Boston Startup Community News & Content

The massive surge of COVID-19-related layoffs has put tech in a unique position. While the startup world is facing layoffs itself, it is also trying to help get people back to work. Back at the end of 2019, the SoftBank-backed belt-tightening period led to a flurry of crowdsourced spreadsheets with employee names from companies like

Cohort-based accelerator programs usually culminate in a public session called ‘Demo Day,’ where startup founders pitch their venture to a large audience of qualified investors. As the coronavirus pandemic has made large events impossible to organize, accelerators and startup founders in Boston are adjusting to virtual pitches.

Just a month ago, much of the startup world was still fixated on unicorns: fast-growing companies that were shaking up established industries, worth $1 billion or more according to their investors, and on a trajectory to become the next Uber or Facebook. Most were losing money, but no one cared. Now, of course, the world

Aldatu Biosciences in Watertown usually makes diagnostic test kits for infectious diseases like drug-resistant HIV and Lassa Fever, which is endemic in central and western Africa. But in early March, the startup shifted gears when COVID-19 cases started spreading quickly throughout Massachusetts, but the state lacked enough tests, said David Raiser, Aldatu’s CEO and co-founder.

Boston startups focused on speeding up or improving the hiring process for hourly workers are seeing a surge in usage as hundreds of cooks, restaurant servers and bartenders lost their jobs following the COVID-19 pandemic.

DataRobot, the Boston-based enterprise AI company, has significantly reduced its workforce amid economic uncertainty due to the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus. The company confirmed the layoffs but declined to answer questions about how many employees were laid off and in what departments, saying instead that the layoffs had

Blockchain analytics startup CoinMetrics has raised a $6 million Series A funding round led by returning investor Highland Capital Partners. The Series A also drew Fidelity, Coinbase, Digital Currency Group, Dragonfly Capital, and others as participants. The firm closed the round before mid-March, when global equity markets plunged significantly due to the coronavirus. [..] The

Potentially millions of students, from kindergarteners to college seniors, have transitioned entirely to online learning within the last two weeks. In Massachusetts alone, more than 20 higher ed institutions have decided to send their students home and finish the semester through online classes to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel

As COVID-19 testing capabilities have largely been limited to those showing symptoms such as fever or shortness of breath, many are discovering an alternate path to get input about whether they might be infected: fitness trackers. Will Ahmed, CEO of Boston-based fitness tracker maker Whoop, said that the company has already heard directly from “hundreds” of

With coronavirus pandemic spreading around the world, the U.S. government is asking all citizens to practice socila distancing forcing some people to stay in total isolation. Most impacted are the seniors who live in community homes. One startup is doing its fair share to help senior living communities across the US that are facing challenges related