TechCrunch Startup News

Hummingbirds, a platform that connects local creators with brand campaigns in their area, raises $5.4M Nov 01, 2024

Hummingbirds is a female-founded startup that connects hyperlocal content creators with locally-based brands that reward them for sharing products with their small and highly engaged communities via social media. The company announced Wednesday its latest funding round of $5.4 million, bringing the total amount raised to $10 million.

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MealMe, the startup integrating food ordering tech into apps, picks up $8M Nov 01, 2024

MealMe, a unified API that embeds food and retail ordering into consumer apps and websites, announced on Thursday that it secured $8 million in Series A funding. The newly raised capital brings the total amount raised to $16 million. MealMe has undergone several changes since its launch in 2019. Initially,

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Gecko Materials wants to sell you the next Velcro Oct 31, 2024

A new startup setting out to combat the scourge of deepfakes and spoofed evidence in the age of AI is showing off its wares on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 this week.

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Luna wants to help young girls navigate their health and well-being Oct 31, 2024

Meet Luna, a health and well-being app for teen girls that is designed to help them navigate teenhood. The app lets teens ask questions about their health and wellness and get responses from experts. It also lets them track their periods, moods, and skin.

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Infraspeak raises $19.5M to bring collaboration to facilities management Oct 30, 2024

It might not be the sexiest of subjects, but facilities management is central to any business that has a physical premises — the bigger that footprint becomes, the more complex it gets.

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Emidat is building a tool to clean up construction by automating environmental reporting Oct 30, 2024

Fixing the climate crisis is a vast, world-sized puzzle. But one particularly large piece of this ginormous conundrum is construction and real estate — which collectively amount for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Enter Munich-based data startup Emidat, which has built a software platform for automating the generation of validated Environmental Product Declaration

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Read AI raises $50M to integrate its bot with Slack, email, and more Oct 29, 2024

There are plenty of startups now that have AI bots that will listen to your meetings, transcribe them, make notes, and create insights. That means companies in this area must differentiate themselves by offering additional feature sets and integrations.

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Vinted hits $5.4B valuation amid wave of secondary share sales in Europe Oct 29, 2024

Lithuania’s Vinted has secured a new valuation of €5 billion (around $5.4 billion at current exchange rates), after the second-hand fashion marketplace closed a secondary share sale worth €340 million ($367 million).

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General Catalyst raises $8B in fresh funds to back startups globally Oct 28, 2024

U.S. venture capital giant General Catalyst has announced a fresh $8 billion in funds as it looks to ramp up its investments in multi-sector early-stage startups globally, with a specific focus on the U.S., Europe, and India. The capital constitutes around $4.5 billion for its “core VC funds” which spans seed and growth equity funding,

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Screenable’s app turns any iPhone into a starter phone for kids Oct 28, 2024

A new app called Screenable will help parents introduce their children to technology by turning an iPhone or iPad into a starter phone. The app is designed to grow over time with a child, as it offers different modes for kids of different ages.

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Supply chain startup Interos lands new customers, cash Oct 25, 2024

Each year, supply chain disruptions cost the global economy trillions of dollars. In a recent McKinsey poll, nine in ten businesses said they had encountered logistics challenges over the past 12 months. Headwinds have only grown stronger as chaos reigns in key shipping corridors.

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Cash collection startup Upflow also wants to handle B2B payments Oct 25, 2024

Upflow, a French startup we’ve been covering for quite a while, originally focused on managing outstanding invoices. The company is now announcing a shift in its strategy to become a B2B payment platform with its own payment gateway to complement its accounts receivable automation solution.

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Interface.ai raises $30M to help banks field customer requests Oct 24, 2024

Interface.ai, a customer automation platform for banks and other financial institutions, today announced that it closed a $30 million funding round led by Avataar Venture Partners. $20 million of the round was equity, while the remaining $10 million was in the form of debt. It’s Interface’s first outside capital; the startup had been completely bootstrapped

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Cement startup Furno lands $20M grant to build low-carbon micro-kilns in Chicago Oct 24, 2024

Furno’s micro-kilns promise to reduce pollution and eliminate transportation costs.

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CrewAI uses third-party models to automate business tasks Oct 23, 2024

Back in 2022, João Moura was directing AI engineering efforts at Clearbit, a startup creating a unified hub for business intelligence tools. There, Moura was responsible for leading the development of AI integrations, as well as defining Clearbit’s AI product roadmap.

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Socket lands a fresh $40M to scan software for security flaws Oct 23, 2024

The software supply chain, which comprises the components and processes used to develop software, has become precarious. According to one recent survey, 88% of companies believe poor software supply chain security presents an “enterprise-wide risk” to their organizations.

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Shobizzy, a networking app for the TV industry, aims to open new doors for freelancers Oct 22, 2024

With the current unemployment crisis in Hollywood, many TV and film crew members are concerned about finding their next job. This is particularly the case for freelancers, who often face unstable work and irregular pay. Shobizzy is the latest professional networking app for the entertainment industry that aims to address this challenge.

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Uprise wants to help small businesses make better financial decisions Oct 22, 2024

Small business creation has been on the rise in the U.S. since the pandemic. There are a lot of tech tools designed to help these companies with things like payroll or setting up retirement benefits — but more tools doesn’t mean small businesses know how to use them to make smart decisions.

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Byju’s founder says his edtech startup, once worth $22B, is now ‘worth zero’ Oct 21, 2024

Byju Raveendran, the founder of the embattled edtech group Byju’s, acknowledged on Thursday afternoon that he made mistakes, mistimed the market, and that his startup, once valued at $22 billion, is now effectively worth “zero.”

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With $11.9 million in funding, Dottxt tells AI models how to answer Oct 21, 2024

As we’ve reported before, enterprise CIOs are taking generative AI slow. One reason for that is AI doesn’t fit into existing software engineering workflows, because it literally doesn’t speak the same language. For instance, LLMs (aka large language models) require a lot of cajoling to deliver valid JSON.

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How Paladin’s drones helped Asheville during Hurricane Helene Oct 18, 2024

When Hurricane Helene hit Asheville, North Carolina in September, the city’s police department reached out to public safety drone startup Paladin for help. The startup’s 30-member team jumped into action working nights and through the weekend to assist Asheville’s police department with locating people and dropping off supply.

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ODD taps $27M for diamond chips to clear radioactive debris at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Oct 18, 2024

Back in 2011, the world held its breath after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan suffered a failure of its cooling systems, in the wake of the country getting hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami.

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Support automation firm Capacity grows with new cash and acquisitions Oct 17, 2024

David Karandish has been busy. Capacity, his support automation company, was planning a $5 million “bridge round” to help the company reach the break-even point. But TVC Capital, Toloka.vc, and the venture’s other backers had something grander in mind.

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Storio is helping other businesses unlock more value from solar energy Oct 17, 2024

Meet Storio, a French startup that’s focused on providing smart energy storage for commercial and industrial customers. Founded in 2023, the startup raised a €5 million seed round earlier this year (around $5.5 million at current exchange rates) and has signed its first client. Storio believes solar panels have a bright future.

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Data center tech is exploding but adoption won’t be easy for startups Oct 16, 2024

The data center industry is expanding rapidly to keep up with the flywheel growth of AI. While these data centers are necessary AI infrastructure, they store an AI company’s compute, they are expensive to build, seemingly more so to run, and they are a huge energy suck.

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Table Space eyes $2.5B valuation in India IPO Oct 16, 2024

Table Space is targeting a valuation of $2.5 billion or higher for an India IPO planned planned for 2025.

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Peanut, a social network for women, adds a pregnancy tracking tool Oct 15, 2024

Peanut, a social networking app for women, is launching a new feature to help users track their pregnancies. The new Peanut Track tool leverages seven years of data from questions asked on the social network and uses AI to anticipate questions that women have during different stages of their pregnancy.

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This three-person robotics startup is working with designer Yves Béhar to bring humanoids home Oct 15, 2024

It’s hard to know where to focus when speaking to Christoph Kohstall. The contents of his packed Palo Alto garage compete for attention. To his immediate right stands a tower of electrical components, dotted with flashing lights. To his left is a workbench and the tops of machining tools.

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MiLaboratories gets $10M for a platform play to accelerate genomic research Oct 14, 2024

Advances in DNA sequencing and the vast amounts of genomic data being produced by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology have created a startup opportunity to build software for biologists so they can more easily analyze this big data and take the next leap.

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UK neobank Monzo hits $5.9B valuation with secondary market sale Oct 14, 2024

Monzo is now valued at $5.9 billion after the U.K.-based challenger bank announced a secondary market share sale to provide liquidity for its employees. The transaction saw existing investors such as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund (GIC) and StepStone Group procuring additional shares in the London-based fintech.

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Streamer Plex rolls out movie and TV show reviews Oct 11, 2024

Following its $40 million fundraise at the beginning of this year, streaming media company Plex announced on Wednesday it’s rolling out a new TV show and movie reviews feature, putting its app in more direct competition with other apps, like Letterboxd and TV Time.

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Health insurtech startup Qantev raises €30 million to outperform LLMs with small AI models Oct 11, 2024

Health and life insurance providers face a rising volume of claims due to chronic disease and aging populations, but their processes lack scalability. AI automation can help, but it takes more tailoring than for other insurance types.

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Zap Energy shows off its new fusion power prototype, Century Oct 10, 2024

After keeping Century under wraps for several months, the startup gave TechCrunch a peek under the hood.

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Alaska Airlines’ venture lab spins out its first startup: Odysee Oct 10, 2024

Odysee CEO Steve Casley sees dollar signs in data. Or more specifically, AI-powered software that can analyze reams of data to help commercial airlines get the most out of its complex flight schedules.

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Distributional raises $19M to automate AI model and app testing Oct 09, 2024

Distributional, an AI testing platform founded by Intel’s former GM of AI software, Scott Clark, has closed a $19 million Series A funding round led by Two Sigma Ventures.

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Revyze, a ‘TikTok for education’ startup, draws on Duolingo to add bite-sized learning too Oct 09, 2024

Middle and high schoolers are both the easiest and most difficult audience. If you’re developing a neat little video game, chances are they’re willing to download it right away. But if, like the team behind Revyze, you’re working on a learning app, good luck pitching them.

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Ollie scoops up health startup to launch a tool that analyzes dog poop Oct 08, 2024

The global pet food market has become fiercely competitive, with an estimated market share of $103.3 billion in 2023 and still growing. This growth has led many companies to target pet owners who are willing to invest in quality food to enhance their pets’ well-being and longevity.

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SoCreate wants to transform screenwriting software with AI imagery and community sharing tools Oct 08, 2024

Many screenwriters have embraced modern tools over traditional PDFs to craft their film or TV show pilots. SoCreate, the latest entrant in the screenwriting software arena, is challenging established players like Final Draft and Celtx with its fresh approach to storytelling.

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AirOps is an all-in-one platform for generating and managing AI-based marketing content Oct 07, 2024

To some degree, every business that has a presence on the web is in the content business — whether that’s for informing customers, finding new clients, or for SEO. That means managing the production of those texts and images, updating them, and potentially optimizing them for a search engine to index and rank.

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Voyage AI is building RAG tools to make AI hallucinate less Oct 07, 2024

AI tends to make things up. That’s unappealing to just about anyone who uses it on a regular basis, but especially to businesses, for which fallacious results could hurt the bottom line. Half of workers responding to a recent survey from Salesforce say they worry answers from their company’s generative AI-powered systems are inaccurate

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Spill, the Black-owned Twitter alternative, scores investment from Kerry Washington Oct 04, 2024

As the second anniversary of Spill rolls around, Spill has something else to celebrate: Emmy-winning actress Kerry Washington has made an investment in his app.

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Pallet uses AI to bring logistics into the 21st century Oct 04, 2024

Transportation and warehousing are multi-trillion-dollar industries, but the technologies that power them are often outdated, inefficient and siloed. Pallet, which is announcing an $18 million Series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures today, has built an all-in-one transportation and warehouse management system that uses AI to help these businesses streamline their operations

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Numa raises $32M to bring AI and automation to car dealerships Oct 03, 2024

Numa, a startup developing AI-powered automation tech for car dealerships, has raised fresh capital in a Series B round.

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Eon emerges from stealth with $127M to bring a fresh approach to back up cloud infrastructure Oct 03, 2024

A team of founders who sold their last company to Amazon to build a new business within AWS is setting out to reinvent the tricky business of backing up an organization’s cloud infrastructure. Today, Eon — as their new startup is called — is coming out of stealth with a product, a set of customers, and more.

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Beta Technologies unveils first passenger carrying electric aircraft Oct 02, 2024

Beta Technologies unveiled Monday the next electric aircraft in its lineup — a passenger-carrying version of its ALIA vertical takeoff and landing and fixed-wing vehicles. Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles don’t rely on a runway, whereas fixed-wing aircraft do.

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.Airship wants to build better sales tools for HVAC contractors Oct 02, 2024

The HVAC industry is going through a transformation. The old guard of tradespeople are on the cusp of retiring while private equity firms are consolidating the industry. Airship is building a software solution for HVAC’s next chapter.

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Podcasting startup Podeo gets $5.4M to go beyond the Arab world Oct 01, 2024

Podcast listeners crossed half a billion people at the end of last year as listenership maintained steady growth. With countries in the Arab world having some of the most engaged listeners, a podcasting startup out of Dubai is doubling down on the opportunity

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HungryPanda, a food ordering app for the Asian diaspora, picks up $55M Oct 01, 2024

Apps catering to the Chinese and wider Asian diaspora, especially urban consumers focused on food, can be big business. Now, HungryPanda, one of the trailblazing startups in that market is announcing more funding. The food ordering and delivery app, founded in London and aimed squarely at Chinese and other Asian consumers living outside their home.

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Why Index Ventures is bulking up its investment team in NYC Sep 30, 2024

While online discourse would make it seem that venture has retreated to the Bay Area, with San Francisco being the most important place to build a startup, Index Ventures is looking to bulk up its New York-based investing team.

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Indian game streaming startup Loco sells majority stake to Redwood Sep 30, 2024

UAE-based Redwood has acquired a majority stake in the game streaming platform Loco as the Indian firm looks to expand focus to international markets, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed. Redwood, a newly-formed investment firm, has signed a $65 million deal with Loco, an investment that also gives full exit to all existing Loco backers

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Prepared, which wants to ‘revolutionize’ emergency 911 calls, raises $27M Sep 27, 2024

A company that claims its tech can “revolutionize” emergency calls has raised $27 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company, Prepared, enables 911 dispatchers to get a caller’s real-time GPS location if their phone supports it.

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Dinii, a cloud-based restaurant management platform, raises $45M Series B Sep 27, 2024

Japan has always been a strong market for bringing technology into the experience of consuming food, and now one of the startups leading on this idea is attracting investors from across the ocean.

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WhatFix raises a whopping $125M for its in-app user guides Sep 26, 2024

Digital transformation — upgrading a company’s legacy apps and processes with new tech — has long been a buzzy and lucrative business. But the pandemic supercharged the market. Covid pandemic lockdowns and the widespread move to work-from-home spurred brands relying on old technology to modernize their organizations.

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Radian Aerospace completes ground tests of prototype space plane Sep 26, 2024

Radian Aerospace has moved one step closer to achieving the “holy grail” of spaceflight: a reusable space plane that can take-off from an airfield and land on a runway like a conventional airplane. The startup just announced completion of a series of ground tests in Abu Dhabi earlier this summer.

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Fintech Mesa promises 1% cash back on mortgages, up to 3x on other home needs Sep 25, 2024

Mortgage fintech Mesa has emerged from stealth on Tuesday with $9.2 million in seed capital and a novel idea for homeowners. It’s offering cash back and rewards on all spending done on the home, including the mortgage itself.

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Torq, which automates cybersecurity workflows, raises $70M in new capital Sep 25, 2024

As the volume of cyberattacks grows, there’s increasing interest from the corporate sector in tech to help automate responses to breaches. Per a 2023 survey from analytics firm Devo, 80% of security leaders expected expanded investments in security automation technology this year; most cited the tech’s potential to support cyber threat mitigation.

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Jump raises $12M to help freelancers get benefits just like employees Sep 24, 2024

Jump offers full-time contracts to freelancers looking for some stability and the benefits involved with a full-time job.

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David Energy is going up against Goliath energy incumbents Sep 24, 2024

James McGinniss has been obsessed with decarbonization and the energy grid since he was a high schooler over a decade ago. Now, his startup David Energy has a lofty goal: getting the energy grid to run entirely on clean energy in the next 10 years.

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FTC report on predatory social media data hoarding hints at future regulations Sep 23, 2024

A new FTC report on how social media and streaming sites collect and monetize their hoards of user data doesn’t really feature a lot of surprises for anyone who’s followed the space

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Health insurance startup Alan reaches $4.5B valuation with new $193M funding round Sep 23, 2024

Belfius is leading Alan’s Series F funding round of €173 million (around $193 million at current exchange rates).

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Tidal Metals sees seawater as the solution to a critical mineral shortage Sep 20, 2024

The startup, previously known as GreenBlu, was working on desalination when it realized there was more value in the minerals that were left behind.

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Brightband sees a bright (and open-source) future for AI-powered weather forecasting Sep 20, 2024

With an explosion of weather and climate data that the last generation of tools can’t handle, is AI the future of forecasting? Research certainly suggests so, and a newly funded startup called Brightband is taking a shot at turning machine learning forecast models into both a business and open source standard.

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Nurture wants to teach kids important life skills through interactive gameplay and entertainment Sep 19, 2024

Parents understand the challenge of keeping young kids engaged in online learning. Nurture is a new app designed for children aged 4 to 7 that features interactive content and games to capture their interest. The company’s mission is to equip children with critical life skills such as socializing, basic financial understanding, mindfulness, fitness, nutrition,

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Neuralink’s ‘breakthrough device’ clearance from FDA does not mean they have cured blindness Sep 19, 2024

Neuralink, the Elon Musk-owned brain-computer interface company, has received “breakthrough device” clearance from the FDA. But this does not mean they have developed a cure for blindness, whatever Musk might say.

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Quick-commerce startup Flink raises another $150M at a valuation of nearly $1B Sep 18, 2024

Flink, a quick-commerce startup out of Berlin that was an acquisition target of Gorillas, Getir, Amazon, and Gopuff, is spelling out how it plans to go forth on its own. TechCrunch has exclusively learned that the company has raised $150 million, which it will use to double down on business in Germany and the Netherlands

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Greenlite, founded by an ex-Gopuff exec, automates construction permitting Sep 18, 2024

Construction permitting often involves drafting lengthy applications, leading to unpredictable timelines for developers and businesses. There are tens of thousands of jurisdictions — each with their own different forms and application processes for building permits. Ben Allen knows a thing or two about permitting.

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AI coding assistant Supermaven raises cash from OpenAI and Perplexity co-founders Sep 17, 2024

Supermaven, an AI coding assistant, has raised $12 million in a funding round that had participation from OpenAI and Perplexity co-founders.

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Life360’s Tile introduces its first new Bluetooth trackers since its acquisition Sep 17, 2024

It’s been three years since Life360’s $205 million acquisition of AirTag competitor Tile. The company announced Monday its new lineup of lost-item Bluetooth trackers, featuring a sleeker redesign in new colors—aqua blue, green, navy blue, and pink

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OffDeal wants to help small businesses find big exits with AI agents Sep 16, 2024

Small businesses are the unsung heroes of the American economy, employing nearly half of America’s workforce and making up 44% of the country’s GDP.

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Humanz brings its influencer marketing platform to the U.S. Sep 16, 2024

Humanz, a marketing platform for content creators and brands, has entered the U.S. market, the company announced on Thursday. Having launched in Israel in 2017, Humanz has gained strong traction in global markets, including Europe, Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East.

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Nuro pivots to license self-driving tech to carmakers, mobility companies Sep 13, 2024

After multiple rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, Nuro is pivoting its business strategy to focus more on the startup’s core autonomous driving technology instead of owning and operating a fleet of low-speed, on-road delivery bots

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Tune.FM wants to take on Spotify by using crypto to pay artists up to 100x more per stream Sep 13, 2024

Tune.FM is a decentralized music streaming service where users pay for each song they stream using Tune.FM's crypto token JAM.

