Dronamics receives $40 million pre-series A for cargo drones that can ‘cross all of Europe in 12 hours or less’ – businessroundups.org

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Okay, NOW it is Friday. Any fun plans for the long weekend? Haje is moving (ugh) and Christine flips through GIFs of puppies until her battery dies. Probably.

Most people aren’t outright racist, but it turns out that unconscious bias creeps into our brains in all sorts of mean, sneaky little ways. Stereotypes and prejudices exist, and being aware of yours is a good place to work on. The Cornerstone Foundation has a free 30 minute course that you can take to discover and work on them.

We wish you a happy Monday and don’t miss us too much while we are on vacation. Look for our return on Tuesday. — Christine And Hey

The businessroundups.org Top 3

• It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a drone:Dronamics raised $40 million in a pre-Series A round (or really big seed round if you prefer to look at it that way) to launch an autonomous cargo drone airline in Europe, Mike writes. It also has some ambitious goals: the CEO says it will be able to deliver to all of Europe on the same day from a single warehouse.
• meant to be: Some Disney+ Hotstar customers weren’t too happy when the stream went down during a popular cricket match. Manic has more, including details that this sort of thing is not an isolated incident.
• Pointing fingers: Carly And Bag report that due to a data breach, Atlassian and Envoy briefly blame each other for what happened that caused thousands of Atlassian employees to expose their data.

Startups and VC

With so many fintechs laying off staff, it’s easy to assume that the entire industry is in distress, but that’s not the case. Some companies even find opportunities in the massive layoffs, Mary Ann discovers. This is who’s hiring. In the meantime, Natasha M And Alyssa collected a comprehensive list of technical layoffs in 2023.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has accused collapsed blockchain company and stablecoin operator Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon of defrauding US investors who bought the digital assets Terra USD and Luna, Kate reports.

And we have five more for you:

So that founder you supported turned out to be problematic. What now?

Early-stage investors do not properly manage the entrepreneurs they shower with money, even when things go off the rails. And in some cases, they may not be able to exercise much authority.

Assuming a VC makes an investment through a SAFE note, “if that stake hasn’t turned into equity, they don’t have much to say if something goes wrong,” reports Rebecca Szkutak.

To learn more about how investors deal with troubled CEOs, she spoke to:

• Cameron Newton, Founder and General Partner, Relevance Ventures
• Eric Bahn, co-founder and general partner, Hustle Fund
• Angela Lee, venture partner, professor, Columbia Business School

We have a few more for the weekend:

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Big Tech Inc.

The pandemic forced us to find new ways to collaborate in a remote workplace, and some companies have been able to capitalize on that need. Rita reports that Feishu, ByteDance’s Slack-like tool, was one of them, generating $100 million in 2022. She writes, “ByteDance’s heavy investment in Feishu says something about the state of enterprise software in China. At a time when investors in Silicon Valley are announcing product-led growth — services that convert users through their products, as Calendly illustrates — software in China is still largely relying on sales, marketing, and services to acquire users.”

Here are five more for you: