Oviva grabs $80M for app-delivered healthy eating programs

By Natasha Lomas

UK startup Oviva, which sells a digital support offering, including for Type 2 diabetes treatment, dispensing personalized diet and lifestyle advice via apps to allow more people to be able to access support, has closed $80 million in Series C funding — bringing its total raised to date to $115M.

The raise, which Oviva says will be used to scale up after a “fantastic year” of growth for the health tech business, is co-led by Sofina and Temasek, alongside existing investors AlbionVC, Earlybird, Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, MTIP, plus several angels.

Underpinning that growth is the fact wealthy Western nations continue to see rising rates of obesity and other health conditions like Type 2 diabetes (which can be linked to poor diet and lack of exercise). While more attention is generally being paid to the notion of preventative — rather than reactive — healthcare, to manage the rising costs of service delivery.

Lifestyle management to help control weight and linked health conditions (like diabetes) is where Oviva comes in: It’s built a blended support offering that combines personalized care (provided by healthcare professionals) with digital tools for patients that help them do things like track what they’re eating, access support and …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

North Base Media leads $2.7M pre-Series A funding in digital media startup Vietcetera

By Catherine Shu

Ho Chi Minh City-based Vietcetera, a digital medial network originally created for millennials and Gen-Z, will broaden its target demographic after getting $2.7 million in pre-Series A funding. The capital was raised over two rounds this year, led by media-focused venture firm North Base Media.

Other investors included Go-Ventures, Gojek’s corporate venture arm; East Ventures; Summit Media; Genesia Ventures; Hustle Fund; and Z Venture Capital, the corporate venture arm of Z Holdings, which is owned by SoftBank Group and Naver Corporation.

Vietcetera was founded in 2016 by Hao Tran and Guy Truong and now claims an audience of 20 million users per month. Its advertisers include AIA Life Insurance, Google, Facebook, Nestlé, MasterCard, Vingroup and Tiki. Tran told TechCrunch that Vietcetera will also monetize by “prioritizing original content licensing and development.”

The network was first created for millennials and Gen-Z audiences who wanted “content going beyond showbiz, sensational news and entertainment.” To serve more groups of readers, Vietcetera will launch new vertical brands in 2022 focused on women’s content, real estate and personal finance.

North Base Media was founded in 2013 by Marcus Brauchli, former lead editor of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, and Media Development Loan Fund chief executive officer …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

Data scientists: don’t be afraid to explore new avenues

By Ram Iyer

I’m a native French data scientist who cut his teeth as a research engineer in computer vision in Japan and later in my home country. Yet I’m writing from an unlikely computer vision hub: Stuttgart, Germany.

But I’m not working on German car technology, as one would expect. Instead, I found an incredible opportunity mid-pandemic in one of the most unexpected places: An ecommerce-focused, AI-driven, image-editing startup in Stuttgart focused on automating the digital imaging process across all retail products.

My experience in Japan taught me the difficulty of moving to a foreign country for work. In Japan, having a point of entry with a professional network can often be necessary. However, Europe has an advantage here thanks to its many accessible cities. Cities like Paris, London, and Berlin often offer diverse job opportunities while being known as hubs for some specialties.

While there has been an uptick in fully remote jobs thanks to the pandemic, extending the scope of your job search will provide more opportunities that match your interest.

Search for value in unlikely …read more

Source: Tech Crunch