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Paymob, started by three college friends, lands another $22 million and is profitable in Egypt Sep 12, 2024

Paymob has evolved into an omnichannel gateway offering over 50 methods for offline and online payments to more than 350,000+ merchants.

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Atomico backs Tem to help businesses buy renewable energy directly from sources Sep 12, 2024

Tem wants to do for utilities what neobanks have done for the financial sector: disrupt an industry using tech, streamline it, and cut out the middlemen.

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Qualifyze swallows $54M to improve pharmaceutical supply chains Sep 11, 2024

In the world of pharmaceuticals, companies aim to operate under GMP guidelines — a set of production and manufacturing measures to assure standards for medicinal products. But too often, the reality is anything but that. “Officially, GMP stands for ‘Good Manufacturing Practices,’” said Dr. David Schneider, the founder and CEO of Qualifyze.

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Neurode wants to treat and track ADHD symptoms through a wearable headband Sep 11, 2024

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects more than 366 million adults globally, according to a 2020 study, but beyond medicating with stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin, there are few alternatives for people who suffer from the disorder. Therapy, education, and lifestyle changes are usually also advised, but those avenues can prove difficult as well.

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Sunamp’s thermal battery uses a chemical found in salt-and-vinegar potato chips Sep 10, 2024

The startup has devised a durable way to store solar power as heat that can then be used for household heating or hot water.

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The coolest startup in the Bay Area is a baseball team called the Oakland Ballers Sep 10, 2024

This year, the B’s made their debut in the Pioneer League, a professional baseball organization that’s partnered with the MLB, but unlike the minor leagues, it’s not tied to any existing MLB teams.

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All Hands AI raises $5M to build open source agents for developers Sep 09, 2024

As with many open source startups, All Hands AI expects to monetize its service by offering paid, closed-source enterprise features.

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Driverless car-sharing startup Vay steers toward B2B services Sep 09, 2024

The new business-to-business division is a bet on what co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe thinks is the future of mobility.

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Reonic raises €13 million to help small installers of green tech like heat pumps and solar panels Sep 06, 2024

European regulators are pushing hard for greener energy. The REPowerEU plan calls for 10 million additional heat pumps to be added by 2027, and solar panels are also on the rise. But most installations are done by small businesses that could be more productive with better work processes.

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As remote working keeps rolling, Oyster raises $59M Series D at $1.2B valuation Sep 06, 2024

No one is putting the remote working genie back in the bottle. Which is good news for Oyster, a payroll and HR platform that specializes in distributed workforces – or “global employment” as its marketing paints it

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Dutch clean energy investor SET Ventures lands new €200 million fund, which will go toward digital tech Sep 05, 2024

New climate tech VC firms have emerged in recent years, but existing ones are also raising larger funds. Founded in 2007, Dutch firm SET Ventures is one of the latter.

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You.com ‘refocuses’ from AI search to deeper productivity agents with new $50M round Sep 05, 2024

If you build an AI search product, you compete with Google. But Google has a lot easier time answering queries with a single, simple answer, such as “how many is a dozen?” than it does answering complex questions like “what influence did Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ have on Enlightenment ideals?”x

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‘Hospital at home’ startup Doccla raises $46 million for its European expansion Sep 04, 2024

Hospitals around the world regularly face bed shortages — an issue that can get exacerbated to breaking point when a health scare or other large-scale disaster occurs. A startup called Doccla is bringing technology to bear address the issue: it’s building “virtual bed” tech to help doctors remotely manage patients who have either been discharged or not.

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Laptop-leasing startup Fleet wants to become the IT companion for small companies Sep 04, 2024

Fleet is launching several software services on top of its hardware-as-a-service proposition, from device management to cybersecurity and insurance.

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Generative AI coding startup Magic lands $320M investment from Eric Schmidt, Atlassian and others Sep 03, 2024

Magic, an AI startup developing models to generate code and automate a range of software development tasks, says that it’s raised a large tranche of cash from investors including ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt. In a blog post this morning,

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‘Emotion AI’ may be the next trend for business software, and that could be problematic Sep 03, 2024

As businesses experiment with embedding AI everywhere, one area starting to gain more attention is Emotion AI.

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Atlassian acquires Rewatch as it gets into AI meeting bots Sep 02, 2024

Atlassian plans to integrate Rewatch into its recently launched Rovo AI platform so that transcripts become searchable within the overall business context.

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The guy who sued NAR over real estate fees has co-founded a startup Sep 02, 2024

One of the people who successfully sued the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to change real estate commissions has co-founded a new real estate startup. It all began in 2017 when Josh Sitzer and his wife listed their home for sale in Kansas City.

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Bluesky adds ‘anti-toxicity’ tools and aims to integrate ‘a Community Notes-like’ feature in the future Aug 30, 2024

Bluesky on Wednesday introduced the ability to hide replies, as well as a way to detach your original post from someone's quote post.

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Fluid Truck’s board ousted its sibling co-founders amid allegations of mismanaging funds Aug 30, 2024

Fluid Truck, a startup that was founded to disrupt the commercial vehicle rental industry, has ousted its sibling co-founders – CEO James Eberhard and chief legal counsel Jenifer Snyder – according to sources familiar with the matter.

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Planera raises $13.5M to help solve the gnarly problem of scheduling for construction contractors Aug 29, 2024

Planera, scheduling and planning software for commercial construction projects, has raised $13.5 million to expand its reach and help general contractors with more features.

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Supio brings generative AI to personal injury cases Aug 29, 2024

Supio uses generative AI to automate bulk data collection and aggregation for legal teams. It emerged from stealth Tuesday with a $25 million investment.

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Food delivery is seeing more consolidation: GrubMarket snaps up FreshGoGo Aug 28, 2024

GrubMarket, the $3.6 billion food delivery and supply chain startup backed by Tiger Global, BlackRock and nearly 100 other investors, has snapped up another food delivery startup on its consolidation march: It is acquiring FreshGoGo, a New York-based, B2C platform selling Asian groceries and ready-made dishes.

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Piramidal’s foundation model for brainwaves could supercharge EEGs Aug 28, 2024

AI models are being applied to every dataset under the sun, but are inconsistent in their outcomes. This is as true in the medical world as anywhere else, but a startup called Piramidal believes it has a sure thing with a foundational model for analyzing brain scan data.

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The founder building a wealth-management product her grandmother would have loved Aug 27, 2024

Mical Jeanlys-White built WealthMore out of frustration. She spent years on Wall Street, building products at American Express and serving as a managing director at JPMorgan Chase. She realized the finance industry still had a long way to go when it came to helping consumers build and understand wealth.

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Travly lets travelers submit videos for a chance to earn a 5% commission from hotel bookings Aug 27, 2024

Travly is a new social-first discovery and hotel booking platform designed to cater to the growing number of travelers who rely on short-form video content for trip ideas.

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Tingit is building a marketplace for ‘zero-effort’ repairs, starting with fashion Aug 26, 2024

Tingit, a startup out of Lithuania, wants to help people restore their used clothing to their former glory with its newly launched repairs marketplace.

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Openmart wants to make it easier for enterprises to sell to local businesses Aug 23, 2024

In 2020, Kathryn Wu launched a side hustle while she was working as a product engineer at Pinterest. Wu started a milk tea company, Ohtea, with the hopes of connecting with local grocery stores and gift shops to get them to carry the tea.

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Dropbox acquires Index Ventures-backed AI scheduling tool Reclaim.ai Aug 23, 2024

Dropbox has acquired AI-powered scheduling tool Reclaim.ai, which counts Calendly and Index Ventures among its backers. The development was revealed in a blog post on Reclaim.ai’s website Tuesday. Dropbox hasn’t disclosed the terms of the deal.

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The Rounds scoops up $24M to bring its ‘household restocking’ delivery service to more markets Aug 22, 2024

The Rounds, the startup that delivers recurring grocery and household essentials in reusable packaging, announced on Monday its $24 million Series B funding round. The new capital will go toward product development, hiring, and expanding the service to additional markets. Alongside the funding announcement, The Rounds introduced new features for customers.

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SleekFlow snaps up $7M to tap the conversational AI opportunity across Asia Aug 22, 2024

SleekFlow, a Singapore- and Hong Kong-headquartered social commerce platform that has built a conversational AI suite for customer engagement targeted to Asian markets, said Wednesday it had secured a further $7 million in funding. The money will be used to continue developing its AI, as well as penetrate deeper into Southeast Asia.

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Beyond Math’s ‘digital wind tunnel’ puts a physics-based AI simulation to work on F1 cars Aug 21, 2024

Simulating the real world is a tremendously complex problem if you want to do it at any useful level of fidelity. Traditional techniques are holding back design teams at vehicle and aerospace companies, but Beyond Math is putting AI on the task with a new way of simulating the world that could save them days.

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Defcon AI closes $44M seed round to solve a problem of ‘maximum complexity’: Military logistics Aug 21, 2024

The U.S. Department of Defense is a mammoth organization. It not only employs millions of service members and hundreds of thousands of civilian employees, but also has the world’s largest military budget that’s used to buy and maintain more equipment than can likely fit into a single paragraph.

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Procreate takes a stand against generative AI, vows to never incorporate the tech into its products Aug 20, 2024

Popular iPad design app Procreate is coming out against generative AI, and has vowed never to introduce generative AI features into its products. The company said on its website that although machine learning is a “compelling technology with a lot of merit,” the current path that generative AI is on is wrong for its platform.

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Keychain aims to unlock a new approach to manufacturing consumer goods Aug 20, 2024

Brands can use Keychain to look up different products and see who actually manufactures them.

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Keychain aims to unlock a new approach to manufacturing consumer goods Aug 19, 2024

Brands can use Keychain to look up different products and see who actually manufactures them.

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AI social media vetting startup Ferretly secures $2.5M, launches election personnel screening tool Aug 19, 2024

An AI social media vetting startup Ferretly has raised $2.5 million in seed funding and is launching a new platform designed to screen election personnel. Founded in 2019, Ferretly leverages AI to scan social media and publicly available online data to uncover potential risks and behaviors that traditional background checks may overlook.

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Stoke Space’s initial launch plans at Cape Canaveral take shape Aug 16, 2024

Stoke Space is nothing if not ambitious. The five-year-old launch startup has generated a lot of hype due to its bold plans to develop the first fully reusable rocket, with both the booster and second stage vertically returning to Earth.

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CodeRabbit raises $16M to bring AI to code reviews Aug 16, 2024

Code reviews — peer reviews of code that help devs improve code quality — are time-consuming. According to one source, 50% of companies spend two to five hours a week on them. Without enough people, code reviews can be overwhelming and take devs away from other important work.

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Move over SEO, Profound is helping brands with AI search optimization Aug 15, 2024

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been top of mind for brands for more than a decade to ensure their websites and products capture as many eyeballs as possible by ranking high up on search results pages. But search is changing, and as consumers increasingly turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude

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EliseAI lands $75M for chatbots that help property managers deal with renters Aug 15, 2024

EliseAI employs an army of chatbots to text with, email, and respond to calls from renters about things such as apartment tours, maintenance requests, lease renewals and delinquencies.

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.ArborXR secures $12M to boost its management platform for AR and VR devices Aug 14, 2024

ArborXR, a startup that helps companies remotely manage AR and VR devices, believed that enterprise customers would be the primary targets for AR and VR devices. Now, that bet is paying off.

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PayZen secures $23M Series B, $200M debt facility to grow its “care now, pay later” product Aug 14, 2024

PayZen aims to make healthcare more affordable by enabling patients to pay their bills in interest and fee-free instalments over time.

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Ex-Clubhouse employees take another swing at a social networking startup Aug 13, 2024

The ex-Clubhouse, Netflix employees raised $1.65M for an app that combines social media, networking, and dating.

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Bandana lands new investment to help hourly wage workers find good jobs Aug 13, 2024

Most startups are looking to solve a problem inside a business, but Bandana, a New York City-based startup has a different goal. It wants to help people at the lower end of the wage scale find better jobs with higher wages and good benefits, all while being closer to home to reduce commuting time

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Archer to set up air taxi network in LA by 2026 ahead of World Cup Aug 12, 2024

Los Angeles is notorious for its back-to-back traffic. Three events that promise to bring in millions of spectators from around the world — the 2026 World Cup, the Super Bowl in 2027, and the 2028 Olympics — have LA officials searching for a range of new mobility solutions to address its congestion problems.

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Humidity sucks. Transaera has a new way to deal with it Aug 12, 2024

The startup's core technology is a proprietary material that absorbs moisture from the air, allowing air conditioning to cool buildings more efficiently.

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Cocoon is transforming steel production runoff into a greener cement alternative Aug 09, 2024

Slag is the molten runoff created while producing steel in a traditional blast furnace. The material has been prized as greener cement alternative for creating concrete, the Earth’s most abundant human-made material. The runoff is facing supply chain issues, however, as the steel industry looks to greener methods of production.

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Anduril raises $1.5B at a $14B valuation Aug 09, 2024

The Palmer Luckey-founded defense startup wants to become a serious rival to longstanding kingpins, and has been clocking some big wins.

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Fintech Payoneer is buying 5-year-old global payroll startup Skuad for $61M in cash Aug 08, 2024

New York-based fintech Payoneer has acquired Skuad, a Singapore-based global HR and payroll startup, for $61 million in cash, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Payoneer said it could also pay up to another $10 million, contingent on if Skuad meets various performance goals within the first 18 months of the acquisition.

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Database startup Neon nabs a Microsoft investment Aug 08, 2024

In a sign that big tech companies are ready and willing to shell out cash for database tech, Neon, a startup building an open source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres, on Wednesday announced that Microsoft’s venture arm M12 led a $25 million strategic investment in its business.

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H3X scales up its electric aerospace ambitions with $20M in new funding Aug 07, 2024

Many industries that rely on legacy energy sources are aiming to electrify or at least streamline their operations, but for countless use cases the tech just isn’t there. H3X is changing the game with electric motors so compact and efficient that the aerospace and marine world — not to mention investors — are taking notice.

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Placer.ai boosts valuation to $1.5B after quietly raising another $75M Aug 07, 2024

A startup developing AI market research based on location data, and backed by a who's who, has quietly raised, TechCrunch has learned.

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From golf to hunting, a new crop of startups want to make these experiences even better Aug 06, 2024

COVID-19 pushed people to take up outdoor activities. Now, startups are helping companies and consumers keep up with demand.

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Trade My Spin is building a business around used Peloton equipment Aug 06, 2024

Trade My Spin has pieced together a logistics network capable of offering same or next day delivery in most major cities in the continental U.S.

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Google Cloud now has a dedicated cluster of Nvidia GPUs for Y Combinator startups Aug 05, 2024

Google Cloud is giving Y Combinator startups access to a dedicated, subsidized cluster of Nvidia graphics processing units and Google tensor processing units to build AI models. It’s part of Google Cloud’s effort to cozy up with promising early-stage AI startups, in hopes some of them will evolve into massive, compute-hungry business.

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Self-driving truck startup Aurora Innovation to sell up to $420M in shares ahead of commercial launch Aug 05, 2024

Self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation is looking to raise hundreds of millions in additional capital as it races towards a driverless commercial launch by the end of 2024. Aurora, which went public in 2021 through a special purpose acquisition merger, is pursuing a driver-as-a-service model, wherein carriers purchase trucks with the Aurora Driver tech on

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Indian startups Ola Electric, FirstCry gut valuations ahead of IPOs Aug 02, 2024

Two large Indian startups, Ola Electric and FirstCry, are set to test investor appetite with their public listings this month, but both have had to price their shares below their previous valuations as they come to terms with new market realities.

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Sybill raises $11M for its AI assistant that helps salespeople reduce administrative burden Aug 02, 2024

Sybill, a startup that has built an AI assistant specifically for sales reps, has raised $11 million in a Series A round led by Greycroft.

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Date Like Goblins, a new dating platform, allows users to virtually date and play video games Aug 01, 2024

Date Like Goblins is geared toward the gaming community and allows users to connect through voice chat while playing video games.

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Applied Carbon’s farm robot turns plant waste into biochar to capture CO2 Aug 01, 2024

The startup has raised $21.5 million to build more of its machines and deploy them throughout the U.S.

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Lime is piloting two new e-bikes to attract more women and older riders Jul 31, 2024

Shared micromobility giant Lime is piloting two new vehicles designed to appeal to women and older folks who might appreciate a lower step-through frame, smaller wheels and an upgrade from pedal-assist. Lime has experimented with several new form factors over the years, something it can do because it designs and engineers its vehicles in-house.

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Autonomous delivery startup Nuro is gearing up for a comeback Jul 31, 2024

The California Department of Motor Vehicles this week granted Nuro approval to test its third-generation R3 autonomous delivery vehicle in four Bay Area cities, giving the AV startup a positive boost after facing some setbacks and financial struggles.

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Alphabet X spinoff Skip partners with Arc’teryx to bring ‘everyday’ exoskeleton to market Jul 30, 2024

Skip exited stealth this week to announce a partnership with outdoor clothing specialist Arc’teryx. The deal is the first to bring Skip’s MO/GO technology to market: “powered pants” that utilize a soft exoskeleton technology, developed in-house at Alphabet’s X Labs moonshot factory. MO/GO, short for “mountain goat,” is a hybrid soft/rigid exoskeleton system.

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Stripe acquires payment processing startup Lemon Squeezy Jul 29, 2024

Payments giant Stripe has acquired a four-year-old competitor, Lemon Squeezy, the latter company announced Friday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. As a self-proclaimed “merchant of record,” Lemon Squeezy calculates and pays global sales tax for digital products, handling legal processing and fees in every country. It primarily serves SaaS and software businesses.

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Energy tech startup Greenely grabs €8M to reach more households and support Europe’s energy transition Jul 29, 2024

The energy transition is a marathon, not a sprint. But opportunities for acceleration are growing. Swedish startup Greenely* has just spotted one. It’s closing an €8 million Series A funding round to expand its energy management platform into neighbouring Nordic countries (so around $8.7M at current exchange rates).

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Intron Health gets backing for its speech recognition tool that recognizes African accents Jul 26, 2024

Voice recognition is getting integrated in nearly all facets of modern living, but there remains a big gap: speakers of minority languages, and those with thick accents or speech disorders like stuttering are typically less able to use speech recognition tools that control applications, transcribe or automate tasks, among other functions.

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Kodiak Robotics is taking self-driving trucks off road to reach profitability faster Jul 26, 2024

Don Burnette, CEO and co-founder of self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics, had an “a-ha” moment when the company started working with the U.S. Department of Defense. Kodiak’s mission has always been to pursue long-haul autonomous trucking, but two years ago, the startup won a $50 million contract from the DoD to help the Army automate

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Micropep taps tiny proteins to make pesticides safer Jul 25, 2024

Farmers have got to do something about pests. But nobody really likes the idea of using more chemical pesticides. Thomas Laurent’s company, Micropep, thinks the answer might already be in the plants themselves. Micropep is exploring how naturally occurring compounds, known as micropeptides, might work as an entirely new class of pesticides.

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QA Wolf secures $36M to grow its app QA-testing suite Jul 25, 2024

Quality assurance in the app development world is a necessary, but often resource-draining, undertaking. According to Statista, 23% of companies’ annual IT budgets are allocated to in-house or third-party contracted QA and testing. The stakes are high. In a survey by QA software-testing company QualiTest Group, 88% of app users said that they’d abandon apps.

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Linx emerges from stealth with $33M to lock down the new security perimeter: Identity Jul 24, 2024

Identity management is one of the most common fulcrums around which security breaches have pivoted in the last several years. One of the main reasons it has become the gift that keeps on giving to malicious hackers is that it’s a nightmare for organizations to track. A security startup founded in Tel Aviv called Linx

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Farmblox puts the control into farmers’ hands with its AI-powered sensor-reading platform Jul 24, 2024

Nathan Rosenberg, the founder of farm automation platform Farmblox, said if there is one thing to know about trying to sell technology to farmers, it’s that you can’t tell them what to do.

