All posts tagged: 30M

Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises M Series A led by Menlo

Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo

Published by skeptic

AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic. The company, which officially exited stealth last year, is an agentic operating system for marketers. It told TechCrunch that it uses autonomous AI agents to help brands run “social activity, moderation, creator workflows, competitive intelligence and commerce conversations end-to-end.” It also has data partnerships with companies like Meta and Reddit that allows the Nectar agent pull and pool data into one place from various platforms, rather than brands needing to use different tools to manage different platforms. Nectar Social was founded by sisters Misbah and Farah Uraizee, ex-Meta employees. Misbah, the CEO, told TechCrunch that this round will help the company expand and hire more across applied AI, enginnering, and go to market. “The buying conversation has moved into social, and no human team can staff every place it happens,” Misbah said. “We’re accelerating our category lead in building the operating system that lets brands show …

Queen Elizabeth’s secret feature Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost in his £30m royal home eviction

Queen Elizabeth’s secret feature Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost in his £30m royal home eviction

Published by Daniella Wilson

There are several home comforts Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was forced to leave behind when he was ousted from Royal Lodge in Windsor earlier this year. After King Charles initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours held by Andrew amid his links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, he relocated from his long-term family home, Royal Lodge on the Windsor Great Park estate, to the Sandringham estate, where he now lives at a converted farmhouse called Marsh Farm. While renovated, the new property is decidedly more modest, without 30 rooms and 98 acres of land, which housed a swimming pool, six lodge cottages, a gardener’s cottage and a life-size playhouse that was gifted to his late mother Queen Elizabeth. However, there’s another lesser-known feature that King Charles’ disgraced brother was never pictured enjoying – the aviary. Royal Lodge aviary © Getty ImagesThe late monarch was pictured playing in the aviary at Royal Lodge in 1940 After King George VI and the Queen Mother took over Royal Lodge in 1931, they invested time and money into …

Star-studded Comic Relief live show helps to raise more than £30m on Red Nose Day

Star-studded Comic Relief live show helps to raise more than £30m on Red Nose Day

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Davina McCall has revealed that Comic Relief’s annual Red Nose Day appeal has successfully raised more than £30 million. The star-studded charity fundraiser, broadcast live from Salford’s MediaCity, featured a host of comedic talent. Catherine Tate reprised her beloved character Nan, while sketches drew inspiration from popular BBC programmes such as The Traitors and Amandaland. McCall fronted the event alongside fellow comedians Tate, Joel Dommett, Katherine Ryan and Nick Mohammed. Revealing the Red Nose Day total at the end of the show on BBC One, McCall said: “The total raised tonight is a whopping £30,004,040. Thank you so, so much and thank you for your incredible generosity.” The first total of the night was revealed to be £11,520,926. Celebrity Traitors stars Nick Mohammed and Joe Marler on stage with Davina McCall (BBC/Comic Relief/James Stack/PA Wire) A pre-recorded video of Comic Relief …

Why Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie won’t have to pay for ‘crumbling’ Royal Lodge amid £30m inheritance loss

Why Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie won’t have to pay for ‘crumbling’ Royal Lodge amid £30m inheritance loss

Published by Daniella Wilson

Royal sisters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are experiencing turbulent times in the wake of their father, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest. Amid the swirling controversy, we’ve seen Princess Eugenie step down from her position at charity, Anti-Slavery International, and experts say they are both steering clear of royal events at the moment due to public scrutiny.  When their father was pressured into relinquishing his lease for Royal Lodge, the sisters kissed goodbye to inheriting the £30 million, 30-room mansion in Windsor because the details of the agreement said that Andrew would be allowed to pass the lease on to any dependent in future.  Andrew has left Royal Lodge behind  Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s lease A National Audit Office report reads: “The terms of the August 2003 lease agreement between The Crown Estate and HRH the Duke of York prevent him from gaining financially from any increase in the value of the property, as the freehold rests with The Crown Estate and the leasehold cannot be assigned to anyone else except to his widow or his two daughters (or a …

