The theme of the rainy Tuesday night was the future of women in venture, and before you eye-roll at yet another diversity panel, the conversation was about more than just gender.

Because diversity doesn’t start, and definitely doesn’t stop, at gender.

If you’re struggling to find a mentor at work, Alpert said the first step is to be a good mentee.

That moves into pitch meetings for Acrew as well: Mervana shared how they often let junior associates speak first, just to help shake up the diversity of thought.

And those are just a few of the takeaways from last night’s panel. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579725011.1775196/Some-Concrete-Takeaways-From-(Another)-Panel-On-Diversity?ref=audio_experience

IBM has leaned on a combination of its own R&D abilities and deep pockets to push into modern markets, but has struggled to turn them into revenue growth.

More recently, IBM shrank for another five consecutive quarters, a streak it broke with yesterday’s news that it had beat analyst expectations.

The quarter brought modest, but welcome revenue growth.

Perhaps more importantly, the company’s top line expansion was co-led by the old IBM mainframe business and its newest champion, Red Hat.

The challenge it faces moving forward will include finding a way to continue revenue growth while modernizing its product line and ensuring that its huge Red Hat purchase continues to perform. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579723214.385173/IBM-snaps-out-of-revenue-doldrums,-breaking-a-five-quarter-losing-streak-in-Q4-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

Brainlab, a Munich, Germany-based digital medical technology company, acquired VisionTree Software, Inc., a San Diego based developer of cloud-based, patient-centric data collection and health management solutions.

The acquisition enables Brainlab to expand its commitment to quantifying medical procedure outcomes by taking a closer look at patients’ quality of life and condition after treatment.

Today, Brainlab’s software is digitally entrenched in a growing number of critical treatment workflows, generating an array of structured, validated, digital data.

The established ePRO solution will complement the Brainlab cloud-based infrastructure and registry solution aiming to deliver patient engagement and more comprehensive quality reporting.

At the same time, Brainlab will further enhance the VisionTree patient portal and enable patients to control the handling and processing of their data. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579721406.8954585/Brainlab-Buys-VisionTree?ref=audio_experience

Thundra, a Boston, MA-based company that enables application teams to run fast, raised $4m in Series A funding.

In conjunction with the funding, Battery General Partner Neeraj Agrawal joined the Thundra board of directors.

Led by Ken Cheney, CEO, Serkan Ozal, CTO, Thundra is an enterprise SaaS company providing an Application Observability and Security Platform™ for serverless-centric, container, and virtual machine workloads.

Application teams spanning software development, DevOps/SRE, IT operations, and IT security use the system to run fast safely, troubleshooting and debugging with improved MTTR while ensuring security and compliance policies are enforced.

Thundra manages large-scale microservice applications across development, testing, staging and production environments. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579719929.9346168/Thundra-Raises-$4M-in-Series-A-Funding?ref=audio_experience

Front announced today that it has raised $59 million for its collaborative email platform in a funding round that comes with a twist.

The market for workplace collaboration tools is booming as companies struggle with opposing dynamics.

Founded in 2013, Front has seen rapid growth, raising $10 million in venture capital in 2016, followed by a round of $66 million in 2018.

The company’s email tool allows employees to collaborate and manage internal messages and email from customers and partners.

“Mathilde and her team have built an exceptionally collaborative communications platform to bring work email into the 21st century. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579717810.434553/Email-platform-Front-raises-$59-million-from-workplace-collaboration-alliance?ref=audio_experience

This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)Contxto – For Brazilian fintech Nubank, January 20, 2020 will be a date to remember.

As that’s the day it announced a new milestone: it has 20 million customers.

Related article: Fintech Nubank acqui-hires Plataformatec and its team of engineersLooking aheadIt’s reported that around 50,000 customers sign up for one of Nubank’s products every day.

And the fintech hopes to close this year with 30 million customers (that’s a 50 percent jump!).

“Reaching the 20 million user mark is more than the population of many countries, and it shows that we are succeeding in reinventing a traditional market,” explained Junqueira. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579716009.7148178/It’s-official:-fintech-Nubank-has-20-million-customers?ref=audio_experience

Canapi Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage fintech companies, closed its inaugural venture capital funds, at $545m.

Mahan founded and currently serves as CEO and chairman of Live Oak Bancshares, headquartered in Wilmington, NC.

Its banking subsidiary, Live Oak Bank, specializes in providing lending and financial services to small businesses nationwide.

During his time at Live Oak Bancshares, he co-founded nCino, a cloud banking services provider to hundreds of banks globally.

The team includes several other financial services and venture capital veterans including Partners Walker Forehand, Neil Underwood, Dan Beldy, and Jeff Reitman as well as Senior Advisors Jeffrey Goldstein and Jim Hale. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579714206.47353/Canapi-Ventures-Launches-First-$545M-Fintech-Venture-Funds?ref=audio_experience

Once the humanoid is sent to space, ISRO scientists will be able to monitor the activities and progress of Vyommitra in order to prepare the robot for the manned mission in 2022.

Meet Vyommitra, The Robot That Mimics HumansAs ISRO is preparing for its ambitious Gaganyaan mission, the ‘half-humanoid’ Vyommitra will lead the human spaceflight programme.

First half humanoid that will be a part of @isro Gaganyaan unmanned mission.

The Gaganyaan project will be India’s first attempt to send Indians to space aboard an Indian spacecraft.

It remains to be seen whether Gaganyaan will earn the same plaudits as other high-profile Indian space missions. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579712410.7465124/Humanoid-Joins-ISRO’s-Gaganyaan-Space-Mission-Set-For-Dec-2020?ref=audio_experience

Mystery, the year-old startup that facilitates surprise dates for couples, and the Gottman Institute, the decades-old, research-based love and therapy organization, are forging a partnership to help couples reignite relationships.

They are teaming on an “Eight Dates” series inside Mystery’s app, essentially creating a way for couples to spark more meaningful conversations as they participate in mystery dates at Seattle area restaurants, bars and other locations.

The Gottman Institute brings a “data science approach to relationships,” while Mystery does the same for dates, said Mystery co-founder Shane Kovalsky, who started the company with Vince Coppola after previously working together at Seattle trucking startup Convoy.

The eight Gottman-series Mystery dates each have different themes, whether it’s around where couples end up eating or what activity they take part in.

The Gottman Institute has also helped come up with topics and questions for couples that are fed to them through the app. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579710611.4051175/Seattle-startup-connects-with-famed-love-institute-to-rekindle-relationships-around-‘Eight-Dates’?ref=audio_experience

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday said the company will do well only if others alongside it do well, as he dismissed any risks from the tech giant becoming too powerful.

Google CEO Sundar PichaiSchwab asked him whether there is a risk that Google may become too powerful.

Pichai is also the CEO of Google's parent, Alphabet.

Speaking at the WEF 2020, Pichai also said privacy cannot be a luxury good and it has to be safeguarded for everyone.

Pichai said he has always been a technology optimist, having experienced firsthand the benefits of new technology brought to his life. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1579708819.722121/We-will-do-well-only-if-others-with-us-do-well,-says-Google's-Sundar-Pichai-at-WEF-2020?ref=audio_experience