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Without this company’s technology, future fusion power plants might never light up Jul 23, 2024

Marathon Fusion emerges from stealth with a plan to help fusion power plants extract tritium, a necessary fuel.

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Unpacking how Alphabet’s rumored Wiz acquisition could affect VC Jul 23, 2024

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. TechCrunch’s sources heard similar and added that deal discussions could last into next week. If this deal does end up getting done, it would be Alphabet’s largest acquisition yet.

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PE firm PartnerOne paid $28M for HeadSpin, a fraction of its $1.1B valuation set by ICONIQ and Dell Technologies Capital Jul 22, 2024

Canadian private equity firm PartnerOne paid $28.2 million for HeadSpin, a mobile app testing startup whose founder has been sentenced for fraud earlier this year, according to documents viewed by TechCrunch. The fire sale was reported by TechCrunch last week.

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Fintech startup Coast lands $40M just 4 months after its last $25M raise Jul 22, 2024

Coast, a startup that describes itself as “a financial services platform for the future of transportation,” has raised $40 million in Series B funding — just four months after announcing a $25 million round, the startup has told TechCrunch exclusively. Back-to-back fundraises were common prior to and during the wild investment days of 2021.

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WHAM! Nuclear fusion experiment hits new record for magnet strength Jul 19, 2024

Strong magnets are essential for the type of fusion power being pursued by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and a number of other startups.

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Deel acquires Hofy to build its own IT device management service Jul 19, 2024

Both of Hofy's co-founders, Sami Bouremoum and Michael Ginzo, along with the rest of the startup's leadership team and 120 employees, are joining Deel to build Deel IT.

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A company building Wordle for chess raises money from a16z Speedrun, Mark Pincus and Eric Wu Jul 19, 2024

Echo Chunk, a company that is building Wordle-styled daily chess puzzle game Echo Chess, has raised $1.4 million in pre-seed from a16z Speedrun (Andreessen Horowitz’s early stage games accelerator), founder of Zyanga Mark Pincus, South Park Commons (SPC), Opendoor founder and CEO Eric Wu and Stef Corazza, the Head of Generative AI at Roblox

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Kandji raises another $100M for Apple device management as valuation rises to $850M Jul 18, 2024

At a time when many startups have struggled to raise money and keep their heads above water, Kandji, an Apple device management platform, has been an exception.

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Astor’s ‘community’ approach to financial advice aims to help women feel more confident about investing Jul 18, 2024

Astor is a free personal finance platform for women that merges community and investing in an approachable way, came to be.

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Toddle wants to ‘change how we build software’ with a collaborative visual web app builder Jul 17, 2024

Danish startup Toddle has launched a no-code web app builder that's designed as a full-featured alternative to Javascript frameworks.

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Adaptive builds automation tools to speed up construction payments Jul 17, 2024

Adaptive is a platform that provides tools designed to simplify payments and accounting for general construction contractors.

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How VanMoof’s new owners plan to win over its old customers Jul 16, 2024

When VanMoof declared bankruptcy last year, it left around 5,000 customers who had pre-ordered e-bikes in the lurch. Now VanMoof is up and running under new management, and the company’s current owners are courting those same customers by offering them a €1,000 discount off a new bike.

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Why Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ superconducting magnet sale is more than it seems Jul 16, 2024

Fusion power may still be a few years away, but one startup is laying the groundwork for what it hopes will become a bustling sector of the economy.

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A startup set out to fight climate change — it did it by helping plumbers Jul 15, 2024

The founders of HERO Software didn’t start out to help small tradespeople in construction with a platform. They started out to fight the climate crisis. But in doing so, they stumbled on a way to help the whole business. Now, the company has closed a €40 million Series B financing round, and plans to expand.

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Beeble AI raises $4.75M to launch a virtual production platform for indie filmmakers Jul 12, 2024

Visual effects have emerged as essential in filmmaking and have transformed storytelling and creativity in the film industry with its diverse digital techniques. However, the high cost of VFX tools often leaves independent filmmakers and content creators working with modest budgets struggling to compete with larger productions

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Joby Aviation is betting on hydrogen-electric aircraft for regional flight Jul 12, 2024

Joby Aviation is still a year away from commercially launching its electric air taxi designed for urban environments, but the startup is already looking towards its next chapter: Intercity flight, powered by hydrogen. To get the conversation started with regulators and demonstrate hydrogen’s capabilities, Joby told TechCrunch that it completed a 523-mile test flight.

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Iceland is dodging the VC doldrums as Frumtak Ventures lands $87 million for its fourth fund Jul 11, 2024

Iceland’s startup scene is punching above its weight. That’s perhaps in part because it kept the 2021 hype in check, but mostly because its tech ecosystem is coming of age. Iceland attracted the most venture capital per capita of all Nordic countries in 2023, but that stat is somewhat skewed by its relatively small population.

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Deep tech startups with very technical CEOs raise larger rounds, research finds Jul 11, 2024

SaaS founders trying to figure out what it takes to raise their next round can refer to Point Nine’s famous yearly SaaS Funding Napkin. (The term refers to “back of the napkin” plans or calculations.) Now, European hardware deep tech teams have a similar resource from First Momentum, a pre-seed fund investing in technical B2B

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Nala to use $40M Series A to build B2B payments platform, scale remittance services Jul 10, 2024

Nala, a remittance startup that is now widening its portfolio through a new B2B payments platform, has raised $40 million equity in a rare deal that becomes one of the largest Series A transactions in Africa.

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Byway is using AI to help travelers slow down and take the scenic route Jul 10, 2024

Solo founder Cat Jones took the plunge on setting up a travel business right around the time the pandemic was hitting Europe in March 2020. Fast forward to summer 2024 and her curated package tour business, Byway, is announcing close of an oversubscribed £5.4 million Series A round (around $6.9M at current exchange rates).

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Investors chase wealthtech startups in India as affluent class grows Jul 09, 2024

Investors are betting on Indian wealthtech startups as a growing middle class turns to diversify investments and startups challenge traditional financial advisors for high-net-worth clients. Premji Invest is in advanced stages of talks to lead a funding round of $30 million to $40 million in Dezerv, an app offering a suite of investment solutions

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Quantum Rise grabs $15M seed for its AI-driven ‘Consulting 2.0’ startup Jul 09, 2024

Quantum Rise, a Chicago-based startup which does AI-driven automation for companies like dunnhumby (a retail analytics platform for the the grocery industry), has raised a $15 million seed round from Erie Street Growth Partners. Its approach is somewhat akin to UIPath’s, a company famous for bringing robotic process automation to the enterprise.

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Amazon hires founders away from AI startup Adept Jul 08, 2024

Adept, a startup developing AI-powered “agents” to complete various software-based tasks, has agreed to license its tech to Amazon as the startup’s co-founders and portions of its team join the ecommerce giant. Geekwire’s Taylor Soper first reported the news

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Husband-and-wife former Olympians target $50M for new fund to invest in influencer-led consumer brands Jul 08, 2024

Samyr Laine and Ayanna Alexander-Laine now put their grit and determination to work for founders wanting to launch and scale consumer brands.

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News outlets are accusing Perplexity of plagiarism and unethical web scraping Jul 05, 2024

In the age of generative AI, when chatbots can provide detailed answers to questions based on content pulled from the internet, the line between fair use and plagiarism, and between routine web scraping and unethical summarization, is a thin one.

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CoinDCX acquires BitOasis in international expansion push Jul 05, 2024

CoinDCX, India’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, is expanding internationally through the acquisition of BitOasis, a digital asset platform in the Middle East and North Africa, the companies said Wednesday. The Bengaluru-based startup said BitOasis’s team is joining CoinDCX, with the original leadership continuing to manage the exchange, which offers trading in more than 60 tokens.

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Indian edtech Unacademy cuts another 250 jobs Jul 04, 2024

Indian edtech giant Unacademy is laying off about 250 employees, the latest in a series of layoffs since the reopening of schools across the country after the pandemic. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, valued at $3.4 billion in its last funding in 2021, is cutting 100 jobs in core roles (marketing, business and product) ,

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Altrove uses AI models and lab automation to create new materials Jul 04, 2024

For the past couple of years, innovation has been accelerating in new materials development. And a new French startup called Altrove plans to play a role in this innovation cycle. The deep tech startup has already raised €3.7 million (around $4 million at current exchange rates).

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As the AI boom gobbles up power, Phaidra is helping companies manage datacenter power more efficiently Jul 03, 2024

Electricity demand is booming on account of AI. In a May 2024 report, Goldman Sachs predicted that data centers will use 8% of the U.S.’s total power supply by 2030, up from 3% in 2022, as cloud service providers expand to meet the demand for AI infrastructure.

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Sensorita uses digital twins to help waste management companies streamline construction waste Jul 03, 2024

The amount of waste produced by the construction industry adds up to more than a third of the overall waste produced each year in the European Union. And it’s no better in the U.S. Stateside, the construction industry produces more than double the waste that households do each year.

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Illumex is using GenAI to ease pain of getting good data into LLMs Jul 02, 2024

By now we know how crucial it is to have quality data for use by large language models (LLMs), but getting data ready for the models has been an early challenge for companies, an opening that represents an opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur.

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Cold shipping might be the next industry that batteries disrupt Jul 02, 2024

Artyc has raised $14 million to date and has a product on the market, Medstow Micro, that helps ship temperature-sensitive specimens.

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Rondo Energy funding shows a new way across the climate startup ‘valley of death’ Jul 01, 2024

Climate tech startups especially those building hardware, face a particular challenge when trying to move beyond the prototype or pilot phase and start selling finished products to customers.

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Austin-based Ironspring Ventures raised $100m to invest in industrial revolution Jul 01, 2024

When Ironspring Ventures launched in 2020 to back startups in industrial sectors like construction and manufacturing, it was one of very few early-stage venture firms paying attention to those capital-intensive sectors. Now, the firm is doubling down. The Austin, Texas-based firm raised $100 million for its second fund to focus on industrial startups.

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Sensi.AI grabs $31M Series B from Insight, Zeev to monitor seniors 24/7 Jun 29, 2024

Older adults increasingly want to age in their homes rather than nursing facilities. A study by the American Association of Retired People (AARP) found that nearly 90% of people over 65 want to stay in their homes as they grow older.

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Etched is building an AI chip that only runs one type of model Jun 28, 2024

As generative AI touches a growing number of industries, the companies producing chips to run the models are benefitting enormously. Nvidia in particular, which commands an estimated 70% to 95% of the market for AI chips, wields massive influence. Cloud providers from Meta to Microsoft are spending billions of dollars on Nvidia GPUs

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Rainforest lands $20M to challenge Stripe with embedded payments for SaaS providers Jun 28, 2024

Rainforest, a startup that embeds payment processing into other software platforms, has raised $20 million in Series A funding — less than a year after announcing the close of its seed financing. Raising back-to-back rounds was more common in 2021 but we don’t see it happening as often in this new environment.

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Boeing’s Wisk Aero buys Verocel to boost software safety for self-flying eVTOL Jun 27, 2024

Wisk Aero, a subsidiary of Boeing, has acquired Verocel, a software verification and validation company with 25 years of experience in the aerospace industry. Wisk has an autonomous-first approach to eVTOL. The company’s Generation 6 aircraft, which is slated to begin airborne tests this year, is designed to be supervised by humans, but not physically

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Rocketlane snags $24M to bring AI-led experiences for professional services teams Jun 27, 2024

Rocketlane initially aimed to support customer onboarding. However, it has broadened its scope and doubled down on addressing the needs of professional services teams.

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Emergence thinks it can crack the AI agent code Jun 26, 2024

Yet another generative AI venture has raised a bundle of money. And, like the others before it, it’s promising the moon. Emergence, whose co-founders include Satya Nitta, the former head of global AI solutions at IBM’s research division, today emerged from stealth with $97.2 million in funding from Learn Capital plus credit lines totaling more

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Silicon Valley leaders are once again declaring ‘DEI’ bad and ‘meritocracy’ good — but they’re wrong Jun 26, 2024

Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang set off another debate with an anti-DEI post. It revealed a lot about the current state of DEI in tech.

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How 2 high school teens raised a $500K seed round for their API startup (yes, it’s AI) Jun 25, 2024

18-year-olds Christopher Fitzgerald and Nicholas Van Landschoot have founded APIGen, a platform to build custom APIs from natural language prompts.

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‘Lawyer-in-the-loop’ startup Wordsmith wants to bring AI paralegals to all employees Jun 25, 2024

Wordsmith, a fledgling Scottish legal tech startup, has somehow managed to attract the backing of two well-known venture capital firms. The startup targets in-house legal teams and law firms with an AI platform that they can configure to help other workers in the company.

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Ex-HubSpot exec builds an AI-powered CRM that learns for you, with $4M seed led by Sequoia Jun 24, 2024

Christopher O’Donnell has hobbies. He likes music and playing guitar, but above all, he loves building software. Which is why three years after leaving HubSpot, he built Day.ai, a CRM for the age AI. Unlike modern CRMs, which are essentially giant spreadsheets that somebody needs to populate and keep updated, Day learns everything

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Language learning app Speak nets $20M, doubles valuation Jun 24, 2024

Speak, the AI-powered language learning app, has raised new money from investors at double its previous valuation.

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Société Générale to sell its freelancer challenger bank Shine to Ageras Jun 21, 2024

Four years after acquiring Shine, a French fintech startup that offers bank accounts to freelancers and very small companies, Société Générale has announced plans to sell Shine to Ageras.

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Daydream rakes in $50M seed funding to build an AI-powered search engine suited for e-commerce Jun 21, 2024

For retailers, e-commerce is a bit of a puzzle at the moment. Online shopping trends are expected to stay strong this year, so companies can’t afford to curtail their e-commerce budgets, but at the same time, e-commerce is more fragmented than ever before.

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Seen is a new app for friends to record reactions to TikToks and other content Jun 20, 2024

We all know the feeling when we send a funny TikTok video, anticipating a response from a friend, only to receive a basic laughing emoji or, worse, no reaction at all.

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Bitsening raises $25M for its high-resolution radar in autonomous driving Jun 20, 2024

Self-driving vehicles rely on many sensors to detect objects and the world around them. The conventional approach is to work with cameras and lidars.

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Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it Jun 19, 2024

Cheap irrigation has transformed many regions around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means that there can be little left for other uses.

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EV startup Fisker files for bankruptcy Jun 19, 2024

Check out TechCrunch.com for more news.

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Loop Golf looks to take the stress out of booking a tee time Jun 18, 2024

Golf has exploded in popularity in recent years thanks to the pandemic and the popularity of Netflix’s Full Swing documentary series. More than 531 million rounds of golf were played in the U.S. in 2023 alone, according to the National Golf Foundation.

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What StepStone’s $3.3B venture secondaries fund tells us about LPs’ current appetite for venture Jun 17, 2024

StepStone raised the largest fund dedicated to investing in venture secondaries ever, the firm announced last week.

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GPTZero’s founders, still in their 20s, have a profitable AI detection startup, millions in the bank and a new $10M Series A Jun 17, 2024

GPTZero's growth and financials made it one of the AI startups ruthlessly pursued by VCs. And Footwork's Nikhil Basu Trivedi won the deal.

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Friends & Family Capital, a fund founded by ex-Palantir CFO and son of IVP’s founder, unveils third $118M fund Jun 14, 2024

Small VC firms require deep trust, mutual support, and long-term commitment among the partners —a kinship that, in many ways, resembles a family dynamic.

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AccountsIQ takes in $65M to boost its bookkeeping tools with AI Jun 14, 2024

AccountsIQ, a Dublin-founded accounting technology company, has raised $65 million to build “the finance function of the future” for mid-sized companies.

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Let there be Light! Danish startup exits stealth with $13M seed funding to bring AI to general ledgers Jun 13, 2024

It’s not the sexiest of subject matters, but someone needs to talk about it: The CFO tech stack — software used by the chief financial officers of the world — is ripe for disruption.

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Civic Renewables is rolling up residential solar installers to improve quality and grow the market Jun 13, 2024

With most residential solar panels installed by smaller companies, customer experience can be a mixed bag.

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Kelvin wants to help save the planet by applying AI to home energy audits Jun 12, 2024

French startup Kelvin, which uses computer vision and machine learning to make it easier to audit homes for energy efficiency, has raised $5.1M.

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Raspberry Pi is now a public company as its shares pop after IPO pricing Jun 12, 2024

Who would have thought that Raspberry Pi, the maker of cheap, single-board computers, would become a public company?

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Anterior grabs $20M from NEA to expedite health insurance approvals with AI Jun 11, 2024

Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures

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Autonomy’s Mike Lynch acquitted after US fraud trial brought by HP Jun 11, 2024

Former Autonomy chief executive Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday following his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett-Packard that became one of Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud cases.

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Novel battery manufacturer EnerVenue is raising $515M, per filing Jun 10, 2024

The company is in the process of building a gigawatt-scale factory in Kentucky to produce its nickel-hydrogen batteries.

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Carta’s valuation to be cut by billions in an upcoming secondary sale Jun 10, 2024

Carta, a once-high-flying Silicon Valley startup that loudly backed away from one of its businesses earlier this year, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at $2 billion

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Eyebot raised $6M for AI-powered kiosks that provide 90-second eye exams without optometrist Jun 07, 2024

"Over half of Americans wear corrective glasses or contact lenses. While there isn’t a shortage of low-cost and luxury frames available online or in stores, consumers can only buy them with a current eyeglass prescription. That means that they first need an eye exam from an optometrist to receive that prescription. But, due to a […]

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Whizz wants to own the delivery e-bike subscription space, starting with NYC Jun 07, 2024

New York City, home to over 60,000 gig delivery workers, has been cracking down on cheap, uncertified e-bikes that have resulted in battery fires across the city.

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Insurance provider Understory gets into renewable energy following $15M Series A Jun 06, 2024

After growing 500% year-over-year in the past year, Understory is now launching a product focused on the renewable energy sector.

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Eko Health scores $41M to detect heart disease earlier and more accurately Jun 06, 2024

In 1816, French physician René Laennec invented an instrument that allowed doctors to listen to human hearts and lungs. That device — a stethoscope — eventually evolved from a simple wooden tube to a lightweight two-earpiece version most doctors today wear on their necks.

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‘Star Wars’ lasers and waterfalls of molten salt: How Xcimer plans to make fusion power happen Jun 05, 2024

The startup has been pursuing a ground-up redesign of a well-understood technology.

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Raspberry Pi partners with Hailo for its AI extension kit Jun 05, 2024

The Raspberry Pi 5, the small-but-mighty computer that has become quite popular with tech hobbyists and industrial companies, is now also an AI computer.

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Iyris makes fresh produce easier to grow in difficult climates, raises $16M Jun 04, 2024

2023 was the hottest year on record, it doesn’t look like we’re cooling down anytime soon. Rising temperatures have made farming increasingly difficult in areas that were once prime agricultural resources where heat and drought have severely impacted crops.

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Ashby injects recruiting with a dose of AI Jun 04, 2024

Ashby consolidates existing talent acquisition tools and leans heavily on AI to automate the more repetitive steps in the recruitment pipeline.

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Former teen model co-created app Frich to help Gen Z be more realistic about finances Jun 03, 2024

As a teen model, Katrin Kaurov became financially independent at a young age.

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YoLa Fresh, a GrubMarket for Morocco, digs up $7M to connect farmers with food sellers Jun 03, 2024

YoLa Fresh works with over a thousand retailers across Morocco and records up to $1 million in gross merchandise volume.

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OneScreen.ai brings startup ads to billboards and NYC’s subway Jun 01, 2024

When Alex Ewing was a kid growing up in Purcell, Oklahoma, he knew how close he was to home based on which billboards he could see out the car window.

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Exactly.ai secures $4M to help artists use AI to scale up their output May 31, 2024

Exactly.ai says it uses generative AI to help artists retain legal ownership of their art while being able to reproduce their designs faster and at scale.

