Gecko Materials wants to sell you the next Velcro

Buying a home has always been complicated. You have to figure out how much money to put down and how that down payment will affect a monthly mortgage bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2014, Ivan Crewkov moved his family from Serbia to the U.S. as his startup, Cubic.AI, was preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign for its smart speaker. A week before the campaign was supposed to go live, Amazon launched its Echo smart speaker, rendering Cubic.AI essentially dead in the water. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hummingbirds is a female-founded startup that connects hyperlocal content creators with locally-based brands that reward them for sharing products with their small and highly engaged communities via social media.  The company announced Wednesday its latest funding round of $5.4 million, bringing the total amount raised to $10 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MealMe, a unified API that embeds food and retail ordering into consumer apps and websites, announced on Thursday that it secured $8 million in Series A funding. The newly raised capital brings the total amount raised to $16 million.  MealMe has undergone several changes since its launch in 2019. Initially, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new startup setting out to combat the scourge of deepfakes and spoofed evidence in the age of AI is showing off its wares on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Luna, a health and well-being app for teen girls that is designed to help them navigate teenhood. The app lets teens ask questions about their health and wellness and get responses from experts. It also lets them track their periods, moods, and skin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It might not be the sexiest of subjects, but facilities management is central to any business that has a physical premises — the bigger that footprint becomes, the more complex it gets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fixing the climate crisis is a vast, world-sized puzzle. But one particularly large piece of this ginormous conundrum is construction and real estate — which collectively amount for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Enter Munich-based data startup Emidat, which has built a software platform for automating the generation of validated Environmental Product Declaration Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are plenty of startups now that have AI bots that will listen to your meetings, transcribe them, make notes, and create insights. That means companies in this area must differentiate themselves by offering additional feature sets and integrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lithuania’s Vinted has secured a new valuation of €5 billion (around $5.4 billion at current exchange rates), after the second-hand fashion marketplace closed a secondary share sale worth €340 million ($367 million). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices