Europe’s Top VCs | All Hail Zoox’s Robotaxis | Christmas Shopping Deadlines

Plus: The Biggest Career Crashes Of 2020

Good morning.

The electoral college vote confirmed Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. We also take a closer look at Zoox’s newly unveiled robotaxis, and at the top 25 investors across Europe and Israel.

In The News Today

The 2020 presidential election has an official result: the final count is 306 for President-elect Joe Biden and 232 for incumbent President Donald Trump—even Russian President Vladimir Putin has now acknowledged the result.

The U.S. death count reached over 300,000 dead from coronavirus as the country launched its mass vaccination campaign, delivering the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Top Take-Aways

As more Republican lawmakers recognized Biden as president-elect, Congressman Paul Mitchell took a further step, renouncing his affiliation to the GOP to protest the party’s support for Trump’s efforts to overturn the election result.

A group of bipartisan lawmakers have released details for their sister proposals for a stimulus package, but the show of unity can’t hide the difficulties in agreeing on the stickiest issues.

California-based, Amazon-owned startup Zoox has finally unveiled the purpose-built automated robotaxi it has been promising since its founding, offering a glimpse into the future of cars in the process.

The pandemic illustrated widespread economic inequities—this is particularly evident when it comes to retirement, as some older workers are forced to choose between retiring without enough money or working for as long as their health can afford them to.

The European tech ecosystem saw fewer IPOs than the U.S., but venture capital is still flowing in. Forbes’ annual Midas List Europe showcases the continent’s top 25 investors. Added bonus: two list newcomers share how their portfolios weathered a turbulent year, and what their 2021 forecast.

The deadline for your online Christmas shopping is approaching—if it’s not passed already. A 40% increase in packages expected to ship between Thanksgiving and Christmas has forced retailers to move up their standard shipping deadlines to receive orders by Christmas Eve.

Norway’s sparsely-populated Arctic island of Bø i Vesterålen thought it devised a clever way to entice wealthy residents with tax cuts—but unplanned consequences brought the small municipality at the center of financial controversy.

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Several hundred thousand homes on sale across the U.S. are in states of disrepair, waiting for a buyer who will put in money with the hopes of flipping the house for a profit. Sundae, a two-year-old startup, just raised a $36 million Series B funding round with the promise of consolidating that historically fragmented landscape into a nationwide marketplace of flippable houses.

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