News

Archive for November, 2021

Dates : November 2021

Nigeria’s Treepz closes $2.8M seed round, expands to Uganda with Ugabus acquisition

November 25, 2021
Nigerian shared mobility startup Treepz has closed out its seed round at US$2.8 million and expanded to Uganda with the acquisition of bus company Ugabus. Founded in 2019 and known as Plentywaka until its September rebrand, Treepz operates a digital platform allowing passengers to book daily rides along fixed routes. It also serves as an aggregator for bus travel companies across 21 cities in Nigeria, allowing transport operators to replace manual servicing and ticketing with digitalized offerings and services.
CDPI Emerging Markets

Grammarly Raises $200 Million to Help People Write Better

November 24, 2021
If robots wrote the news, would they write about other robots?  I ask because there’s been a suspicious burst of items about AI-powered writing tools, just when live journalists might have set things on autopilot so they could sneak out early for the holiday.  Top of the list: writing-suggestion platform Grammarly just raised $200 million at a $13 billion valuation, doubling total funding to $400 million.
CDPI Newsletter

Anyword, Write, and Sudowrite Raise More Money for AI-Driven Writing

November 24, 2021
Also recently, marketing copy generator Anyword raised $21 million, bringing its total to $30 million. They say their system can be trained to copy your brand voice and/or to tailor copy versions for different customer segments. Just a few days before that, writing assistant Writer reported its own $21 million round. Then we have this (hilarious) piece about – and partly by – writing assistant Sudowrite and its $3 million seed round.
CDPI Newsletter

Yelp Lets National Brands Promote Local Partners

November 23, 2021
Yelp reviews are a foundation for many SMB marketing programs, so it’s on-topic today.  But their actual news is a man-bites-dog reversal: Yelp has just launched two ad units that let national brands promote themselves by highlighting local companies that carry their goods.  Sponsored Collections show ads organized around a theme while Seasonal Spotlight ads present a rotating sample of brand holiday campaigns.
CDPI Newsletter

Close to 90M TikTok users eligible for class-action payout

November 23, 2021
TikTok users in the US who used the site before October 1 may be eligible for part of the recently settled $92 million class action. The Illinois suit alleged TikToik shared personal data it had collected from users with third parties without user consent. The company, which denies the claim, agreed to the settlement which applied to approximately 89 million users. Claims by eligible users must be submitted before March 1, 2022.
CDPI Privacy Newsletter

IT’S THE LAW (11/23/2021)

November 23, 2021
A US federal law, newly passed as part of the infrastructure  bill, mandates that car makers integrate anti-drunk-driving tech into all new cars within the next three years. Advocates for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) technology believe the addition of breath-sniffing sensors and finger-scanning detectors will achieve a goal long-sought to prevent drunk driving, while opponents voiced concerns over invasion of privacy.
CDPI Privacy Newsletter