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Tech startup Odyssey goes on journey to help states implement school choice programs May 30, 2024

The company's public fund disbursement and e-commerce platform makes accepting school tuition and enabling educational enrichment more accessible.

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Kinnect’s new app aims to help families record and store generational memories May 30, 2024

A new startup called Kinnect aims to help people privately save generational memories, traditions, recipes, and more.

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Ledger starts shipping its high-end hardware crypto wallet May 29, 2024

Ledger, a French startup mostly known for its secure crypto hardware wallets, has started shipping new wallets nearly 18 months after announcing the latest Ledger Stax devices.

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Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales May 29, 2024

Small operations can lose customers by not offering financing, something the Berlin-based startup wants to change.

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Doly lets you generate 3D product videos from your iPhone May 28, 2024

AniML, the French startup behind a new 3D capture app called Doly, wants to create the PhotoRoom of product videos, sort of.

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Indian EV startup Zypp Electric secures ENEOS backing to fund expansion to Southeast Asia May 28, 2024

Indian startup Zypp Electric plans to use fresh investment from Japanese oil and energy conglomerate ENEOS to take its EV rental service into Southeast Asia early next year, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.

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Auggie’s new app helps parents find community and shop May 27, 2024

A new startup called Auggie is aiming to give parents a single platform where they can shop for products and connect with each other.

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Bugcrowd, the crowdsourced white-hat hacker platform, acquires Informer to ramp up its security chops May 27, 2024

On the heels of raising $102 million earlier this year, Bugcrowd is making good on its promise to use some of that funding to make acquisitions to strengthen its security chops.

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Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI tops up with $23M led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures May 24, 2024

If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again.

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Unify helps developers find the best LLM for the job May 24, 2024

When developers have a particular job that AI can solve, it’s not typically as simple as just pointing an LLM at the data.

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Hydrolix seeks to make storing log data faster and cheaper May 23, 2024

In 2008, Marty Kagan, who’d previously worked at Cisco and Akamai, co-founded Cedexis, a (now-Cisco-owned) firm developing observability tech for content delivery networks.

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Patronus AI is off to a magical start as LLM governance tool gains traction May 23, 2024

These days every company is trying to figure out if their large language models are compliant with whatever rules they deem important, and with legal or regulatory requirements

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Rollup wants to be the hardware engineer’s workhorse May 22, 2024

Hard tech startups generate a lot of buzz, but there’s a growing cohort of companies building digital tools squarely focused on making hard tech development faster, more efficient, and — well, a whole lot more like software development.

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Zen Educate raises $37M and acquires Aquinas Education as it tries to address the teacher shortage May 22, 2024

Zen Educate, an online marketplace that connects schools with teachers, has raised $37 million in a Series B round of funding.

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CyberArk snaps up Venafi for $1.54B to ramp up in machine-to-machine security May 21, 2024

CyberArk — one of the army of larger security companies founded out of Israel — is acquiring Venafi, a specialist in machine identity, for $1.54 billion.

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Agora raises $34B Series B to keep building the Carta for real estate May 21, 2024

Since he was very young, Bar Mor knew that he would inevitably do something with real estate.

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Thoma Bravo’s LogRhythm merges with Exabeam in more cybersecurity consolidation May 20, 2024

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo has announced that its security information and event management (SIEM) company LogRhythm will be merging with Exabeam, a rival cybersecurity company backed by the likes of Cisco and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

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Spoor uses AI to save birds from wind turbines May 20, 2024

Wind is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but wind farms come with an environmental cost as wind turbines can wreak havoc on bird populations.

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Embedded accounting startup Layer secures $2.3M toward goal of replacing Quickbooks May 17, 2024

So did investors laugh them out of the room when they explained how they wanted to replace Quickbooks? Kind of.

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Meet PayHOA, a profitable and once-bootstrapped SaaS startup that just landed a $27.5M Series A May 16, 2024

PayHOA, a previously bootstrapped Kentucky-based startup that offers software for self-managed homeowner associations is an example of how real-world problems can translate into opportunity.

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Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers May 16, 2024

Charging has long been the Achilles’ heel of electric vehicles. One startup thinks it has a better way for apartment dwelling EV drivers to charge overnight.

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Aplazo is using buy-now-pay-later as a stepping stone to financial ubiquity in Mexico May 15, 2024

Four-year-old Mexican BNPL startup Aplazo facilitates fractionated payments to offline and online merchants even when the buyer doesn't have a credit card.

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Sona, a frontline workforce management platform, raises $27.5M with eyes on US expansion May 15, 2024

Sona, a workforce management platform for frontline employees, has raised $27.5 million in a Series A round of funding.

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Retell AI lets companies build ‘voice agents’ to answer phone calls May 14, 2024

Call centers are embracing automation. There’s debate as to whether that’s a good thing, but it’s happening — and quite possibly accelerating.

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Bluesky now lets you personalize its main Discover feed using new controls May 14, 2024

The social network has announced an updated version of its app that lets you offer feedback about its algorithmic feed so you can better customize it.

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Blackboard founder transforms Zoom add-on designed for teachers into business tool May 13, 2024

When Class founder Michael Chasen was in college, he and a buddy came up with the idea for Blackboard, an online classroom organizational tool. His original company was acquired for $1.64 billion in 2011.

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Triomics raises $15M Series A to automate cancer clinical trials matching May 13, 2024

For cancer patients, medicines administered in clinical trials can help save or extend lives.

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Lucid Bots secures $9M for drones to clean more than your windows May 11, 2024

Cleaning the outside of buildings is a dirty job, and it’s also dangerous

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Checkfirst raises $1.5M pre-seed to apply AI to remote inspections and audits May 10, 2024

We’ve all seen them. The inspector with a clipboard, walking around a building, ticking off the last time the fire extinguishers were checked, or if all the lights are working.

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Meati Foods bites into another $100M amid growth to 7,000 retail locations May 10, 2024

Meati Foods is adding 2,000 retail locations within Kroger’s family of stores by April. Three products will be available, including the Classic cutlet as well as Classic and Carne Asada steaks.

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After a $20M Series A funding, Germany’s Insempra plans eco-friendly lipid production May 09, 2024

Insempra plans to turn oil yeast in lipids on an industrial scale using yeast fermentation factories.

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Samsung Medison to acquire French AI ultrasound startup Sonio for $92.7M May 09, 2024

The French startup's AI assistant is aimed at helping obstetricians and gynecologists with the evaluation and documentation of ultrasound exams.

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DocuSign acquires AI-powered contract management firm Lexion May 08, 2024

As DocuSign reportedly explores a sale to private equity, it’s acquiring a company itself.

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Honeycomb Insurance grabs $36M Series B from solo VC-led Zeev Ventures May 08, 2024

When Itai Ben-Zaken’s first startup failed in 2018, the former BCG consultant and Wharton MBA spent months trying to understand what he could have done differently during the five years he ran the company.

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Dropbox, Figma CEOs back Lamini, a startup building a generative AI platform for enterprises May 07, 2024

Lamini, a new startup with funding from Andrew Ng, has emerged from stealth with a generative AI platform aimed at enterprises.

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Iconiq raises $5.15B toward seventh flagship fund May 07, 2024

Iconiq Capital has raised $5.15 billion across two funds associated with the seventh growth fund family, according to SEC filings.

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Hubble Network makes Bluetooth connection with a satellite for the first time May 06, 2024

Hubble Network has become the first company in history to establish a Bluetooth connection directly to a satellite — a critical technology validation for the company, potentially opening the door to connecting millions more devices anywhere in the world.

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Freshworks acquires Device42 for $230M, appoints Dennis Woodside new CEO May 06, 2024

Freshworks, the publicly listed SaaS firm, is acquiring U.S.-based startup Device42 for $230 million, the company disclosed in an SEC filing.

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Digital fraud detection startup BioCatch hits $1.3B valuation as Permira buys majority stake May 03, 2024

Digital fraud detection company BioCatch has a new majority shareholder in the form of U.K private equity firm Permira.

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ButcherBox acquires ‘Shark Tank’-featured startup Truffle Shuffle May 03, 2024

Butcherbox is known for grinding its way forward, bootstrapping to more than $600,000 worth of revenue.

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Midi is building a digital platform for an oft-overlooked area of women’s health May 02, 2024

When Joanna Strober was around 47 she stopped sleeping. While losing sleep is a common symptom of perimenopause, she first had to go to multiple providers, including driving 45 minutes out of San Francisco to pay $750 out of pocket, to get that diagnosis and proper treatment.

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Chicago-based Hyde Park Venture Partners closes $98M Fund IV with two investments made so far May 02, 2024

Hyde Park Venture Partners is known for having visibility into more than 90% of mid-continent startups and being early backers of companies like ShipBob, FourKites, G2, LogicGate and Dentologie.

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neuroClues wants to put high speed eye tracking tech in the doctor’s office May 01, 2024

The eyes aren’t just a window into the soul; tracking saccades can help doctors pick up a range of brain health issues.

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Carbonfact is a carbon management platform designed specifically for the fashion industry May 01, 2024

French startup Carbonfact believes that the best carbon accounting solutions will focus on one vertical.

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Ex-NSA hacker and ex-Apple researcher launch startup to protect Apple devices Apr 30, 2024

Two veteran security experts are launching a startup that aims to help other makers of cybersecurity products to up their game in protecting Apple devices.

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Ethiopian plastic upcycling startup Kubik gets fresh funding, plans to license out its tech Apr 30, 2024

Kubik, a plastic upcycling startup, has raised a $1.9 million seed extension, months after announcing initial equity investment.

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Zomato’s quick commerce unit Blinkit eclipses core food business in value, says Goldman Sachs Apr 29, 2024

Goldman Sachs said in a report late Thursday that Indian food delivery giant Zomato’s quick commerce arm Blinkit is now more valuable than its core food delivery business, as per the bank’s sum-of-the-parts analysis.

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The FTC’s ban on noncompete clauses could be good for startups. But it also might be struck down. Apr 29, 2024

The Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to ban the use of most noncompete agreements on Tuesday.

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Playruo lets you try game demos from your web browser Apr 26, 2024

It’s still unclear whether cloud gaming will ever become the next big thing.

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Edonia grabs €2M to turn microalgae into less bitter-tasting ground meat alternative Apr 26, 2024

The company produces plant-based ingredients from raw microalgae biomass, generated from spirulina or chlorella, that it claims is more nutritious than meat.

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Madica, a program by Flourish Ventures, steps up pre-seed investing in Africa Apr 25, 2024

Madica, an investment program launched by US-based investor Flourish Ventures to back pre-seed startups in Africa, plans to invest in up to 10 ventures by the end of the year, ramping up its funding efforts after closing three initial three deals.

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Parloa, a conversational AI platform for customer service, raises $66M Apr 25, 2024

Conversational AI platform Parloa has nabbed $66 million in a Series B round of funding, a year after the German startup raised $21 million from a swathe of European investors to propel its international growth.

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Campus, a community college startup, receives $23M Series A extension led by Founders Fund Apr 24, 2024

Although many students in the United States enter community colleges intending to transfer to four-year universities, only 16% of those students receive bachelor’s degrees within six years

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Two widow founders launch DayNew, a social platform for people dealing with grief and trauma Apr 24, 2024

After losing their husbands in devastating and unexpected ways, Karine Nissim and Eloise Bune D’Agostino discovered there were no suitable places where people could go to face all the challenges that surface during the grieving process

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Webflow acquires Intellimize to add AI-powered webpage personalization Apr 23, 2024

Webflow, a web design and hosting platform that’s raised over $330 million at a $4 billion valuation, is expanding into a new sector: marketing optimization.

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Ecosia launches a cross-platform browser, starts an affiliate link program Apr 23, 2024

Tree planting search engine Ecosia launched a new cross-platform browser today to increase its online footprint.

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Langdock raises $3M with General Catalyst to help companies avoid vendor lock-in with LLMs Apr 22, 2024

Plenty of large corporations want to join the AI revolution, but many feel it’s too early to be locked into one foundational model.

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Magnus Metal wants to revamp the 4,000-year-old way metal parts are made Apr 22, 2024

The startup is developing a technology it claims is as fast and energy efficient as 3D printing at a cost that can compete with sand casting.

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Fintech startup Mercury, which is under regulatory scrutiny, expands into consumer banking Apr 19, 2024

Business banking startup Mercury, founded in 2020, is now launching a consumer banking product.

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Dark Space is building a rocket-powered boxing glove to push debris out of orbit Apr 19, 2024

Paris-based Dark Space is taking on the dual problems of debris and conflict in orbit with their mobile platform designed to launch, attach to, and ultimately deorbit uncooperative objects in space.

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Vorlon is trying to stop the next big API breach Apr 18, 2024

Application programming interfaces, or APIs as they’re commonly known, are the bedrock of everything we do online.

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GovDash aims to help businesses use AI to land government contracts Apr 18, 2024

Tim Goltser and Curtis Mason have been building things together since high school, when the two were the co-captains of their school’s robotics team.

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Finmid raises $24.7M to help SMBs access loans through platforms like Wolt Apr 17, 2024

finmid is building an embedded finance product that targets that relationship between marketplaces and sellers, and raised a Series A round to further build out its product and enter new markets.

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Quilt rides heat pump heat wave with hefty $33M Series A Apr 17, 2024

Quilt promises its heat pump will be a sleeker design that can be installed in more places around a room than competitors’ offerings.

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Lawhive raises $12M to expand its legaltech AI platform for small firms Apr 16, 2024

UK-based legaltech company Lawhive, which offers an AI-based in-house ‘lawyer’ through a software-as-a-service platform targeted at small law firms, has raised £9.5 million ($11.9M) in a seed round to expand the reach of AI-driven services for ‘main street’ law firms.

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Paraform raises $3.6M seed round to connect startups with recruiter networks Apr 16, 2024

Layoffs usually drive attention and sympathy towards affected employees, but rarely does anyone talk about what happens to the recruiters who are sometimes also asked to leave when companies decide to cut headcount.

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India’s Exponent Energy brings 15-minute charging to passenger three-wheelers Apr 15, 2024

India is getting an electric three-wheeler passenger vehicle that charges from 0 to 100% in 15 minutes.

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CleanFiber wants to turn millions of tons of cardboard boxes into insulation Apr 15, 2024

The startup has raised $28 million to help fund a nationwide expansion of its cardboard-based cellulose building insulation.

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Simbian brings AI to existing security tools Apr 12, 2024

Simbian is a cybersecurity platform that effectively controls other cybersecurity platforms as well as security apps and tooling.

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Voltpost wants to bring curbside charging to a lamppost near you Apr 12, 2024

The New York City-based startup has been working on a product that retrofits existing street lampposts to enable EV charging.

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Cambium is building a recycled wood supply chain Apr 11, 2024

The global demand for wood could grow by 54% between 2010 and 2050, according to a study by the World Resources Institute.

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Guesty snaps up $130M at $900M valuation to help property managers list on Airbnb and beyond Apr 11, 2024

Travel and tourism are very much back on the map for consumers and the business world.

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Multiverse, the apprenticeship unicorn, acquires Searchlight to put a focus on AI Apr 10, 2024

Multiverse, the U.K. unicorn that builds apprenticeship programs for people to learn technology skills while on the job, has made an acquisition as it aims to skill up itself.

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Sprinto raises $20M to bring automation to security compliance management Apr 10, 2024

Sprinto, a startup offering a security compliance and risk platform, has raised $20 million in new investment led by Accel.

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Coalesce raises more cash to transform data for Snowflake customers Apr 09, 2024

Coalesce offers a platform that standardizes data while automating the more repetitive, mundane data transformation processes.

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DataStax acquires the startup behind low-code AI builder Langflow Apr 09, 2024

DataStax made a name for itself by commercializing the open source Apache Cassandra NoSQL database, but these days, the company’s focus is squarely on using its database chops to build a “one-stop GenAI stack.”

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Belgian computer vision startup Robovision eyes U.S. expansion to address labor shortages Apr 08, 2024

Robovision has raised $42M to industrialize deep learning tools and make them more accessible to businesses that are not tech companies at their core.

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Varda Space’s orbital drug factory success fuels $90M in new funding Apr 08, 2024

Varda Space Industries has closed a massive tranche of funding just weeks after its first drug manufacturing capsule returned from orbit.

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Retro, an actually good photo-sharing app for BFFs, launches collaborative journals Apr 06, 2024

As big social apps are optimizing for maximum engagement using algorithmic feeds and personalized content recommendations, Retro wants to go in the opposite direction.

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Jobs for the Future’s new $50M fund looks to invest in underrepresented founders Apr 05, 2024

Two years ago, Jobs for the Future, a non-profit dedicated to helping low-wage workers attain upward mobility, established a venture arm, JFFVentures, to back innovative employment tech.

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Hailo lands $120 million to keep battling Nvidia as most AI chip startups struggle Apr 04, 2024

The funding climate for AI chip startups, once as sunny as a mid-July day, is beginning to cloud over as Nvidia asserts its dominance.

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Full Glass Wine raises $14M to continue acquiring DTC wine marketplaces, buys Bright Cellars Apr 04, 2024

Full Glass Wine, a brand acquisition management startup that specializes in acquiring wine marketplaces, has raised $14 million in a Series A round.

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Modal raises $25M to train corporate workers on data and AI Apr 03, 2024

A few years ago, Darren Shimkus, ex-president of Udemy, had a conversation with Dennis Yang about skills building.

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Quadratic is reimagining the spreadsheet with a focus on data Apr 03, 2024

Using Quadratic, users can bring in hundreds of thousands of rows of data, write analyses in their preferred programming language and share the results with outside stakeholders.

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Skyflow raises $30M more as AI spikes demand for its privacy business Apr 02, 2024

This morning Skyflow announced that it has raised a $30 million Series B extension led by Khosla Ventures.

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This startup believes mobile apps for businesses should work more like consumer apps Apr 02, 2024

Have you noticed the massive gap between consumer and business apps on your phone? While consumer apps are both beautifully designed and easy to use, business apps are simply painful to use.

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Kids’ clothing and gear is more expensive than ever. Kidsy has a sustainable solution for discounts Apr 01, 2024

All parents know that raising kids is expensive.

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Skyflow raises $30M more as AI spikes demand for its privacy business Apr 01, 2024

This morning Skyflow announced that it has raised a $30 million Series B extension led by Khosla Ventures. The deal is interesting on a number of fronts including the round’s structure and how Skyflow has been impacted by growth of AI.

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Climate tech VC Satgana closes first fund that targets early-stage startups in Africa, Europe Mar 29, 2024

Climate-tech VC Satgana has reached a final close of its first fund, which targets to back up to 30 early-stage startups in Africa and Europe.

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StealthMole raises $7M Series A for its AI-powered dark web intelligence platform Mar 29, 2024

StealthMole, an AI-powered dark web intelligence startup that specializes in monitoring cyber threats and detecting cybercrime, announced Thursday that it has raised a $7 million Series A funding round.

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Marissa Mayer’s startup just rolled out apps for group photo sharing and event planning, and the internet isn’t sure what to think Mar 28, 2024

When Marissa Mayer co-founded a startup six years ago in Palo Alto, Ca., expectations were sky high for the former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee. When that startup, Sunshine, revealed that its first app centered around subscription software for contact management, people wondered if something more ambitious might be around the corner.

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Wase zaps microbes to squeeze more biogas from wastewater sludge Mar 28, 2024

Harvesting methane from organic waste and using it to produce electricity or heat is nothing new, but the startup isn't building another anaerobic digester.

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900.care sells waterless personal care products and lets you add tap water at home Mar 27, 2024

Here’s the harsh truth behind personal care products: you’re mostly buying water and plastics.

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Liquid Death is just one of many VC-backed beverage startups ready to disrupt Coke and Pepsi Mar 27, 2024

Some of the new venture-backed beverage startups are hoping to upend the industry by creating new drink categories.

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Meet Uzbekistan’s first unicorn: e-commerce startup Uzum Mar 26, 2024

Uzum, an e-commerce startup offering online shopping, fintech and food deliveries to millions of customers in Uzbekistan, has raised $114 million in funding.

