co-founder and CEO Hgen.

Yang and her co-founder Colin Ho founded Hgen three years ago after stints at Tesla and SpaceX. Their goal was to modularly create electrolyzers, chemical assemblies that may produce green hydrogen by splitting water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen. Electrolysis isn’t squeaky clean—it still requires electricity, which is currently generated from a mixture of renewables and fossil fuels—but because the grid gets cleaner, hydrogen production through electrolysis can be getting cleaner.

That vision earned them a $2 million seed round in 2022 led by Founders Fund and induction into this yr’s Breakthrough Energy Fellows cohort. Now, Hgen is back with one other $5 million funding round from Seven Seven Six with participation from Fontinalis Partners and Founders Fund, the corporate told TechCrunch exclusively.

Part of Hgen’s initial pitch was that we’ve all of the electrolyzer technology we want today, nevertheless it’s not optimized enough. “We’re not a materials R&D company,” Yang told TechCrunch. Instead, the team focused on optimizing the whole gadget, from the electrolyzer electrodes to the tangle of pipes and pumps that support them.

Hgen uses alkaline electrolyzers, an old and proven technology that typically trades a few of the efficiency gains of newer approaches for lower costs. But Yang says Hgen has found a way to make the electrolyzer 20 times smaller, which cuts material and manufacturing costs. “Even with the first designs, we’re coming out with much lower costs,” she said.

In an electrolyzer, the magic happens on the interface between the electrode and the liquid. The electrodes carry current into the liquid and facilitate a chemical response that breaks the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen. When this happens, bubbles of hydrogen gas on one side of the electrolyzer and oxygen gas on the opposite side form on the electrodes and eventually leak to the surface.

But those bubbles also tend to linger an excessive amount of. “That blocks the reactivity of the electrodes and the ability to create new hydrogen,” Yang said. So Hgen modified the electrode design to encourage the hydrogen and oxygen bubbles to drain away more quickly. That means Hgen’s stack of electrolyzers could be smaller and produce the identical amount of hydrogen. The smaller stack uses less material and takes up less space, which further reduces costs. “Our cell design essentially enables this virtuous cycle,” she said.

Yang said Hgen intends to package the entire thing right into a 40-foot shipping container that could be delivered to the positioning and connected with minimal work — “just water and electricity,” she said.

The startup is initially targeting corporations that currently receive hydrogen in liquefied form, which Yang said can cost well over $10 per kilogram. “Being able to avoid all that liquefaction, all that trucking, is just a more attractive price proposition for them,” she said. “And also a more stable, secure supply for them.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Bluesky claims that 1 million people have registered on the platform in the last 24 hours

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Bluesky’s UK surge has had little impact on X

Bluesky said this on Thursday night Over 1 million people have registered on the platform over the last 24 hours, making this one among the busiest days for the company. This also meant that the social network crossed the overall mark of 16 million users.

The platform’s announcement comes hours after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said Threads had seen greater than 15 million registrations in November. He added that over the last three months, the Meta-owned platform has recorded 1 million registrations per day.

Bluesky also had teething problems Thursday as some users were unable to make use of services because one among the company’s ISPs had a cable issue that combined with other network problems, in accordance with Bluesky developer.

Over the past few months, the decentralized social network has seen a gradual influx of users amid various events reminiscent of the X ban in Brazil, moderation issues at Threads, and the recent US election results. After the announcement of the results of the US presidential election, over a million recent people registered on the platform inside per week, the company said on Tuesday.

At the time of writing, a surge in Bluesky sign-ups over the past 24 hours has put the app at the top of the list of free apps in the US App Store, followed by ChatGPT and Threads.

Bluesky might be smaller than Threads, which has over 275 million energetic users, and Elon Musk’s X. However, the platform’s CEO Jay Graber published earlier this week that Bluesky has more involvement than X.

(*1*) she said separate post.

Last month, Bluesky said it had raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Darkmode’s Amir Shevat and Kubernetes co-founder Joe Beda. On the product front, the company said it plans to launch subscriptions.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Black creative technologists showcase films and art concepts at Torrents BPMplus shows

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Black Creative Technologists To Present Film, Art Concepts At Torrents BPMplus Showcases


Black public media absorbing The BPMplus program will include two presentations of creative technological productions at “Torrents: New Links to Black Futures” on Saturday, November 16.

Headquartered in Harlem, New York, Black Public Media is a national nonprofit media arts organization supports the event and distribution of black filmtelevision and immersive projects from Black creators who use technology to create content related to the worldwide Black experience.

On Saturday at 12:00, filmmakers and artists will meet at Songbyrd Music House to speak in regards to the art of making artificial intelligence, augmented reality, projections and video projects. The 2024 event’s featured artists, moderated by BPM Emerging Media Director Lisa Osborne, will engage with attendees by sharing their workflow and creative processes, revealing the intentions behind their designs, delving into concept art, and showcasing clips of accomplished work.

Launched in 2018, the BPMplus project offers manufacturers and technologists access to grants, scholarships, workshops, demonstrations and networking opportunities as they create projects using augmented reality, motion capture, artificial intelligence and other technologies.

“As artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies become more embedded in our daily lives, it is important that access to these tools is available to everyone in the liminal or pre-commercial phase,” Osbourne said in a press release.

Creators even have access to artist residency programs and the national PitchBLACK Immersive forum.

