What’s Possible: 16th September 2022

We hope you enjoy this week's hand-picked selection of important and interesting stories from the frontiers of tech.

‍Podcast Startup Podimo Raises $58 Million in New Funding to Fuel Expansion

“Audio entertainment is rapidly becoming a substantial part of consumers’ time spent on entertainment and media. With Podimo’s unique local-first approach to creators, combined with a best-in-class app experience, we see their strategy and vision working, fast-tracking them to become a leader in the space.” (read)

Running 300kms in 3 days to help save takayna

takayna / Tarkine contains Australia’s largest temperate rainforest, rare species and some of the oldest aboriginal heritage in the world. This magnificent wild landscape remains under threat from mining, logging and other destructive activities.

Check out Dave Lennon’s journey on Fatmap and click the FOCUS ON MAP button to explore the journey in more detail! (link)

Dating app Smitten raises $10 million in Series A funding

Smitten is the most popular dating app in Iceland and the second most popular in Denmark. With over 200 million swipes so far, it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. A study has shown that Smitten has a post-match success rate of 60% as compared to Tinder’s 11%. (read)

Smitten features questionnaires and games you can play to get to know someone.

Is confidential computing the future of cybersecurity? Edgeless Systems is counting on it

With the hardware-based confidential computing technology, computer workloads are shielded from their environments, and data is encrypted even during processing — and all of this can be remotely verified. “Confidential computing lets you use the public cloud as if it was your private cloud” — Felix Schuster, CEO of emerging confidential company Edgeless Systems (read)

White House Unveils Strategy To Grow Trillion Dollar U.S. Bioeconomy

The U.S. bioeconomy is booming. Valued at nearly one trillion dollars and predicted to grow globally to over $30 trillion over the next two decades, bioproducts now include everything from the food that we eat to the vaccines we put in our arms. Plant-based burgers, recyclable bioplastics, concrete, clothing, and microbes for mining minerals are just a few of the latest bio-based products coming to market. (read)

White House Inks Strategy to Grow Trillion Dollar US Bioeconomy - DALL-E x John Cumbers

Interesting adjacencies

• Understanding MEV and how to use Flashbots (link)
• Phoebe Gardner, co-founder of portfolio company Bardee, on the ESG impact of Bardee’s technology (watch)
• Xavier Ekkel, Founder of our portfolio company prePo, on trading in pre-IPO companies & tokens (listen)
• Why are hard drive companies investing in DNA data storage? (link)
• ICYMI: The Merge goes live in historic upgrade for Ethereum (link)

Portfolio hiring

• Molecule is hiring a Product Manager that’s well-versed in web3 and excellent in product exploration and discovery, ideally Berlin-based (link)
• Meatable is hiring a Junior Application Technologist in Delft, South Holland (link)

If you'd like to see more of what we’re exploring at Possible Ventures, you can follow us on Twitter.

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