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Farm to Feed is cutting food loss and creating data platform to better farm outcomes Mar 26, 2024

Globally, a third of the food produced is lost or wasted, and in Kenya, that figure stands at between 20% to 40%.

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World Fund closes first €300M ClimateTech fund, seeking to follow-on and backing hardware Mar 25, 2024

World Fund closes first €300M ClimateTech fund, seeking to follow-on and backing hardware

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US cyber investors pledge spyware is off limits — with a catch Mar 25, 2024

Biden administration announced that six new countries had joined an international coalition to fight the proliferation of commercial spyware, sold by companies such as NSO Group or Intellexa.

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Budgeting app Copilot is booming now that Mint is dead, leading to $6M Series A Mar 22, 2024

The company reached profitability in 2023, however, more customers began asking for web and Android capabilities so they could share Copilot with family and friends.

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Silence is an early stage climate tech VC fund with $35 million; Greenly lands $52M to help smaller companies track CO2 emissions Mar 22, 2024

Silence wants to shake things up when it comes to climate tech investment; The carbon accounting startup targets SMBs to help them assess the carbon footprint of their operations and products.

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Pocket FM bags $103M in funding as it eyes global expansion Mar 21, 2024

India-based audio platform Pocket FM has secured $103 million in Series D funding led by Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Stepstone Group.

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PocketHealth eases doctor-patient communications with easy image exchange Mar 21, 2024

Have you ever needed a copy of your medical imaging to take to your doctor or another healthcare provider and received the images on a CD?

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Telegram raises $330 million fresh capital through bond sales Mar 20, 2024

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov said on his channel today that the company secured $330 million in investment through bond sales last week.

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Poseidona is removing invasive algae from oceans and turning it into food Mar 20, 2024

Poseidona is a Barcelona-based developer of sustainable food technology. It takes invasive seaweed and algal side-streams to make proteins. In this case, it's a soy protein alternative.

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Apple acquires AI startup specializing in overlooking manufacturing components Mar 19, 2024

Apple has added another AI startup to its acquisition list with Canada-based DarwinAI, which specializes in vision-based tech to observe components during manufacturing to improve efficiency.

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ShopMy lands $18.5M to help influencers earn more money from promoting products Mar 19, 2024

ShopMy, a marketing platform for content creators to connect with brands and monetize their content, announced today that it raised $18.5 million.

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Aethero wants to become the space industry’s Intel or Nvidia Mar 18, 2024

Satellite sensors collect an incredible amount of raw data, but on-orbit compute limitations mean that operators have little way to process this data in space.

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WarpStream is building a cheaper, cloud-native data streaming service Mar 18, 2024

When the open source streaming service Apache Kafka was created in 2011 at LinkedIn, it was a different world. Most companies were still on prem.

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AliExpress is first online marketplace to face DSA investigation by EU Mar 15, 2024

The European Union has opened its third formal investigation of a very large platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA), with China’s AliExpress earning itself the dubious honor of being the first online marketplace to face formal probe by the Commission.

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Luminary Cloud’s simulator taps GPUs to help speed up product design Mar 15, 2024

Simulations are an essential step in physical product engineering.

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Kolet makes travel eSIM cards easier to navigate Mar 14, 2024

Kolet is a new French startup created by four experienced co-founders in the French tech ecosystem that wants to make it easier to stay connected when you travel.

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Pint-size pickup startup Telo Trucks finds unexpected niche in fleet customers Mar 14, 2024

The young automotive company raised $5.4 million and added a Tesla co-founder to its board.

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Generative AI video startup Tavus raises $18M to bring face and voice cloning to any app Mar 13, 2024

Tavus, a four-year-old generative AI startup that helps companies create digital “replicas” of individuals for automated personalized video campaigns, has confirmed a fresh $18 million in funding.

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Backed by Leonardo DiCaprio, YC alum SolarMente wants to help democratize solar power in Spain Mar 13, 2024

Barcelona-based cleantech startup SolarMente recently added Leonardo DiCaprio to its cap table, hence becoming the actor's and activist's first investment in the country.

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Profitable car rental service Turo is still ready for an IPO, but its growth cratered in 2023 Mar 12, 2024

Turo, the venture-backed, peer-to-peer car rental service reported its fourth-quarter and full-year financial performance this week in an updated IPO filing.

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AI fraud detection software maker Inscribe.ai lays off 40% of staff Mar 12, 2024

Yet another AI-powered fraud detection software provider is laying off staff.

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Baron values Swiggy at $12.16B, above prior private market valuation Mar 11, 2024

Baron Capital, an investor in Indian food delivery startup Swiggy, has increased the value of its stake in the Indian firm, implying a valuation of $12.16 billion

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Lensrentals acquires BorrowLenses Mar 11, 2024

Lensrentals, a titan in the online rental service for photo, video, audio and lighting equipment, has announced its acquisition of BorrowLenses.

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Babylon Micro-Farms is bringing vertical farming to K-12 classes Mar 08, 2024

In an e-mail exchange, Babylon Micro-Farms CEO Alexander Oleson tells me “we’ll have these in every school and apartment one day.”

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Satellite servicing tech startup, led by former head of Ukraine’s space agency, lands $4M Mar 08, 2024

Kurs Orbital, a startup founded by Ukrainian space industry veterans, has closed a new tranche of funding to accelerate the commercialization of its satellite servicing technology.

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New geospatial data startup streamlines satellite imagery visualization Mar 07, 2024

These days we have a ton of geospatial data coming off the increasing numbers of satellites circling in our atmosphere, but it takes some serious processing power and engineering prowess to turn that data into something useful.

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Harness Wealth wants to bring sophisticated tax planning to the masses Mar 07, 2024

Harness Wealth, which started in 2018 primarily offering financial advice to startup founders and employees, has expanded into the tax advisory space and raised a $17 million extension to its Series A round.

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LLMs are poised to make lumbering business intelligence tools easier and faster to use Mar 06, 2024

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Backed by $10M Series A, TravelJoy is riding the post-COVID demand for expert travel planning Mar 06, 2024

A travel-focused startup that the COVID pandemic could have killed has instead thrived.

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AI chip startup Groq forms new business unit, acquires Definitive Intelligence Mar 05, 2024

Groq, a startup developing chips to run GenAI models faster than conventional hardware, has an eye toward the enterprise — and public sector.

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MyHeritage launches OldNews.com, a website with access to millions of historical newspaper pages Mar 05, 2024

MyHeritage announced today that it’s launching OldNews.com, a new website that offers access to thousands of historical newspapers, mainly from the 1800s and 1900s.

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Syrenna’s WaterDrone is the ocean-monitoring ‘underwater weather station’ of the future Mar 04, 2024

As crucial as the ocean is to countless industries, we lack the kind of systematic knowledge of it that we have of the surface.

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Rec emerges from stealth to modernize Parks & Rec management and booking Mar 04, 2024

Park and recreation organizations help communities thrive.

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OpenCTI maker Filigran raises $16 million for its cybersecurity threat management suite Mar 01, 2024

Paris-based cybersecurity startup Filigran is capitalizing on the success of OpenCTI to build a suite of open-source threat management products.

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Inspired Capital secures $330M fund to take venture capital ‘back to the studs’ Mar 01, 2024

As part of the new fund, Inspired Capital wrote a manifesto that highlights how the venture capital firm thinks, what it believes in and what it is looking for.

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Black Tech Nation Ventures’ diversity thesis undeterred by growing DEI backlash Feb 29, 2024

Black Tech Nation Ventures launched in 2021 to address the funding gap for Black founders amid a wave of venture diversity initiatives after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

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Microsoft made a $16 million investment in Mistral AI Feb 29, 2024

The latest Tech News from TechCrunch

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Writer’s latest models can generate text from images including charts and graphs Feb 28, 2024

As generative AI continues to dominate the headlines, it’s hard sometimes to find actual working business use cases among the hype.

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Glean wants to beat ChatGPT at its own game — in the enterprise Feb 28, 2024

GenAI has its issues. But if there’s one thing it excels at, it’s surfacing answers from vast pools of data.

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Shadowfax speeds ahead with $100M funding as instant delivery boom fuels growth Feb 27, 2024

Shadowfax, one of the largest logistics service providers to hyper-local and on-demand delivery businesses in India, has raised $100 million in a new funding round as it clocks an yearly growth of over 35%.

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Consolidation continues in micromobility as Cooltra snaps up Cityscoot Feb 27, 2024

Paris’ commercial court has accepted Cooltra’s offer to acquire Cityscoot. These two companies provide shared electric mopeds that you can unlock and ride to go from one place to another.

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Uber to explore travel ticketing with India’s open commerce network Feb 26, 2024

Uber has signed a memorandum of understanding with an Indian government-backed firm that aims to make mobility and commerce more accessible across the South Asian nation.

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Antler’s founder on its vertical AI bet in Southeast Asia Feb 26, 2024

A growing roster of vertical AI startups is emerging in Southeast Asia to serve sectors ranging from seafood to finance. Singapore-based venture capital firm Antler recently made a bet on 37 of them, investing $5.1 million in total for pre-seed deals.

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Locker organizes your shopping links into virtual wish lists and collages Feb 23, 2024

After years of copying and pasting shopping links into spreadsheets and taking screenshots of products to share with her friends and family,

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Singapore-based fintech Xalts acquires digital trade platform Contour Network Feb 23, 2024

In a role reversal, Xalts, a Singapore fintech startup founded 18 months ago, has acquired Contour Network, a digital trade platform set up by eight major banks.

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Planity raises $48 million because even hair salons need their own SaaS product Feb 22, 2024

If you’ve ever traveled in rural areas in France, you may have realized a French peculiarity.

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Sproxxy is making it easier to measure conference spending ROI Feb 22, 2024

Whenever you go to a conference, whether as a sales and marketing exercise, or an executive is speaking, there is a cost associated with that.

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1Password expands its endpoint security offerings with Kolide acquisition Feb 21, 2024

1Password, the AgileBits-owned password management software developer, today announced that it has acquired Kolide, an endpoint security platform, for an undisclosed amount.

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Miruku grabs more capital as its plant-based dairy tech reaches proof of concept Feb 21, 2024

The company made advancements in its proprietary dairy seed system to leverage interactions between recombinant dairy casein and native plant proteins, with or without improved fatty acid profiles.

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Dutch startup Monumental is using robots to lay bricks Feb 20, 2024

Few categories are as ripe for automation-fueled disruption as construction.

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Anthropic takes steps to prevent election misinformation Feb 19, 2024

Ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Anthropic, the well-funded AI startup, is testing a technology to detect when users of its GenAI chatbot ask about political topics and redirect those users to “authoritative” sources of voting information.

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Pacifico Biolabs emerges from stealth with fermentation process for alternative seafood Feb 19, 2024

The company's fermentation process involves the cultivation of multiple microorganisms, including mycelium, to provide nutrition, flavor and texture.

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Celadyne coats membranes with nanoparticles to make hydrogen fuel cells more efficient Feb 16, 2024

The material could drastically improve the durability of existing fuel cell designs while also improving the efficiency of hydrogen production by 15%-20%.

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.406 Ventures secures $265M for fifth fund Feb 16, 2024

When looking at startups within healthcare, data and AI and cybersecurity, the firm considers a number of factors like the plan for infrastructure, especially now that AI is everywhere.

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Spacegoods shakes up functional beverage industry with mushroom-based powders Feb 15, 2024

The London-based wellness brand is tapping into functional mushrooms and nootropics to create a line of powder blends that it touts enhances energy, relaxation, mood and general well-being.

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Travel startup Layla acquires AI itinerary building bot Roam Around Feb 15, 2024

Travel startup Layla — backed by firstminute capital, M13, Booking.com co-founder Andy Phillips, Skyscanner co-founder Barry Smith, and Paris Hilton — said today that it has acquired AI-powered itinerary building bot Roam Around.

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Bob W, a European short-stay apartment rental marketplace, raises $43M Feb 14, 2024

Bob W, a marketplace for premium short-term apartment rentals, has raised €40 million ($43 million) in a Series B round of funding.

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Crux is building GenAI-powered business intelligence tools Feb 13, 2024

GenAI might be one of the most exciting technologies today. But it’s also one of the fastest-moving — posing a challenge for enterprises keen to deploy it.

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Upstash’s serverless data platform hits ARR of $1M just two years after seed funding Feb 12, 2024

Upstash announced a $1.9 million seed round almost exactly two years ago, and an idea for building a serverless data platform for data-intensive applications built with Redis and Kafka.

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Glass supercharges smartphone cameras with AI — minus the hallucinations Feb 12, 2024

Your phone’s camera is as much software as it is hardware, and Glass is hoping to improve both.

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Podcasters can now upload their RSS feed to YouTube Feb 10, 2024

Podcast creators can now submit their RSS feed to YouTube and YouTube Music, the company revealed in a video uploaded to its Creator Insider channel.

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Attentive.ai snags $7M to boost automation in landscaping, construction services Feb 09, 2024

Attentive.ai, a startup building vertical software for landscaping and construction services in the U.S., has raised $7 million in a new funding round as it looks to enhance its AI-led offerings and expand them to more businesses.

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Brita snaps up smart water bottle startup, Larq Feb 09, 2024

Smart water bottle-maker Larq this week announced that it has been acquired by filtration giant, Brita.

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UK AI startup Greyparrot bags strategic tie-up with recycling giant Bollegraaf Feb 08, 2024

In another sign of the scramble to accelerate the uptake and transformative potential of artificial intelligence, Dutch recycling giant Bollegraaf Group is making a strategic investment in UK AI startup Greyparrot

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Guided Energy helps EV fleet managers optimize battery charging Feb 08, 2024

Imagine you work for a car rental agency or a package delivery company and you’re in charge of a fleet of vehicles.

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Synthetaic claims synthetic data is as good as the real thing when it comes to AI Feb 07, 2024

Remember the Chinese “spy” balloon from 2023? If not, here’s a refresher: about a year ago, a high-altitude balloon originating from China flew across American airspace largely undetected.

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EV startup Arrival looks to sell off assets, intellectual property of UK division Feb 07, 2024

Commercial EV startup Arrival’s business continues to unravel. Arrival announced Monday in a regulatory filing that its UK division is entering administration, the country’s version of bankruptcy.

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Stellar Sleep app gets initial funding to awaken root cause of chronic insomnia in users Feb 06, 2024

Stellar Sleep’s mobile app taps into psychological methods to help users break the cycle of those frequent nights awake.

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Naboo provides an Airbnb-like experience for company seminars Feb 06, 2024

Naboo, a French company that was created just a couple of years ago, is trying to create a modern online experience for company seminar planning.

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Secretive moon startup led by ex-Blue Origin leaders raises new tranche of funding Feb 05, 2024

A stealth startup led by ex-Blue Origin leaders, focused on harvesting resources from the moon, has quietly closed a sizable new tranche of funding, according to regulatory documents

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Niremia Collective closes inaugural fund with $22.5M focused on well-being technology Feb 05, 2024

Niremia Collective intends to provide capital and management resources to high-growth well-being startups as well as incubate new businesses.

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Probabl is a new AI company built around popular library scikit-learn Feb 03, 2024

Probabl isn’t your average AI startup as this new French company is an Inria spin-off company that revolves around an open-source data science library called scikit-learn

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CARPL guides healthcare providers through the growing market of radiology AI apps Feb 02, 2024

There’s an acute shortage of radiologists around the world, which means it is harder for medical teams to get imaging studies done.

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Planet A Foods whips up more capital to take its cocoa-free chocolate global Feb 02, 2024

Planet A Foods uses fermentation technology to turn all-natural, locally-sourced ingredients, for example, oats and sunflower seeds, into its cocoa-free chocolate brand, ChoViva.

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Accel eyes new India fashion e-commerce bet with Newme Feb 01, 2024

Accel, an early investor in Indian e-commerce giants Flipkart and Myntra, is preparing a new fashion e-commerce bet in India even as competition intensifies with the recent expansion of Mukesh Ambani’s Ajio platform.

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Speedinvest closes fourth fund at $380 million to back early-stage startups in Europe Feb 01, 2024

Vienna-based early-stage VC Speedinvest has closed its fourth early-stage fund, Speedinvest 4, at €350 million (around $380 million at today’s exchange rate), surpassing the initial goal of €300 million ($325 million).

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Fidelity cuts Meta-backed Meesho valuation to $3.5 billion Jan 31, 2024

Fidelity has cut the value of its holding in Meesho by 33.6% since the original investment, giving the Indian social commerce startup a valuation of $3.5 billion, adjusted for outstanding shares.

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BlueLayer is building the operating system for carbon project developers Jan 31, 2024

Meet BlueLayer, a new European startup that is building a software platform specifically designed for carbon project developers.

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Byju’s seeks to raise $200 million in rights issue Jan 30, 2024

Byju’s, the world’s most valuable edtech startup, launched a rights issue on Monday, seeking to raise $200 million as the Indian firm works to address its working capital issues.

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Yume’s platform helps manufacturers turn potential food waste into money Jan 30, 2024

While running a bar in Melbourne, Katy Barfield was taken aback by the large amount of ingredients thrown out at the end of each day.

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Delivery startup Veho makes corporate job cuts Jan 29, 2024

The company said the layoffs are part of a "reorganization of our corporate team to improve efficiencies and accelerate our path to profitability."

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Ola founder’s AI startup becomes unicorn in $50M funding Jan 29, 2024

Krutrim, an AI startup founded by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, said it has raised a funding round that values it at $1 billion.

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Elo Life Systems grabs another $20.5M to get its monk fruit sweetener to market Jan 26, 2024

Elo Life is focused on a number of technologies from developing plant-based sweeteners to crop protection.

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Prompt Security wants to make GenAI safe for the enterprise Jan 26, 2024

Businesses are moving faster than ever to use generative AI and bring it to both their employees and users.

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General Catalyst leads $200M investment into Bilt Rewards, doubling its valuation to $3.1B Jan 25, 2024

Bilt Rewards, whose platform aims to allow consumers to earn rewards on rent and daily neighborhood spend, has raised $200 million at a $3.1 valuation, the company announced today.

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Kittl raises another $36 million for its browser-based design tool Jan 25, 2024

Just a year after raising $11.6 million, Kittl raised another $36 million in a Series B round led by IVP with some existing investors participating once again.

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Byju’s seeks new funding at less than $2 billion valuation, a 90% drop Jan 24, 2024

Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, is willing to cut its valuation to below $2 billion as it hunts for new funding, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

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Plural, the VC led by founders, pulls together a new $432M fund to back European startups Jan 24, 2024

European VC Plural has carved out a reputation for itself as being one of the few VCs in the region started and led by entrepreneurs who grew their own startups.

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Day One gets more social with a new collaborative ‘Shared Journals’ feature Jan 23, 2024

Journal app Day One is introducing Shared Journals, a new social feature that lets you share stories and memories with your friends and family.

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Kenyan agtech Shamba Pride raises $3.7M to grow its merchant network Jan 23, 2024

Shamba Pride has since 2016 worked to enhance last-mile distribution for farm inputs and tackle price exploitation and quality issues for farmers through its merchant network dubbed digishops.

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Plex confirms plan to launch TV and movie rentals next month Jan 22, 2024

Media streamer Plex’s long-delayed plans to launch a marketplace for TV and movie rentals are finally being realized after multiple false starts.

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Farm-ng makes modular robots for a broad range of agricultural work Jan 22, 2024

Agriculture is poised to be one of the next great robotics categories. Everyone needs to eat, and much of what we eat in this part of the world comes from large farms.

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What happened to Artifact? Jan 20, 2024

Last week, Artifact, a buzzy news app from Instagram’s co-founders, announced it was shutting down after failing to gain critical mass.

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International Battery Company powers up with $35M funding to bridge EV gap in India Jan 19, 2024

International Battery Company, a startup developing lithium-ion battery cells for electric vehicles, has raised $35 million as it plans to bridge the demand-supply gap in the growing EV market in India.

