Top startup news for today, Thursday, November 29

Good morning! Here are some of the top technology startup news stories for today, Thursday, November 29.

Chinese startup Geek+ raises $150 million in funding to launch its futuristic AI-enabled logistics robots. Geek+, a Beijing, China-based AI & Robotics company, completed a $150 million Series B financing to further invest in innovative products and solutions, global distribution network, and customer service. The latest financing round was led by Warburg Pincus was led by Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm based in New York. To date, Geek+ has raised a total of  about $240 million, raised over four rounds. Founded in 2015 by Yong Zheng, Geek+ is a pioneer of AI-enabled logistics robots for warehouses. It integrates Robotics, AI, Big Data, Cloud Computing, and IoT technologies to provide intelligent robotics solutions and supply chain services. The company’s AI-enabled logistics solutions include “cargo-to-man” picking system, intelligent moving system, intelligent sorting system, and automated forklift, to cover the entire process of warehousing, logistics and manufacturing. To date, Geek+ has delivered more than 5,000 robots and implemented over 100 robotics warehouse projects to customers globally, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Europe, and the United States.

Indoor mapping startup Point Inside closes $3.5 million to produce indoor spatial intelligence data for large and small companies, airports, others. Point Inside, a Bellevue, Washington-based startup  that produces indoor maps to enable location-centric digital strategies across industries, has secured $3.5 million to scale sales and marketing of Point Inside’s award winning indoor data and mapping platform. The funding was led by Vestech Partners, a private equity investment firm focused on growth investing, led a $3.5 million investment round. Founded in 2009 by Brian Wilson, Jon Croy, and Josh Marti,  Point Inside is led by a team of executives with decades of experience in positioning technologies, platform development, and location-based services for companies such as Amazon, AT&T, Microsoft, MySpace, PayScale, Qualcomm and SAP. “With over $50 million invested in completing our indoor mapping platform, it is time to accelerate our sales and marketing efforts,” said Josh Marti, CEO and co-founder of Point Inside. “Our mapping platform allows venue owners from malls, warehouses, hospitals, arenas, corporate campuses and airports to purchase and deploy our interactive maps to their web sites or apps in less than an hour.”

Not Optional, a European startup coalition group, published an open letter urging European leaders to address tech talent shortage. Not Optional, a coalition of concerned entrepreneurs and investors published an open letter urging the European policymakers, entrepreneurs and investors to work together to bring more talent to Europe’s startups.”Without delay, we call on legislators to fix the patchy, inconsistent and often punitive rules that govern employee ownership — the practice of giving staff options to acquire a slice of the company they’re working for,” the group said in open letter published on their website. The letter was signed by more than 300 CEOs, founders, investors and employees of Europe’s startups.

Matchmade raises €4.25 million in fresh funding to accelerate influencer marketing for games. Matchmade, the influencer marketing platform for games, today announced that it raised €4.25 million in funding in a Series A financing to expand its operations internationally and bolster its technologies. The fresh round was led by Korea Investment Partners. Matchmade has analyzed over 3 million channels and 300 million YouTube videos, alongside 12 million streams and 260,000 channels on live-streaming platform Twitch to provide influencer matching for games based on real data.

Venafi closes $100 million funding to accelerate growth and support new machine identity protection development fund. Venafi, a cybersecurity company automating security for all keys and certificates, has secured a $100 million round of financing to accelerate Venafi’s growth and to cement the firm’s growing market leadership. The round was led by TCV with participation from existing investors, QuestMark Partners and NextEquity Partners. Founded in 2004 by Jayson Seegmiller,Venafi is the inventor and cybersecurity market leader in machine identity protection, securing connections and communications between machines. Venafi protects machine identity types by orchestrating cryptographic keys and digital certificates for SSL/TLS, IoT, mobile and SSH. Venafi provides global visibility of machine identities and the risks associated with them for the extended enterprise—on premises, mobile, virtual, cloud and IoT—at machine speed and scale.

Following a series of scandals, San Francisco official proposes stripping Mark Zuckerberg’s name from a hospital. Aaron Peskin, a San Francisco supervisor and a politician, is proposing to have Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s name remove from a public hospital following a series of scandals. Peskin cited the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a recent report that Facebook hired an opposition research firm to go after liberal financier George Soros. Zuckerberg and his wife donated $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital’s foundation in 2015. Peskin is not alone, back in May 2018, protesters went as far as covering up the word “Zuckerberg” on the sign for Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in May 2018.