CulturalDC once more welcomed BPMplus for its annual presentation on Torrents as an interdisciplinary series celebrates the progressive way forward for visual artstechnology, music, film and performance.

“For decades, technology training, grants and other opportunities have been funneled into the hands of a few, essentially injecting biases that existed in old or traditional media into new storytelling tools long before their mass adoption,” Osbourne said. “Our BPMplus programs strive to counter this larger trend in the worlds of technology, film, art and philanthropy by giving our immersive filmmakers and artists a seat at the table to ensure a future where all communities are represented.”

“Torrents: New Links to Black Futures” will run from November 14 to 17. BPMplus Art & Tech Showcase I starts at noon on the last day; Showcase II will happen at 2:00 PM EST. There will likely be a net mixer with a money bar from 3:30-4:30 p.m

Registration is accessible we recommend collaborating free events.


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Influur wants to stand out from other influencer marketplaces by promising on-time payouts

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as influential economy is growing, startups like PassionFroot, Agentio and One Impression, together with social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, are attempting to construct marketplaces to connect brands with creators.

A startup based in Miami Influencefocuses on two unique features of its platform: quick response from creators and financial tools ensuring timely payment.

The company is developing a set of tools for brands to higher track campaigns. Additionally, it’s considering introducing latest financial products for creators, including loans, debit cards and bank cards.

To support these efforts, Influur has raised $10 million in Series A financing from Point72 Ventures and HTwenty Capital, bringing its total funding to over $15 million. Business angels include Sofia Vergara and Thalia.

Ishan Sinha, partner at Point72, said the platform helps creators change into higher entrepreneurs.

“Creators are good at creating content. However, they may not be business-savvy entrepreneurs. So by having a place for their money to live, they can get paid quickly and their analysis is powerful,” he said.

Influur was founded in 2021 by 4 Latina founders: CEO Alessandra Angelini, who worked as a producer at CNN before founding the corporate; chief influencer Fefi Oliveira, who has worked within the entertainment industry with corporations akin to Nickelodeon and Telemundo and has over 9 million followers on her social media accounts; chief operating officer Paula Coleman, who also worked at CNN as an associate producer; and sales director Valeria Angelini, who worked as a social media analyst at FedEx.

Before founding Influur, Angelini asked Oliveira, whom she met in college, why the creators didn’t respond to CNN’s attempts to contact her. Oliveira explained that influencers receive hundreds of messages on Instagram and email, making it difficult to manage all of them.

To solve this problem, Angelini got here up with an influencer marketing tool, similar to Google AdSense, to manage a brand’s spend on this space.

Market and community

Once joined, creators can connect all their social media accounts, view marketing pricing, and consider a listing of past brand collaborations. The startup’s founders noted that there are currently over 40,000 creators on the platform with various numbers of followers.

Creators can apply for open brand campaigns that meet their criteria. They also can go for a “gated partnership” where they receive the brand’s product in exchange for content. As for brands, they also can contact chosen creators individually for collaborations.

On the platform, creators can get suggestions and suggestions from other experienced creators and learn from them. To keep interactions relevant, the platform limits posts to creators with greater than 2,000 followers.

Angelini said many platforms list influencers based on online data, which frequently leads to low response rates. She mentioned that the influencer normally responds to a brand inquiry on Influur inside 24 hours.

Influur also offers a premium subscription for creators for $30 per thirty days, which provides them access to a one-click media kit with detailed information on pricing rates, past campaigns, social media and engagement metrics. They also get access to experiences where they will create content and exclusive webinars from popular creators.

According to Oliveira – a creator for years – certainly one of the principal problems is the pursuit of brands for a payment after ending work. To solve this problem, Influur asks brands to pay upfront, holds the cash in an escrow account, after which transfers it to the creator’s wallet once they ship all campaign products.

“Influencers often wait 60 to 120 days after publishing their final product to get paid. We solve this problem with our wallet and instant payments feature,” Oliveira said.

Creators can wait 30 days for withdrawal or withdraw the cash immediately with a 15% fee to Influur. Currently, the corporate supports withdrawals in several countries, including: within the USA, Mexico and Brazil. The startup mentioned that 20% of its creators paid this fee to get a fast payout.

In the longer term, the startup plans to launch a set of monetary tools for creators, akin to virtual accounts, short-term loans, credit and debit cards. “Influencers want Influur to become their bank. We are planning to launch a new financial product so that we are not only part of how influencers make money, but also part of how they save and spend money,” Angelini said.

Point72’s Sinha said that in his careful evaluation of the fund, he discovered that the founders care about financial stability and that the startup is constructing the fitting tools to achieve this.

Insights for brands

With the Series A raise, Influur is working to add insights to influencer campaigns together with financial tools. The company can be making a prediction engine that may allow corporations to predict the effectiveness of campaigns for a particular creator.

The company is expanding its team in 4 centers: San Francisco, Miami, Mexico and Argentina.

In addition to charging creators a 15% fast withdrawal fee and premium subscription, Influur also charges a service fee of 20-25% per transaction from brands. While the corporate had several profitable months last 12 months, it’ll take a while for Influur to generate a profit because it goals to change into money flow positive by 2026.

The startup believes it has an edge over other markets thanks to its financial tools, insights engine, and popular creator as co-founder.

Image credits: Influur

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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