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Astroscale takes the wraps off its $25M orbital refueling craft for Space Force Jan 19, 2024

Orbital operations company Astroscale has revealed new details about its approach to refueling satellites in space, as part of a $25.5 million project exploring the concept with the Space Force.

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Goodnotes acquires a AI-powered video summary startup as it looks beyond education Jan 18, 2024

London-based notetaking startup Goodnotes said today it is acquiring South Korean startup Dropthebit, which operates a meeting and video summary tool called Traw.

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Build a Rocket Boy, a game studio from former Grand Theft Auto developer, raises $110M Jan 18, 2024

Build a Rocket Boy, a Scotland-headquartered game development company founded by one of the former lead developers behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise,announced it has raised $110 million in a Series D round of funding.

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Pomelo stacks $40M to scale its payments infra business in LatAm Jan 17, 2024

Argentinian payments infrastructure startup Pomelo has raised $40 million in a Series B round of funding.

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Singapore’s Locofy launches its one-click design-to-code tool Jan 17, 2024

After using Figma to create user interfaces and experiences, developers are left with the hefty task of coding the designs in order to create functional websites or apps.

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FlutterFlow attracts cash for its low-code mobile app dev platform Jan 16, 2024

Low-code dev platforms have gained momentum in recent years, in large part because they promise to shorten what’s otherwise typically a lengthy app development cycle.

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Anthropic researchers find that AI models can be trained to deceive Jan 16, 2024

Most humans learn the skill of deceiving other humans. So can AI models learn the same? Yes, the answer seems — and terrifyingly, they’re exceptionally good at it.

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Airbnb or hotel? Overmoon’s vacation rental model aims to combine the best of both Jan 15, 2024

Historically, vacation rental companies have managed homes for homeowners. While this model has proven popular, it also has its drawbacks.

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This startup is trying to bring T9-like text input to your TV Jan 12, 2024

Some technologies make so much sense that they just won’t disappear. T9 — the old text input from our trusty Nokia phones from the 1990s — is one of those throwbacks.

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Micromobility startups Tier and Dott plan to merge to find a path to profitability Jan 12, 2024

After years of exploding growth and massive funding rounds, it’s time for consolidation in the micromobility industry. Tier and Dott, two leading European companies in the space, have announced that they plan to merge.

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Seedstars Africa Ventures gets $30M backing from EIB Global to invest in early-stage startups Jan 11, 2024

Seedstars Africa Ventures has received a $30 million capital commitment from EIB Global, an arm of the European Investment Bank, which becomes the first major institutional investment for its first Pan-African venture capital fund.

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Sony’s new ‘digital birth certificate’ for imaging tech smells a lot like NFTs Jan 10, 2024

Sony is breaking new ground in the ongoing NFTs and content authenticity saga.

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Will.i.am’s new startup Sound Drive wants you to reboot the music industry in your car Jan 10, 2024

You can spend all day long curating custom playlists for every mood, picking tracks based on tempo or intensity, but whether you’re corner-carving or just commuting you’ll never perfectly match the cadence and energy of every drive.

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Anecdotes lands $25M to expand its governance, risk management and compliance business Jan 09, 2024

Governance, risk management and compliance — GRC for short — remains one of the most active startup areas in terms of VC investments.

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Nabla raises another $24 million for its AI assistant for doctors Jan 09, 2024

Paris-based startup Nabla just announced that it has raised a $24 million Series B funding round led by Cathay Innovation, with participation from ZEBOX Ventures — the corporate VC fund of CMA CGM.

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This app lets cafes and coffee shops charge to use the bathroom Jan 08, 2024

Thanks to bans on pay toilets dating back to the 1970s, folks in the U.S. have become accustomed to enjoying free public restroom access pretty much anywhere their travels take them.

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Peak XV-backed MobiKwik seeks to raise $84 million in India IPO Jan 06, 2024

Indian financial services startup MobiKwik seeks to raise about $84.2 million through issue of new shares in an initial public offering in the home market.

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EV startup Fisker struggling to meet internal sales goals, documents show Jan 05, 2024

Fisker remains far from meeting CEO and founder Henrik Fisker’s publicly-stated goal of delivering 300 electric SUVs per day globally

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AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI, now valued at $520M, raises $70M Jan 05, 2024

As search engine incumbents — namely Google — amp up their platforms with gen AI tech, startups are looking to reinvent AI-powered search from the ground up. It might seem like a Sisyphean task, going up against competitors with billions upon billions of users.

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Intel spins out a new enterprise-focused gen AI software company Jan 04, 2024

Intel, intent on making bigger moves in the market for AI-powered enterprise software, is spinning out a new platform company with the backing of Boca Raton, Florida-based asset manager and investor DigitalBridge.

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Short-term rental provider Frontdesk lays off entire staff, on the verge of shutting down Jan 04, 2024

Another proptech startup has run into trouble.

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Former Anthemis partner soft-launches new fintech-focused venture firm Jan 03, 2024

Ruth Foxe Blader has left her role as partner at Anthemis Group after nearly seven years to start her own venture firm, Foxe Capital, TechCrunch learned exclusively today.

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Tesla’s cheapest cars helped it notch another record year Jan 03, 2024

Tesla shipped a record number of electric vehicles in the fourth quarter to help it edge out its targets for the year.

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Rivian deliveries slip 10% in Q4, raising demand questions Jan 02, 2024

Rivian reported Tuesday it produced 17,541 vehicles at its Normal, Illinois factory and delivered 13,972 to customers in the fourth quarter, mixed results that left investors wary and sent shares down in pre-market trading.

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Shield AI expands massive Series F with another $300M in equity, debt, scaling valuation to $2.8B Jan 01, 2024

Defense tech startup Shield AI has expanded its latest funding round with another $300 million in equity and debt, bringing its total Series F to $500 million, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. This total amount reflects $200 million in equity closed in November, $100 million in new equity raised at the Series F price, and $200 […]

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Giga ML wants to help companies deploy LLMs offline Dec 29, 2023

AI is all the rage — particularly text-generating AI, also known as large language models (think models along the lines of ChatGPT). In one recent survey of ~1,000 enterprise organizations, 67.2% say that they see adopting large language models (LLMs) as a top priority by early 2024. But barriers stand in the way.

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SoftBank-backed FirstCry seeks to raise nearly $220 million in India IPO Dec 29, 2023

E-commerce startup FirstCry is seeking to raise $218 million through issue of fresh shares in its initial public offering, the 13-year-old startup said in a draft prospectus filed with the market regulator Thursday, becoming the latest Indian startup to explore the public markets. FirstCry earlier sought to raise as much as $700 million in its […]

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Propelled by ‘science for humanity,’ this Chinese AI startup sets sight on US Dec 28, 2023

Amid rising geopolitical tensions, many Chinese tech companies find themselves recalibrating their overseas pursuits, often sidestepping any reference to their origin. One bold startup called DP Technology stands out from the crowd. Working to apply artificial intelligence to molecular simulations, DP, short for “Deep Potential,” believes that the unifying power of “scientific research for humanity” […]

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BotBuilt wants to lower the cost of homebuilding with robots Dec 28, 2023

Homes aren’t getting cheaper — or necessarily easier to secure. This year, the median household income for home buyers jumped to $107,000 from $88,000 last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The volume of homes for sale in the U.S. reached record a low, meanwhile — and shows no sign of recovery. Now, […]

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Nonprofit Code.org sues Byju’s unit WhiteHat Jr over payment dues Dec 27, 2023

Code.org, the US educational non-profit, has filed a lawsuit in a California district court alleging that Byju’s subsidiary WhiteHat Jr breached a licensing contract by failing to pay fees while continuing to use Code.org’s platform. WhiteHat Jr, which sold to Byju’s for $300 million in 2020, partnered with Code.org last year and agreed to pay […]

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ShareChat faces large valuation cut in new funding Dec 27, 2023

"ShareChat is in final stages of deliberations to secure about $50 million in new funding that trims the startup’s valuation to below $1.5 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Existing backers including Temasek and Tencent are among the investors in advanced stages of talks to invest in the new round, the sources […]

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Y Combinator-backed Intrinsic is building infrastructure for trust and safety teams Dec 22, 2023

"A few years ago, Karine Mellata and Michael Lin met while working at Apple’s fraud engineering and algorithmic risk team. Both engineers, Mellata and Lin were involved with helping to address online abuse problems including spam, botting, account security and developer fraud for Apple’s growing customer base. Despite their efforts to develop new models to […]

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Vestwell raises $125M to help businesses power workplace savings programs Dec 22, 2023

Vestwell, which provides the infrastructure for employers to power workplace savings programs, has raised $125 million in what the company describes as a “preempted” round of funding.

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Medallion, a platform for artists to connect directly with fans, raises $13.7M Dec 21, 2023

Medallion is a platform for artists to have a dedicated digital hub for promoting album releases, tour dates and merch drops, as well as selling digital collectibles and sharing exclusive content to foster deeper connections with fans.

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Claim, a social network that lets users earn and trade rewards with friends, raises $4M Dec 21, 2023

Claim, a platform that is both a rewards app and a social network, has raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital.

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SimSpace raises $45M to simulate tech stacks for cyber training Dec 20, 2023

SimSpace, a startup that creates digital replicas of organizations’ tech and networking stacks for cybersecurity training, has raised $45 million in a funding round led by L2 Point Management.

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Salesforce acquires automated commission management platform Spiff Dec 19, 2023

Salesforce has announced plans to acquire Spiff, a platform that automates commission management for sales teams.

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IBM to acquire StreamSets and WebMethods from Software AG for $2.3B Dec 19, 2023

IBM is doling out €2.13 billion ($2.3 billion) to acquire a duo of data integration assets from Germany-based enterprise software company Software AG.

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In the fight against methane, a key GHG, Valley investors have hit upon an unusual target: Cow burps Dec 18, 2023

What do iconic Valley investors Zachary Bogue and Chris Sacca have in common?

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India’s Udaan scores $340 million in new funding Dec 18, 2023

The investment arm of the UK retail bank M&G has led a funding of $340 million into Udaan, a business-to-business e-commerce startup,

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Linktree acquires link-in-bio platform Koji in its second investment of the year Dec 18, 2023

Australia-based link-in-bio platform Linktree announced today that it has acquired competitor Koji from its parent company GoMeta for an undisclosed amount.

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Distributional wants to develop software to reduce AI risk Dec 15, 2023

Companies are increasingly curious about AI and the ways in which it can be used to (potentially) boost productivity.

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Startup studio Hexa wants to partner with startups growing too slowly Dec 15, 2023

Just a couple of weeks after announcing $22 million in fundraising, Paris-based startup studio Hexa is expanding beyond its studio model to partner with later stage companies that have already found product-market fit.

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Metafuels lands $8 million bet on greener skies ahead Dec 14, 2023

Metafuels sets out to change the landscape of sustainable jet fuel, and has just picked up an $8 million suitcase from baggage carousel 3 at its local ZRH. Ahh, Zurich.

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Procurement software startup Pivot raises $21.6 million just a few months after its creation Dec 13, 2023

French startup Pivot is an interesting startup story as it is scaling at a rapid pace even though startup investments are down in Europe.

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Tribe Capital eyes leading $75M-plus funding in India’s Shiprocket Dec 13, 2023

Tribe Capital is in talks to lead a $75 million to $100 million funding into the logistics aggregator Shiprocket, according to a person familiar with the matter, a notable financing deliberation at a time when Indian startups are struggling to raise capital.

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Docker acquires AtomicJar, a testing startup that raised $25M in January Dec 12, 2023

AtomicJar was seemingly a high flying early stage startup with a hefty (by today’s standards) $25 million Series A last January.

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Mistral AI, a Paris-based OpenAI rival, closed its $415 million funding round Dec 12, 2023

French startup Mistral AI has officially closed its much anticipated Series A funding round.

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Is the Texas boom town of Austin losing its luster? Dec 11, 2023

Texas has been historically known for its oil booms. Today the state is perhaps better known as a magnet for tech companies and tech talent, especially in its capital city of Austin.

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Simply Homes nabs $22M, leverages AI to tackle affordable housing crisis Dec 11, 2023

The United States has long had an affordable housing crisis, but it’s been exacerbated as of late by a surge in mortgage interest rates and low inventory.

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Mammoth, an X and Threads competitor, embraces news, curation, and more in latest release Dec 08, 2023

Mammoth, an app from the Mozilla-backed startup focused on building a more consumer-friendly entry point to the world of decentralized social media, is out today with its next big upgrade: Mammoth 2.

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Pimento turns creative briefs into visual mood boards using generative AI Dec 08, 2023

Pimento is a new French startup that is using generative AI in an interesting way as the company focuses on the first step of creative processes — ideation, brainstorming and moodboarding.

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OurSky lands $9.5M seed to build out developer platform for space data Dec 07, 2023

A developer platform for the…sky? That’s the vision of OurSky, a startup founded last year that’s aiming to make space observational data more accessible via a software platform and global telescope network.

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Discord reimagines its mobile app to showcase its best social features Dec 07, 2023

Discord launched a major refresh of its mobile app on Tuesday, putting messaging front-and-center while making a host of small improvements that users have been asking for.

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Twitch to shut down in Korea over ‘prohibitively expensive’ network fees Dec 06, 2023

Twitch plans to shut down its business in South Korea on February 27, it said, after finding that operating in one of the world’s largest esports markets is “prohibitively expensive.”

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EnCharge raises $22.6M to commercialize its AI-accerating chips Dec 06, 2023

Around a year ago, TechCrunch wrote about a little-known company developing AI-accelerating chips to face off against hardware from titans of industry.

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Carbon Maps, a carbon accounting startup for the food industry, gets new backers Dec 05, 2023

Carbon Maps is a relatively new entrant in the carbon accounting space as it is less than one year old.

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India’s MoveinSync eyes $50–60M in fresh funding Dec 05, 2023

MoveinSync, an Indian startup offering mobility solutions to blue-chip companies for workplace commute, is engaging with investors to raise a growth round, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

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Gravel gets funding from NEA to support Indonesia’s booming construction industry Dec 04, 2023

Indonesia’s construction industry is growing quickly, driven by residential and industrial building, alongside infrastructure development plans by the government.

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Clayful, a startup that helps students connect to mental health experts within 60 seconds, raises $7M Dec 04, 2023

Clayful is a platform that enables students aged eight to 18 to connect with a mental health expert within 60 seconds when they need it.

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Yieldstreet to acquire real estate investment platform Cadre Dec 01, 2023

Alternative investment platform Yieldstreet announced today that it has agreed to acquire Cadre, an online real-estate-focused investment platform aimed at institutional and high net worth investors.

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DuploCloud lands $32M infusion to make provisioning cloud apps easier Dec 01, 2023

It’s only appropriate that, during AWS’ biggest week of the year, a cloud-based software-as-a-service startup closed a sizeable funding round.

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Kognitos raises $35M to help businesses automate back-office processes Nov 30, 2023

Businesses will never not (forgive the double negative) push to improve efficiency. It’s their commercial imperative. Sometimes, that takes the form of budget cuts.

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Layla taps into AI and creator content to build a travel recommendation app Nov 29, 2023

Many companies are trying to use AI chatbots (beyond ChatGPT) in different industries

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Inflow connects small fashion brands with manufacturers in Vietnam Nov 29, 2023

Textiles and garments contribute 16% of Vietnam’s total GPD, but it’s challenging for small garment brands to take advantage of the country’s manufacturing prowess.

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Cradle’s AI-powered protein programming platform levels up with $24M in new funding Nov 28, 2023

Biotech and AI startup Cradle is finding success with its generative approach to protein design, landing big customers and a hefty $24 million of new investment.

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Stability AI gets into the video generating game Nov 28, 2023

AI startups that aren’t OpenAI are plugging away this week, it’d seem — sticking to their product roadmaps even as coverage of the chaos at OpenAI dominates the airwaves.

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US chip export ban is hurting China’s AI startups, not so much the giants yet Nov 27, 2023

Well before Washington banned Nvidia’s exports of high-performance graphic processing units to China, the country’s tech giants had been hoarding them in anticipation of an escalating tech war between the two nations.

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Birdseye’s AI-powered chief marketing officer drives personalized email campaigns for retailers Nov 23, 2023

The company offers hyper-personalization email and SMS campaigns and retail transaction data insights from one dashboard.

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Lightspeed finalizing leading $80M-plus funding in Pocket FM Nov 22, 2023

Audio series platform Pocket FM has topped $160 million in annual recurring revenue and is inching closer to raising over $80 million in a new funding round, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Lightspeed, an existing investor in Pocket FM, is in advanced stages of talks to lead the funding round into the […]

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Vendelux grabs new capital for B2B event marketing amid in-person resurgence Nov 22, 2023

Vendelux offers 65 million data points on over 160,000 global events, tradeshows and conferences so event marketers can make better decisions about what to attend or sponsor.

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Generative AI startup AI21 Labs raises cash in the midst of OpenAI chaos Nov 21, 2023

One AI startup’s undoing is another’s opportunity. Case in point: today, AI21 Labs, a company developing generative AI products along the lines of OpenAI’s GPT-4 and ChatGPT, closed a $53 million extension to its previously-announced Series C funding round.

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SEVA, a new growth equity fund, secures $85M for debut fund in four months Nov 21, 2023

SEVA intends to invest in New York-based customer-centric founders of fast-growing, bootstrapped companies to scale via profitable growth.

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LucidLink lands $75M for its on-demand file streaming tech Nov 20, 2023

LucidLink, a startup offering a platform that enables teams to work on files without having to download or sync them, today announced that it raised $75 million in a Series C round led by Brighton Park Capital

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Toku’s AI platform predicts heart conditions by scanning inside your eye Nov 20, 2023

Ehsan Vaghefi, CEO and co-founder of Toku, grew up with a blind father who lost eyesight at the age of four due to congenital glaucoma.

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Candela’s electric hydrofoiling ferry takes flight Nov 17, 2023

The future is going to be electric, but in the air and on the water that transition is proving more difficult than on land.

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Ida uses AI to prevent grocery food waste Nov 17, 2023

Ida is a relatively new French startup that wants to work with supermarkets and grocery stores to optimize new orders of fresh products, such as fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish.

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Refilled wants to save 100 million plastic bottles from the landfill Nov 16, 2023

The Australian government recently set new packaging regulations after an official review found just 18% of plastic packaging is recycled, falling far short of a 70% target by 2025.

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Remote connects talent and employers with a new job board Nov 16, 2023

Remote, the HR tech company that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote workers, is launching a remote job marketplace called Remote

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3D generative AI platform Atlas emerges from stealth with $6M to accelerate virtual worldbuilding Nov 15, 2023

Atlas, a 3D generative AI platform, is launching today after two years in stealth with $6 million in seed funding.

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Interplay secures $45M for third fund focused on B2B marketplaces, vertical software Nov 15, 2023

Mark Peter Davis, Interplay founder and managing partner, says the firm stands out with its outsized value proposition relative to its check size.

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Etaily is a “one stop solution” for consumer brands that want to enter Southeast Asia Nov 14, 2023

E-commerce in Southeast Asia grew rapidly during the pandemic, and that momentum is continuing.

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Upciti helps cities level up their data strategy Nov 14, 2023

Upciti is a French startup that has been working on a hardware sensor for city centers that is easy to install and maintain.

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Picsart launches a suite of AI-powered tools that let you generate videos, backgrounds, GIFs and more Nov 13, 2023

Picsart, a photo-editing startup backed by SoftBank, is launching a new suite of AI-powered tools for businesses and individuals.

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Chptr, a memorialization app for gathering and sharing memories of loved ones, raises $1.5M Nov 13, 2023

Chptr, an app for sharing and holding onto memories of lost loved ones, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding.

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Ozone raises $7.1M to scale its AI-powered collaborative video editor in the cloud Nov 10, 2023

Ozone, the maker of an AI-powered collaborative video editor in the cloud, has raised $7.1 million in seed funding and is launching in open beta.

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mogul club raises $3.6M toward its effort to make real estate investing more accessible Nov 10, 2023

While the idea of owning rental properties is appealing to many Americans, the ability to vet and afford such investments in single-family homes is out of reach for a large part of the population.

