Tootfinder

Campfire, an AI-powered ERP and accounting services provider, raised a $65M Series B co-led by Accel and Ribbit Capital, after raising a $35M Series A in June (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/ai-fintech-campfire-raise-…

Why Accel Led A Round For Fintech Startup Campfire For The Second Time In Under 4 Months
Campfire, a San Francisco-based AI-powered accounting startup, has raised $65 million in a Series B round just months after closing on its Series A.

New SQL Notebook: Home made font tracing
There are many tools outwhere to create fonts from bitmap images, be it handwritten fonts or fonts from old books. They all involve quite a lot of homework. Letters have to be written carefully on a grid, bounding boxes have to be defined.
I wondered if the process could be made a little bit more straightforward. I want just to scan a book´s page and the tool creates the font for me, identifying all letters.
https://www.belle-nuit.com/sql-notebook/index.html?url=../site/files/home-made-font-tracing.json

2/2 Reflection on #citizenship:
I do not treat the concept of “#democracy" lightly. I was born into the aftermath of centuries of totalitarian oppression that ended suddenly, leaving the nascent Ukrainian state of the late 90s and early 2000s floundering in the turbulent whirlpool of hopes and fears felt by millions of people who were finally allowed to ponder: how to build a free democratic state in the place of Soviet and imperial ruins?
I was taught the words "democracy", "citizen", "freedom", "voting", “liberty" (and more) by people who, less than two decades prior, weren't allowed to leave the borders of their country. I was told about self-determination by people whose political choices were ridiculed, punished, and eviscerated form most of their lives. The duty of governing ourselves felt to us ephemeral - a nice fantasy, akin to a fairytale or a utopia from fictional works.
And then I saw those same people fight with their bodies and souls once the previously unfathomable democracy was threatened. Protests in 2004, then again in 2014, then the unthinkable war against foreign invasion in 2022. Democracy no longer felt abstract or silly. It became as tangible as saying "I love you".
I write of Ukraine as I reflect on becoming a citizen of another country because the history and values of my adopted United States feel as real as the skin on my legs, the significance of its legacy lays as heavy as the weight of my waist-long hair, and the desire to uphold the freedoms of its Constitution burns my throat as harshly as dehydration after a long day in the sun.
People have asked me why I even want to join this country, when the present moment is shrouded in impenetrable darkness. And I answer: because I've felt the warmth of a newly lit fire of freedom breaking through shadows that for centuries looked like solid walls. I have seen kindness, and solidarity heal the fear and hate of oppression. I've seen liberty emerge from nothing but the human soul.
I am not a religious person, but I have faith. Faith in the ideals at the foundation of the American project. Faint but powerful recognition that "we the people" now includes me.
I love #America. And I hope to keep loving my home for the rest of my life.

Looking for something to do this evening in SF? Come learn about municipal social housing!
https://actionnetwork.org/events/municipal-social-housing-panel?source=mastodon

Municipal Social Housing: Learning from Seattle's Win
Two DSA SF backed ballot props in 2020 were meant to enable and fund social housing, but mayoral opposition has blocked the funds being spent for that purpose. Seattle's victory offers a lesson in how we might beat that blockage. In February, Seattle's House Our Neighbors passed a ballot proposition with dedicated funds for a social housing developer. The campaign won by 26 points over opposition from Seattle's mayor and most of their city council. Join us for a conversation with Seattle orga…

organizing this panel about social housing and how Seattle’s success can inspire SF to get around roadblocks. please come if you’re in SF! Friday evening
https://actionnetwork.org/events/municipal-social-housing-panel?source=mastodon

Municipal Social Housing: Learning from Seattle's Win
Two DSA SF backed ballot props in 2020 were meant to enable and fund social housing, but mayoral opposition has blocked the funds being spent for that purpose. Seattle's victory offers a lesson in how we might beat that blockage. In February, Seattle's House Our Neighbors passed a ballot proposition with dedicated funds for a social housing developer. The campaign won by 26 points over opposition from Seattle's mayor and most of their city council. Join us for a conversation with Seattle orga…

Dutch online grocery store Picnic raised €430M from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and others, after raising €355M in January 2024 (John Reynolds/Tech.eu)
https://tech.eu/2025/11/21/dutch-online-grocery-store-picnic-raises-430m/

Dutch online grocery store Picnic raises €430M
Dutch online grocery store Picnic has raised €430 million from existing investors and is ploughing much of the funding to grow its operations in Germany.Picnic's existing investors include German supermarket giant Edeka, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, Dutch investment firm Hoyberg and Amsterdam-headquartered investment firm NPM Capital.As well as bolstering its presence in Germany, where Picnic says it's the market leader, the funds will be used to expand into multiple unnamed m…

Tracking Electron, Proton, and Solvent Motion in Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer with Ultrafast X-rays
Abdullah Kahraman, Michael Sachs, Soumen Ghosh, Benjamin I. Poulter, Estefan\'ia Sucre-Rosales, Elizabeth S. Ryland, Douglas Garratt, Sumana L. Raj, Natalia Powers-Riggs, Subhradip Kundu, Christina Y. Hampton, David J. Hoffman, Giacomo Coslovich, Georgi L. Dakovski, Patrick L. Kramer, Matthieu Chollet, Roberto A. Mori, Tim B. van Driel, Sang-Jun Lee, Kristjan Kunnus, Amy A. Cordo…

Tracking Electron, Proton, and Solvent Motion in Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer with Ultrafast X-rays
Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) is foundational to catalysis, bioenergetics, and energy conversion, yet capturing and disentangling the coupled motions of electrons, protons, and solvent has remained a major experimental challenge. We combine femtosecond optical spectroscopy, site-specific ultrafast soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and time-resolved X-ray scattering with advanced calculations to disentangle the elementary steps of PCET in solution. Using a ruthenium polypyridyl model…