UK allocates £30M to strengthen satellite communications sector

UK allocates £30M to strengthen satellite communications sector

Published by skeptic

New funding aims to help domestic companies compete in the rapidly expanding global satellite network market. The UK Government has announced £30m fiscal backing to accelerate the development of satellite communications technology, part of a broader strategy to strengthen the country’s role in the global space economy. The investment, confirmed by Space Minister Liz Lloyd, will support British companies developing critical components for modern satellite networks operating in low Earth orbit (LEO). The funding comes through the UK Space Agency’s Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit (C-LEO) programme and is designed to help technologies move from laboratory testing into operational missions. Government officials say the initiative is intended to position the UK to capture a larger share of a global satellite communications market estimated to be worth about £40bn and expanding by more than 10% annually. Minister Lloyd explained: “Space is now the cornerstone of our modern economy. Satellite constellations have revolutionised how we operate, digitalising industries, optimising logistics and connecting all corners of the globe. “This new funding will support the development of smarter satellites …

Didero lands M to put manufacturing procurement on “agentic” autopilot

Didero lands $30M to put manufacturing procurement on “agentic” autopilot

Published by skeptic

Tim Spencer realized just how complicated manufacturing procurement can be while running Markai, an e-commerce startup in Asia, during the pandemic. “We had thousands of suppliers, and we were distributing products into dozens of countries around the world,” Spencer (pictured left) told TechCrunch. His staff was overwhelmed by the manual complexity of sourcing suppliers, negotiating pricing, tracking orders, and managing payments. “I found myself running this big team that was not really set up for success,” he said. He sold Markai in 2023, just as it was becoming clear that generative AI could streamline the most time-consuming procurement hurdles for manufacturers and distributors. Later that year, Spencer launched Didero alongside Lorenz Pallhuber (pictured center), a veteran of McKinsey’s procurement practice, and Tom Petit, the former technical co-founder of Landis. Didero, whose mission is to automate many of the complexities of global procurement, just raised a $30 million Series A co-led by Chemistry and Headline, with participation from Microsoft’s venture fund M12. “Global trade runs on natural language communication,” Spencer said. “It’s emails, WeChat, phone calls, …

Stripe alumni raise €30M Series A for Duna, backed by Stripe and Adyen execs

Stripe alumni raise €30M Series A for Duna, backed by Stripe and Adyen execs

Published by skeptic

Anthropic and OpenAI may be rivals, but their presidents Daniela Amodei and Gregory Brockman have one thing in common: they are both Stripe alumni. With former employees who went on to create dozens of startups, the fintech company has become one of the most prolific “founder factories” — and the money is following. The latest example: business identity verification startup Duna, which just raised a €30 million Series A to become the best-funded European member of the so-called “Stripe mafia.” The funding round was led by Alphabet’s growth fund CapitalG, which has also backed Stripe since co-leading its Series D in 2016. Based in Germany and the Netherlands, Duna was co-founded by Stripe alumni Duco van Lanschot and David Schreiber. With customers including Plaid, the startup helps fintech companies onboard business customers more efficiently, reducing the typical churn associated with corporate ID checks and other fraud prevention measures. Stripe is not a customer of Duna, van Lanschot said, but its executives were well placed to understand the opportunity that the startup is seizing, which is …

Gambling advertising spend continues to fall in the UK led by £30M drop in TV ads

Gambling advertising spend continues to fall in the UK led by £30M drop in TV ads

Published by skeptic

Gambling advertising spend has continued to fall in the UK, led by a steep drop-off in spending on TV ads. Gambling advertising spend from licensed UK operators has continued to fall, according to fresh analysis from the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC). The research, conducted by Alvarez & Marsal (A&M), found that gambling ads accounted for just 2.7% of the UK’s total advertising spend in 2024, down from 3% in 2023. This comes alongside a warning from industry leaders that unregulated online ads from unregulated, illegal operators are a growing risk to consumers. Licensed operators’ gambling ad spend is continuing to decline. Independent analysis commissioned by the BGC shows gambling advertising was 2.7% of total UK ad spend in 2024 (down from 3% in 2023) and has been falling steadily since 2021. Around 20% of ads are safer gambling… — Betting and Gaming Council (@BetGameCouncil) February 2, 2026 The fall in official gambling ad spend is not a new phenomenon, with spending on a steady decline since 2021 to map out a drop of 1.7% …