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Popular video chat service Omegle shuts down Nov 09, 2023

Omegle, an online service that allowed individuals to connect and chat with strangers, has shut down after 15 years citing growing misuse of the platform, including in committing “unspeakably heinous crimes.”

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Vanguard slashes Ola valuation by 60%-plus; NB reduces Pharmeasy’s by over 90% Nov 09, 2023

Written by Manish Singh - The U.S. index fund pioneer Vanguard has cut the worth of its holding in the Indian ride-hailing startup Ola by nearly two thirds since original investment.

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Meta taps Hugging Face for startup accelerator to spur adoption of open source AI models Nov 08, 2023

Written by Pete Sawers - Facebook parent Meta is teaming up with Hugging Face and European cloud infrastructure company Scaleway to launch a new AI-focused startup program at the Station F startup megacampus in Paris.

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Lidl owner and Bosch Ventures co-lead $500M Series B into German AI startup Aleph Alpha Nov 08, 2023

German AI startup Aleph Alpha has raised a Series B funding round of $500 million from a consortium of seven new investors, as well as existing investors from previous rounds.

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Enable, a platform for managing B2B rebates, is now worth $1B Nov 07, 2023

There’s a new unicorn in town, and its name is Enable.

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Appetite wants to help you and your friends discover, plan and book a meal out Nov 07, 2023

Appetite, an app for discovering and booking restaurants, is aiming to streamline the process of planning nights out with friends and family.

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Revel ends moped sharing, focuses on EV charging and ride-hail Nov 06, 2023

Electric mobility startup Revel is officially shutting down its shared moped business in New York City and San Francisco, according to a company-wide email that CEO and co-founder Frank Reig sent Friday.

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Blackbird invests in Carepatron’s “radically accessible” healthcare management platform Nov 06, 2023

When TechCrunch covered Carepatron’s pre-seed last year, it was focused on serving solo practitioners and small health practices.

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Flavrs, a shoppable video app for foodies, launches a new takeout feature and AI-powered recommendations Nov 03, 2023

Flavrs, an iOS app that lets foodies discover recipes and and then shop for ingredients, is introducing a new takeout feature and AI-powered recommendation systems thanks to a custom integration with OpenAI.

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Flexport acquires technology of former digital freight unicorn Convoy Nov 03, 2023

Supply chain logistics platform Flexport is acquiring the assets of shuttered digital freight network Convoy, according to a memo Flexport CEO Ryan Peterson sent to staff Wednesday.

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EarlyBird raises $4.5M, partially from its users, to scale its investment gifting platform for families Nov 02, 2023

EarlyBird, an app that lets families and friends gift investments to children, has raised $4.5 million in a seed extension round that was partially funded by its user base.

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Grant Assistant wants to apply generative AI to grant proposals Nov 02, 2023

By Kyle Wiggers. Grants are the lifeblood of many organizations. But procuring them often turns out to be a time-consuming, labor-intensive process.

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Charlie’s senior-focused banking puts new funding toward stopping fraud Nov 01, 2023

By Mary Ann Azevedo. Less than six months after launching to the public and announcing a $7.5 million seed raise, a startup providing banking services to Americans over the age of 62 has raised additional funding.

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Guidde’s AI automatically generates software documentation videos Nov 01, 2023

Organizations today rely on a growing number of apps to get work done.

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Yuzu wants to make health plans cheaper by letting insurers mix and match benefits Oct 31, 2023

In the U.S., figuring out ways to pay for health insurance is a perennial problem — not just for individuals, but for the businesses employing them.

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Stealthy social commerce startup taps into Meta roots to create AI-first brand messaging Oct 31, 2023

Nectar AI will help brands find new ways to personally engage and convert consumers where they spend the most time.

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Soundboks is scaling high-volume, high-energy speakers across borders and cultures Oct 30, 2023

Norway-based Soundboks just released its latest $1,000 Bluetooth speaker.

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Outset is using GPT-4 to make user surveys better Oct 30, 2023

Getting answers to tough, qualitative questions about products from users can be costly, both in terms of time and money.

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India’s bike taxi startup Rapido is getting into the cab business Oct 27, 2023

Rapido, the eight-year-old Indian bike taxi startup, is expanding into the cab market in the South Asian nation, where Uber and its homegrown competitor Ola dominate.

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Blackbird backs Heidi Health’s AI platform for overworked doctors Oct 27, 2023

Many doctors are overwhelmed by paperwork, leaving them stretched thin, with less time to see patients.

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Temasek and SBI pour $384 million into India’s Ola Electric Oct 26, 2023

Ola Electric said on Thursday that it has raised $384.43 million in a funding round.

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Triple-A gets funding from Peak XV to help more businesses use crypto Oct 26, 2023

Created by the founder of Thunes, global digital currency payments institution Triple-A wants to close the gap between traditional finance and blockchain-based payments with its white-label solutions for businesses.

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Lab-grown leather scales up as Gozen raises $3.3M from Happiness Capital, SoSV and others Oct 25, 2023

Whether we like it or not, the leather industry significantly contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global waste generation.

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Oxolo bags €13M for Gen AI-driven video platform which can optimise engagement on the fly Oct 25, 2023

Much has been made of AI-powered videos which can either make a real person speak different words or other languages, or generate a synthetic person which can speak on-demand.

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Smart upcycling machine dissects batteries to save them Oct 24, 2023

Circu Li-ion cofounder and CEO Antoine Welter says his startup’s upcycling machine can diagnose batteries in seconds.

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Ternary, a cloud spend management startup, raises $12M Oct 24, 2023

Ternary, a platform that helps companies manage how much they’re spending on cloud resources across multiple public cloud providers, today announced that it raised $12 million in a Series A funding round.

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‘Household restocking’ startup The Rounds uses tech and AI to make sustainable e-commerce profitable Oct 23, 2023

The Rounds, a sustainable “household restocking” service, wants to prove that last-mile logistics can be done both efficiently and profitably.

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Citi inks deal with fintech Navan, says ‘not having to file an expense report is like nirvana’ Oct 23, 2023

Expense management startup Navan has inked an exclusive deal with Citi that executives say will open its addressable market significantly.

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Warmly pivots from Zoom tool to directing warm leads to sales Oct 20, 2023

When Warmly started a couple of years ago, people were meeting regularly in Zoom and the company provided a custom background and information about the participants.

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Statement, a cash flow management platform for enterprises, raises $12M Oct 20, 2023

Statement, a startup developing a platform for enterprise cash flow management, today announced that it raised $12 million in seed funding.

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Passwordless authentication startup SecureW2 raises $80M from Insight Partners Oct 19, 2023

Passwordless authentication offers a host of advantages over traditional pins, passphrases and passcodes.

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Stack Overflow cuts 28% of its staff Oct 19, 2023

Developer community site Stack Overflow has laid off 28% of its staff, the Prosus-owned company announced Monday.

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Flanks grabs additional capital to automate wealth services in Europe Oct 18, 2023

Flanks gathers global wealth data under one API so that clients can have a complete view of their investment portfolio in real time and make more intelligent investment decisions.

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AI-generating music app Riffusion turns viral success into $4M in funding Oct 18, 2023

Nearly a year ago, developers Seth Forsgren and Hayk Martiros released a hobby project called Riffusion that could generate music using not audio but images of audio.

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Reality Defender raises $15M to detect text, video and image deepfakes Oct 17, 2023

Reality Defender, one of several startups developing tools to attempt to detect deepfakes and other AI-generated content, today announced that it raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by DCVC.

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Accessercise’s app makes it easier for people with disabilities to exercise Oct 17, 2023

Accessercise, which developed a fitness app for people who want to exercise despite their disabilities, was one of the Startup Battlefield 200 finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023.

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Creative Force, now with $8.9M, gives e-commerce workflows an AI treatment Oct 16, 2023

Creative Force helps retailers and brands create content at scale for marketing campaigns and online merchandising.

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Lanch, which creates food delivery brands for influencers, gobbles up $6.9M Oct 16, 2023

Two of the biggest drivers of growth on social and e-commerce platforms have been food and influencers, so it should come as no surprise that startups are now getting in on the act in trying to combine how these two work together.

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Israeli biotech startup mana.bio launches AI-fueled programmable drug therapy Oct 13, 2023

Israeli biotech startup Mana.bio has been planning to launch its programmable drug treatment solution for months, and decided to forge ahead in spite of the attacks that happened this past weekend in the country.

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KIT Plugins, an audio software startup that help producers and musicians enhance their sound, raises $1 million Oct 13, 2023

KIT Plugins, a music software development startup, has raised $1 million in Series A funding led by Copycat Holdings.

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10 Minute School aims to democratize education for Bangladeshi students Oct 12, 2023

Access to education in Bangladesh is filled with inequalities, say the founders of edtech 10 Minute School.

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AI revolutionizing MRI scans — A Munich startup banked $32M to scan eggs, and says humans are next Oct 12, 2023

Germany, France, and Italy are among the countries which last year enacted laws to stop the practice of culling male day-old chicks, because, as they do not lay eggs, are considered surplus to requirements.

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Zest Equity, a UAE-based startup digitizing private market deals, raises $3.8M seed funding Oct 11, 2023

UAE-based Zest Equity, a startup digitizing private market dealings, has raised $3.8 million seed funding to build more tools for enabling fast and transparent transactions by ecosystem players while increasing their liquidity through secondary deals.

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Orus offers business insurance products to restaurant owners and other small companies Oct 11, 2023

French startup Orus has raised an $11.6 million Series A funding round (€11 million).

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Heura adds ‘York ham style slices’ to its 100%-plant-based vegan mix Oct 10, 2023

Barcelona-based Heura, a disrupter in the plant-based protein space since 2017, has a product hitting shelves shortly in Spain and France that it reckons will have the most committed meat eaters sitting up in disbelief.

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Wanda Fish navigates VC waters to catch $7M for production of cultivated bluefin tuna Oct 10, 2023

The company aims to create whole-cut cultivated fish filets, starting with bluefin tuna, using muscle and fat cells.

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Singapore’s tech subscription service Circular wants to keep devices out of the landfill Oct 09, 2023

Circular, backed by Y Combinator, is a service that offers consumers in Singapore and Australia subscriptions to high-end electronics, like iPhones, Samsung Galaxy, iPad Pros and MacBook Pros.

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Consumer brand accelerator SuperOrdinary gets $58M Series B at $800M valuation Oct 09, 2023

The average shopper probably hasn’t heard of SuperOrdinary, but if they are a beauty or skincare fan, they’ve definitely heard of some of the brands the startup works with.

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Ohm’s Quest is an electronic puzzle console inspired by escape rooms Oct 06, 2023

Ohm’s Quest is a steampunk-inspired cubical device that acts as a sort of escape game console.

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Amazon shutters its live radio app Amp Oct 06, 2023

Amazon has shut down its Clubhouse competitor’s live radio app Amp almost 18 months after its launch. The app allowed users to play DJ and provide commentary alongside playing tracks.

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CoPilot, a training app that matches users with remote fitness coaches, raises $6.3M Oct 05, 2023

CoPilot, a digital training app that matches users with one-on-one remote fitness coaches, has raised $6.3M in Series A-1 funding led by Jackson Square Ventures.

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Sam Altman backs teens’ AI startup automating browser-native workflows Oct 05, 2023

Sam Altman, Peak XV, and Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman’s AI grant are among backers of an AI startup, founded by two teenagers, that’s aiming to assist businesses in automating numerous workflows in previously unexplored ways.

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Science lab automation and robotics startup Automata raises $40M Oct 04, 2023

Automata, a company that combines software and hardware to automate science labs around the globe, has raised $40 million in an equity-based round of funding.

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Ten Key Labs wants to simplify managing equity for startups Oct 04, 2023

Amar Varma, a three-time entrepreneur and VC, experienced firsthand the challenge of dealing with administering equity stakes within a startup.

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Greener for Business launches to help Australian SMBs move to net zero Oct 03, 2023

Greener, the Australian cleantech startup that creates custom action plans to help its customers become more environmentally sustainable, is launching Greener for Business today.

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Being is an app that wants to help users map out and address mental health concerns Oct 03, 2023

Being is an app that wants to help users map out and address mental health concerns

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Nextdata is building data meshes for the enterprise Oct 02, 2023

The concept of a data mesh has been around for a few years.

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Transfr, a VR platform for workforce training, raises $40M Oct 02, 2023

Transfr, a startup creating VR tools for training and career development, today announced that it raised $40 million in a Series C round.

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Publisher-focused Twitter alternative Post comes to Android, adds newsletter support Sep 29, 2023

Post, a publisher-focused Twitter/X alternative backed by a16z, is bringing its social news-sharing app to Android today along with new tools that will make it easier for creators to share their newsletter content on the platform.

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Cybersecurity firm Lumu raises $30M to detect network intrusions Sep 29, 2023

Lumu, a startup that helps enterprises identify and isolate security compromises, today announced that it raised $30 million in a Series B round led by Forgepoint Capital, $6 million of which is debt.

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Senser launches its AI-enhanced observability platform, raises $9.5M Sep 28, 2023

Senser describes itself as an AIOps platform that uses machine learning to help developers and ops teams more easily get to the root causes of outages and service degradations.

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Rayon is a collaborative design tool for architects and designers Sep 28, 2023

When you think about collaborative design tools, chances are you immediately start thinking about Figma, the popular design tool that Adobe wants to acquire for $20 billion.

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Photo-sharing app Lapse hits top of the App Store by forcing you to invite your friends Sep 27, 2023

Forget invite-only social apps, Lapse is testing a new technique to acquire its users: it forces you to invite your friends in order to get in.

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Sequoia backs PartyKit to power real-time multiplayer collaboration for any app Sep 27, 2023

If a company wants to offer in-app messaging or voice calls, they don’t have to develop the infrastructure themselves when there’s something like Twilio at their disposal.

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AI chip company Kneron raises $49M to scale up its commercial efforts Sep 26, 2023

Kneron, which is developing AI chips to power self-driving cars, among other autonomous machines, today announced that it raised $49 million in an extension to its Series B round.

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TeachMe.To lands $2M to connect beginner athletes with local coaches Sep 26, 2023

TeachMe.To, a sports coaching platform for beginner athletes, secured $2 million in seed funding, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.

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Amazon to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic Sep 25, 2023

Amazon said Monday it has agreed to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic.

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Frontier Space Technologies is developing an on-orbit autonomous lab to make space science easy Sep 25, 2023

Astronauts have been conducting experiments on the International Space Station for as long as the station has been in orbit, but astronaut labor is expensive: crew time costs $130,000 per hour, and companies are capped at 25 hours per year.

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Mesh, which helps people manage their digital assets, raises $22M Sep 22, 2023

Mesh (formerly Front Finance), a startup developing a service to help customers transfer and manage digital assets like crypto, has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round.

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Somani’s Offline secures $2M to build community for top Indian startup founders Sep 22, 2023

Utsav Somani, who helped AngelList launch in India and oversaw its local operations for five years, is gearing up to find more ways to help founders.

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Google-backed Indian audio platform Kuku FM raises $25 million Sep 21, 2023

Google-backed audio content platform Kuku FM has raised $25 million in a new funding round as it looks to make deeper inroads with its audiobook offerings in the South Asian market.

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Legit Security lands $40M to lock down apps and dev environments Sep 21, 2023

Legit Security, a cybersecurity company developing a platform to identify app vulnerabilities from code, has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by CRV with participation from Cyberstarts, Bessemer Venture Partners and TCV.

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Database startup MotherDuck lands $52.5M to grow its DuckDB-based platform Sep 20, 2023

A few weeks ago, it was reported that MotherDuck, the company commercializing the lightweight database platform DuckDB, was in talks to raise new capital from VC firm Felicis.

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European cyber insurance startup Stoïk raises $10.7 million and expands to Germany Sep 20, 2023

French startup Stoïk offers a cyber insurance product to small and medium companies — a bit like Coalition in the U.S. And things have been working well in France.

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Babbel acquires language learning browser extension Toucan Sep 19, 2023

Babbel, the popular subscription-based language learning service, today announced that it has acquired Toucan, the well-funded language learning browser extension.

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Dragos raises $74M to secure industrial control systems from threats Sep 19, 2023

Dragos, a company building software to secure the control systems for manufacturing and industrial equipment, has raised $74 million in a Series D round extension led by WestCap.

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Roam unveils new EV bus model to tap Kenya’s mass transit sector Sep 18, 2023

Kenya-based EV startup Roam has unveiled a new shuttle bus model dubbed Move, coming as the East African country continues to push for the adoption of electric vehicles.

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Pixis, an AI-powered full-stack marketing platform, raises $85M Sep 18, 2023

Pixis, an AI-powered platform for brands to monitor and orchestrate their marketing campaigns, today announced that it raised $85 million in a Series C1 round.

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Databricks raises $500M more, boosting valuation to $43B despite late-stage gloom Sep 15, 2023

Data analytics and AI software maker Databricks has raised a Series I round worth more than $500 million, earning a valuation of $43 billion.

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Access code: Evidence brings open source BI to technical data teams Sep 15, 2023

From Tableau and Looker, to PowerBI and beyond, there are no shortage of business intelligence (BI) tools designed to help companies unlock insights from their vast swathes of data.

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Mecho Autotech raises $2.4M, ventures into wholesale spare parts distribution Sep 14, 2023

Mecho Autotech, a startup offering automotive spare parts, vehicle repairs and maintenance services, has raised a $2.4 million pre-Series A round.

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Mighty Buildings raises $52M to build 3D-printed prefab homes Sep 14, 2023

Mighty Buildings, a startup building tech for prefabricated, ostensibly environmentally-friendly homes, today announced that it raised $52 million in a funding round co-led by Waed Ventures and Bold Capital with participation by Khosla Ventures.

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Kolors acquires Urbvan to transform corporate bus travel in Mexico Sep 13, 2023

Kolors, a Mexico City-based startup that connects intercity bus riders with bus drivers, is acquiring B2B van pooling provider Urbvan for $12 million cash.

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Taiwan-based lifestyle app FunNow merges with Eatigo to broaden its Southeast Asia reach Sep 13, 2023

FunNow, the Taiwan-based app that lets users book activities on-demand in five Asian countries, is growing its reach in Southeast Asia through a merger with restaurant booking app Eatigo.

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Ascento’s robots aid overstretched security guards Sep 12, 2023

Like in many industries, there’s an acute shortage of security guards. This means guards still on the job have to pull extra hours and are more likely to make mistakes because of fatigue.

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Scala Biodesign makes it easy to re-engineer proteins one molecule at a time – or 50 Sep 12, 2023

There’s a gold rush on in biotech as AI and other tools are used to find new drugs and treatments. With $5.5 million in new funding,

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Perfios raises $229 million for its real-time credit underwriting solutions Sep 11, 2023

Perfios, an Indian fintech that provides real-time credit underwriting solutions to banks and non-banking financial institutions, has raised $229 million in a new funding round as it looks deepen its expansion into North America and Europe.

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Low-code platform Retool makes it easier to bring AI smarts to business apps Sep 11, 2023

Retool started out as a platform for building line-of-business apps, but over the last few years, the well-funded startup added a number of backend services as well, including, most recently, a workflow automation service.

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Compliance and risk management startup Certa raises $35M Sep 08, 2023

Certa, a compliance, governance and risk management platform for enterprises, today announced that it raised $35 million in a Series B round.

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SimpleClosure raises $1.5M in less than 24 hours to help companies shut down faster and cheaper Sep 08, 2023

It’s easy to start a startup. But it’s far more difficult to shut one down.

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U.K. rejoins Europe’s Horizon R&D program after prolonged Brexit stalemate Sep 07, 2023

The U .K. is set to rejoin the European Union’s (EU) preeminent science R&D funding program, after a three-year hiatus resulting from a Brexit fallout.

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Josys, a SaaS management platform, raises $93M Sep 07, 2023

Josys, a startup offering a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to automate corporate IT software application management, has raised a $93 million Series B round.

