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For BioNTech, the COVID-19 vaccine was simply the opening act

TechCrunch

ahin, his wife and co-founder Özlem Türeci, and the rest of the seven-person founding team began their research. “It was just a weak molecule. “At that time, mRNA was not potent enough,” ?ahin ahin recalled. But the idea was great, so we invested many years in an academic setting to improve that.

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Daily Crunch: Raba Partnership leads $2.1M seed round for African fintech startup Thepeer

TechCrunch

Time sure flies when the Daily Crunch team entrusts you — meaning me — with TechCrunch’s newsletter of record. Brevity is(n’t) the soul of wit : Remember when Twitter, constrained by the limitations of SMS, limited its poor users to 140 characters? Elusive soft landings at SoftBank : The bad news at SoftBank got worse this week.

Fintech 217
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11 investors predict a colorful, if difficult, future for psychedelic startups

TechCrunch

Amongst these questions are actual costs of therapies, reimbursement coverage, the commercialisation strategy for psychedelic drug development companies, resource bottlenecks with the therapists’ supply and infrastructure, etc,” they told TechCrunch+. is not the only place where psychedelics are seeing interest. Will they take the lead?”

Biotech 248
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Daily Crunch: Mobile World Congress 2023 kicks off with new features for Android, Chromebook and Wear OS

TechCrunch

We have a team over in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, and one of the top stories coming out of there is the slew of new features Google has announced for Android, Chromebook and Wear OS. .” Using predictive LTV to juice up marketing campaigns Three more from the TC+ team: Making more : Why so many gigafactories?

Mobile 237
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Concert Bio lands pre-seed round to fix hydroponic farming’s ‘dirty secret’

TechCrunch

Today, about half the world’s habitable land is devoted to agriculture, yet even that amount can’t provide everyone with the sort of diet enjoyed by people in developed countries. Rutten and his colleagues at Concert Bio are developing a system to monitor and eventually tweak the microbial ecosystem that lives within hydroponic systems.

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Dutch startup hub Utrecht emerges from Amsterdam’s shadow

TechCrunch

The investment scene is described variously as focusing on software, clean tech, life sciences, biotech, organoids, 3D bioprinting, AI and VR/AR. What is it weak in? What is it weak in? Weak: robotics, engineering, ag. What is it weak in? What is it weak in? One says: “In Amsterdam it’s ok.

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Psychedelics startups are on a long journey to consumer markets, but these 5 VCs are taking the ride

TechCrunch

Previously relegated to underground communities and rave culture, drugs like ketamine, MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy) and psilocybin are now being studied to develop therapies to treat everything from PTSD to cluster headaches. We are most excited by drug developers. “Today, there are 400+ ketamine clinics in the U.S.,

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