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Kotani gets $2M pre-seed to help African workers send money home via crypto — without the internet Sep 06, 2023

Of the many lofty promises of cryptocurrency, one of the most commendable ones is its potential to bring financial inclusion to underserved users.

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Butternut Box wolfs down $354M for subscription canine cuisine Sep 06, 2023

Butternut Box, a U.K.-based startup that prepares and ships healthy food and supplements for dogs, is raising £280 million ($354 million) in a round of funding from General Atlantic and L Catterton.

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Atomicwork connects workers and their companies Sep 05, 2023

Sometimes the work of having a job takes time away from work.

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OpenAI-backed language learning app Speak raises $16M to expand to the U.S. Sep 04, 2023

Speak, an English language learning platform backed by OpenAI’s startup investment fund, the OpenAI Startup Fund, announced that it raised $16 million in a Series B-2 funding round led by angel investor Lachy Groom.

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Teale, your mental health companion at work, raises $11 million Sep 04, 2023

French startup Teale has secured a funding round of $11 million earlier this summer.

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Hyperproof, a compliance and risk management startup, raises $40M Sep 01, 2023

Hyperproof, a software-as-a-service risk and compliance management company, today announced that it raised $40 million in a funding round led by Riverwood Capital with participation from Toba Capital, an early-stage VC firm.

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MFast get backing from Wavemaker Partners to increase financial services access in Vietnam Sep 01, 2023

The majority of Vietnam’s population live in rural areas and often lack access to financial services because banks and other institutions open most of their physical locations in cities.

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Martian Lawyers Club raises $2.2M for AI-based game personalization tech Aug 31, 2023

The Martian Lawyers Club (MLC) wants to take game personalization to the next level with the help of generative AI.

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Allseated, a virtual venue tour and event planning platform, raises $20M Aug 30, 2023

Allseated, a platform that helps event organizers plan and showcase venues virtually, has raised $20 million in an equity round of funding.

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Lightspeed backs Markato, a marketplace that helps independent brands break into Asia Aug 30, 2023

During the pandemic, almost all retailers in Asia established an e-commerce presence and adopted digital payments.

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Subletting app Kiki raises $6M by using dating app concepts to match listings and renters Aug 29, 2023

Kiki (formerly EasyRent), a subletting startup that matches listers with people looking to rent for up to six months, recently closed a $6 million seed round, its co-founder Toby Thomas-Smith exclusively told TechCrunch.

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Devolut leverages e-commerce growth in Latin America to develop reverse logistics tool Aug 29, 2023

Devolut enables merchants a returns option that doesn’t require boxes or labels. It also provides a network of “city points” where consumers can go to return merchandise.

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Moxie raises $15.7M to make opening medspas easier Aug 28, 2023

Treatments like botox are becoming more ubiquitous, spurring growth in the number of medspas, or centers that offer botox, IV hydration and laser treatments from certified providers like registered nurses.

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Zepto becomes India’s first 2023 unicorn with $200 million fresh funding Aug 28, 2023

Instant grocery delivery startup Zepto has raised $200 million in a new funding round at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

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Weekday puts the spotlight on job references Aug 26, 2023

Job references are an important part of hiring the right person, especially for remote positions.

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Hustle Fund doubles down on its mission to build the ‘YC of angel investing’ Aug 25, 2023

What do a chef in Turkey, a pilot in Australia, a physical therapist in Oregon, a submarine operator in the military and a DJ in the Bay Area all have in common?

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Cypago, which aims to automate compliance and governance for companies, raises $13M Aug 24, 2023

There’s a growing number of cybersecurity regulations designed to keep business and customer data protected.

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IBM sells The Weather Company assets to Francisco Partners Aug 24, 2023

Following rumors that it was exploring the sale of its weather business as part of a move to streamline operations, IBM says that it’s found a buyer for The Weather Company.

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Meet Relume, the bootstrapped AI web builder that wants to supercharge Figma and Webflow Aug 23, 2023

Despite the abundant venture capital available for startups in the current wave of generative AI breakthroughs, Relume has turned down investments and instead relied on bootstrapping since its launch.

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Dipp uses AI to fix bottlenecks between marketing and design teams Aug 23, 2023

Before founding dipp, Jennifer Chen and Mikhail Abramov spent 15 years working as art directors in New York City.

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Teeny EV startup Arcimoto hooks up with defense contractor Aug 22, 2023

What happens when a maker of tiny electric vehicles dips its wheels into the military industrial complex?

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B2B inventory marketplace Ghost reappears with $30M Series B to expand outside US Aug 22, 2023

In the past year, the company grew its membership base to over 1,000 brands and retailers and saw its year over year gross merchandise value run rate grow over 10 times.

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Twiga lays off 33% of its staff, disbands in-house delivery and introduces logistics marketplace Aug 21, 2023

Twiga will conduct another round of layoffs to keep its business afloat amid macroeconomic headwinds that have made capital harder to raise, and forced venture-backed companies to scale down their operations.

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Wonder Brands’ pivot to acquiring e-commerce infrastructure pays off Aug 21, 2023

Wonder Brands has since launched over 15 brands in the past 12 months and over 2,000 SKUs in the categories of home and garden, sports and fitness and beauty and personal care categories.

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True Anomaly gets regulatory greenlight for first spacecraft reconnaissance mission Aug 18, 2023

Defense-focused space technology startup True Anomaly has received key permits from regulators that will allow it to demonstrate imaging and rendezvous capabilities on-orbit for the first time.

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Highlight, now flush with $18M, helps CPG brands automate product testing Aug 18, 2023

The company brings the entire product testing process under one umbrella and automates it so customers can set up their testing and get the product results they need quickly.

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DynamoFL raises $15.1m to help enterprises adopt ‘compliant’ LLMs Aug 17, 2023

DynamoFL, which offers software to bring large language models (LLMs) to enterprises and fine-tune those models on sensitive data, today announced that it raised $15.1 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Canapi Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners.

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Voiceflow, a platform for building conversational AI experiences, raises $15M Aug 17, 2023

The demand for conversational AI — mostly chatbots — has arguably never been higher, riding the publicity wave of systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

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Browse AI help companies build bots to scrape website data and put it to work Aug 16, 2023

Traditionally, companies looking to extract data from websites have had to create custom code to get at the data, an expensive and time-consuming process that is often out of reach of smaller businesses.

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Brex expands into group events while Mesh Payments moves into travel Aug 16, 2023

As the spend management space continues to get more competitive, the various players seem to be constantly iterating to add new features to their products.

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Mixlab adds to veterinary pharmacy footprint following $10M Series A extension Aug 15, 2023

The new investment, an extension of a previous Series A round, enabled the company to open a third location in the Miami area.

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11xAI closes $2 million pre-seed to create autonomous AI workers Aug 15, 2023

The company builds automated digital workers that can be used in lieu of human employees.

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It’s official: Better.com is going public Aug 14, 2023

We didn’t think we’d see the day. Digital mortgage lender Better.com’s proposal to combine with Aurora Acquisition Corp. via a SPAC.

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Data visualization startup Virtualitics lands $37M investment Aug 14, 2023

Many companies grapple with data challenges. In a 2019 survey, Deloitte reports that 67% of executives aren’t comfortable accessing or using the data at their organizations.

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Osano, a data privacy management platform, nabs $25M Aug 11, 2023

Osano, an Austin, Texas-based startup developing a platform to help companies manage their data privacy, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series B funding round.

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SAEKI’s “microfactories” help large manufacturing scale up Aug 11, 2023

The architecture, engineering and construction industries involve giant concrete molds that are expensive, slow to manufacture and often only used a few times before being disposed.

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Matter filters out microplastics, one washer at at time — and raises $10M to go industrial Aug 10, 2023

Microplastics are everywhere — quite literall.

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Symmetry raises $18M to bolster organizations’ data security programs Aug 10, 2023

As organizations embrace cloud services — and are forced to confront changing regulations and data use standards — their ability to maintain control of data security frequently becomes strained.

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Atmosfy, an app that helps you discover local businesses through short-from video, raises $12M Aug 09, 2023

Atmosfy, an app that helps you discover restaurants and local businesses through short-form videos, has raised $12 million in seed funding led by Redpoint Ventures.

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Meatable sinks its teeth into $35M to accelerate launch of its cultivated pork products Aug 09, 2023

The new funding will help Meatable scale its processes and accelerate the launch of its first products — sausages and pork dumplings — in Singapore starting in 2024.

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Zoom launches an asynchronous video tool for the meeting-averse Aug 08, 2023

In its continued attempt to diversify its product offerings, Zoom today launched a new asynchronous video tool, Zoom Clips, that lets users record, edit and share video clips without having to hop on a meeting.

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One Model lands $41M to bring data science-powered insights to HR Aug 08, 2023

One Model, a platform that uses AI to help employers make decisions about recruiting, hiring, promotions, layoffs and general workplace planning, today announced that it’s raised $41 million in a funding round led by Riverwood Capital.

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AI chip startup Tenstorrent lands $100M investment from Hyundai and Samsung Aug 07, 2023

The appetite for hardware to train AI models is voracious. AI chips are forecast to account for up to 20% of the $450 billion total semiconductor market by 2025, according to McKinsey.

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Haus, which helps companies measure marketing ROI, raises $17M Aug 07, 2023

Several years ago, Zach Epstein was leading marketing measurement initiatives at Google, helping large corporate customers to build out measurement infrastructure.

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Datasaur lets you build a model automatically from a set of labels Aug 04, 2023

Long before people were talking about ChatGPT and generative AI, companies like Datasaur were dealing with the nuts and bolts of building machine learning models, helping label things to train the model.

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Cohart’s art marketplace makes buying and selling accessible for any kind of art lover Aug 04, 2023

The platform offers tools and infrastructure so that visual artists can be discovered and sell their art.

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Lightup wants to shine a light on data quality with $9M Series A Aug 03, 2023

We all know how important data quality is.

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Ramp expands into procurement, lands Shopify as a customer Aug 03, 2023

Ramp continues to ramp up its business.

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Nile, which offers enterprise networks as a service, raises $175M Aug 02, 2023

If you ask Pankaj Patel, there’s too much complexity in networks today — particularly enterprise networks.

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Vanguard cuts Indian ride-hailing giant Ola’s valuation by 52% Aug 02, 2023

The U.S. index fund pioneer Vanguard has cut the worth of its holding in the Indian ride-hailing startup Ola by more than half since original investment.

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Topline Pro grabs $12M in new capital to help home service businesses get discovered Aug 01, 2023

The company added a social media hub for automated posts and ads as well as an AI-enabled “Super Assistant” to help with navigating through the application and digitizing customer interactions.

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Pollen is a professional development platform for tech workers, by tech workers Aug 01, 2023

Meet Pollen, a new French startup that wants to provide a better way to learn new skills.

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HerMD opening new women’s health clinics following $18M extension Jul 31, 2023

The company offers comprehensive women’s healthcare, either in-person or virtual, and one of its differentiators is that the average appointment is between 20 and 60 minutes.

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Pet telehealth company Airvet closes on $18.2M to embark on enterprise focus Jul 31, 2023

The company has built up a base of employer clients, including Adobe, Ceridian and Rexford Industrial, eager to offer an employer-sponsored benefit for employees with pets.

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AutogenAI, a generative AI tool for writing bids and pitches, secures $22.3M Jul 28, 2023

Business is regularly won and lost on the strength of a proposal.

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Helpful secures $7.5M to launch family caregiver app Jul 28, 2023

Helpful's app brings insurance benefits, medical records and caregiving resources into one place.

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Bloom Money raises £1M to digitize microcredit finance for ethnic communities Jul 27, 2023

The company seeks to digitize the rotating savings and credit association (ROSCA) financial technique often used by ethnic communities.

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Dioxycle raises $17 million for its electrolyzer that turns CO2 into ethylene Jul 27, 2023

Dioxycle is a carbon transformation startup that is working on a new process to produce ethylene at scale using recycled carbon emissions.

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Dial-up a therapist like an Uber? Wangie aims at Gen-Zs and the time-poor Jul 26, 2023

It would be fair to say there’s no global solution for instant 24/7 access to mental health support.

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Prosus questions Byju’s governance, says Indian edtech ‘regularly disregarded advice’ Jul 26, 2023

A key Byju’s investor has gone on record to express its disappointment in the edtech giant’s governance issue, just weeks after all the independent members quit the startup’s board.

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Bunq, the Dutch neobank, has raised $111M at a flat $1.8B valuation to break into the US Jul 25, 2023

Remote working and digital nomads became two very prominent aspects of the world of work during the pandemic, shedding a light on the millions of people who live in one country but earn money in another.

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Whop, an online marketplace for digital goods, raises $17M Jul 25, 2023

Amazon might have the monopoly on physical goods sold online.

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Cruise starts initial robotaxi testing in Miami Jul 24, 2023

Cruise, the self-driving arm of General Motors, has begun initial testing and data collection in Miami, the company said in a tweet Wednesday.

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Collectly wants to make paying healthcare bills easier so medical providers don’t lose $200B Jul 24, 2023

Collectly customers have, on average, been able to increase patient collections for medical group partners by 75% and reduce the “days sales outstanding” to 12 days from between 60 and 90 days.

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InDrive brings its ‘bid-based’ ride-hail app to the US Jul 21, 2023

InDrive (formerly inDriver) is bringing a new type of ride-hailing app to South Florida. The startup operates a “bid-based” platform wherein passengers can name their own fare for a ride, and nearby drivers can accept, decline or counter the offer.

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Gushwork.ai raises $2M, led by Lightspeed, to outsource business tasks to workforces trained in AI Jul 21, 2023

Gushwork.ai, a global platform that aims to advance business process outsourcing (BPO) using AI and human expertise, has raised $2.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Lightspeed.

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With $37M seed round, Maka Motors begins EV pilot on Indonesia’s streets Jul 20, 2023

A recent report said that Indonesia’s electric vehicle (EV) market is projected to reach $20 billion by 2029, up from $533 million in 2022.

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VanMoof, the e-bike startup, officially declared bankrupt in The Netherlands Jul 20, 2023

Another grim stage for VanMoof, the e-bike startup backed by venture capitalists to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Wing Cloud is building an open source, unified cloud programming language Jul 19, 2023

Running a multi-cloud strategy where you use different cloud vendors for different workloads, helps companies avoid vendor lock-in and lets them use the best-of-breed tools across different platforms.

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Polar Analytics raises $9M to scale Shopify brands Jul 19, 2023

Polar Analytics gives each brand a so-called “knowledge worker,” that aggregates all of the different data sources so that users can then pose questions about the data.

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Herself Health, providing primary care to women 65 and over, raises $26M Jul 18, 2023

Six months after raising a $7 million seed round, Herself Health is back with some additional venture capital to expand its clinic footprint.

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Inngest helps developers build their backend workflows, raises $3M Jul 18, 2023

Inngest, an open-source startup that helps developers build and manage serverless queues, background jobs and workflows.

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Spline, a no-code design tool for creating 3D assets, raises $15M Jul 17, 2023

Spline, a no-code design tool for creating 3D assets, today announced that it raised $15 million in a seed round led by Gradient Ventures.

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QED leads $7M round into startup that offers financing to SaaS businesses across US-South Asia corridor Jul 17, 2023

There are a number of companies in the U.S. that offer revenue-based financing to SaaS companies including Capchase, Pipe, Founderpath and Arc.

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Secure Code Warrior lands $50M to educate developers on best cyber practices Jul 14, 2023

In 2015, Pieter Danhieux and Matias Madou, both cybersecurity analysts, came to the realization that they wanted to provide a way to make software more secure by empowering developers with the skills and tools to enhance their speed of delivery.

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Infant formula company Bobbie takes in $70M to acquire Nature’s One Jul 14, 2023

With the Nature’s One acquisition, Bobbie becomes the third-largest fully integrated brand in the U.S. and will grow to a 15% non-WIC market share.

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Pearpop’s new ‘Boost Mode’ feature allows brands to turn content from creators into paid ads Jul 13, 2023

Pearpop, a marketplace for social collaborations, announced today that it’s launching a new product called “Boost Mode.”

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Cyber insurance startup Coalition acquires privacy assistant Jumbo Jul 13, 2023

San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup Coalition is acquiring Jumbo, a mobile app that lets you control your privacy on the web.

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Savvy, a platform to secure SaaS apps, launches out of stealth with $30M Jul 12, 2023

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps are an essential part of how many companies do business. But when the number of apps grows beyond a certain threshold, it can be difficult to secure them.

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Raft closes $30M Series B led by Eight Roads VC Jul 12, 2023

During the pandemic, the digitisation of the freight industry took off like a rocket, and stayed that way.

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Pylon wants to make it easier to manage B2B conversations in Slack Jul 11, 2023

As email has becomes an increasingly clogged communication mechanism, businesses looking for more direct ways to communicate with their customers in a B2B context have been turning to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord and other channels.

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SpeedyBrand uses generative AI to create SEO-optimized content Jul 11, 2023

While working at Vetan, a startup helping small- and medium-sized (SMBs) businesses manage employee payroll, Jatin Mehta realized that SMBs often lack the tools to thrive online with organic sales.

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Google’s Gradient Ventures backs Weflow to bring greater hygiene to Salesforce data Jul 10, 2023

Google’s venture capital arm Gradient Ventures has made another foray into Europe, investing as part of a $3.2 million seed round in two-year-old German startup Weflow.

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CADDi raises $89M Series C to scale its B2B supply chain marketplace for manufacturing parts Jul 10, 2023

The pandemic has damaged the entire manufacturing supply chain, which is not likely to return to normal until at least 2024 due to a few challenges, including the ongoing U.S.-China tech battle.

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Brinc launches new program for climate tech startups Jul 07, 2023

Brinc, the Hong Kong-based accelerator backed by investors like Animoca Brands, is launching a new program for fledgling climate tech startups.

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DigitalOcean acquires cloud computing startup Paperspace for $111M in cash Jul 07, 2023

DigitalOcean, the cloud hosting business, today announced that it’s agreed to acquire Paperspace, a New York-based cloud computing and AI development startup, for $111 million in cash.

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Thrive Capital doubles down on Clair, a fintech helping frontline workers get paid instantly Jul 06, 2023

New offerings include an on-demand pay solution where users can withdraw funds immediately for the money they've earned, but not yet received, and a lending program for employers.

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After bootstrapping for 8 years, accounting startup Dougs raises $27 million Jul 06, 2023

Dougs, a French accounting startup, has been around since 2015. It already generates $16.4 million (€15 million) in annual recurring revenue. And it’s a bootstrapped company, meaning that it hasn’t opened its capital and raised any funding from VC firms.

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PharmEasy seeks funding via rights issue at 90% valuation cut, report says Jul 05, 2023

Indian online pharmacy startup PharmEasy has informed its existing investors that it plans to raise a new round of funding via rights issue at a 90% markdown from the previous valuation, Indian newspaper Economic Times reported.

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Google’s Gradient backs YC alum Infisical to solve secret sprawl Jul 05, 2023

Secret sprawl, where companies store authentication credentials and similar sensitive data across multiple locations, is a real and growing problem for any company wanting to avert a security breach.

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Level wants to back your fund — and your portfolio companies too Jul 03, 2023

In 2023, funds of funds (FoFs) are on track to raise the smallest amount of money this year in more than a decade.

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After aperitif ambitions sour, Haus is back on virtual shelves via The Naked Market Jul 03, 2023

The Naked Market is relaunching Haus favorites, including Citrus Flower, Pomegranate Rosemary and Grapefruit Jalapeño.

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B Garage raises $20M for its warehouse inventory drones Jun 30, 2023

B Garage, a San Jose-based startup building autonomous drones along with software to track warehouse inventory, said that it has picked up $20 million in a Series A round of funding.

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India startup funding slides 68% after Tiger and SoftBank make virtually no deals Jun 30, 2023

Indian startups experienced a significant contraction in funding in the first half of 2023, revealing the knock-on effect of broader public market instability on young ventures in emerging regions.

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Workflow automation startup Parabola raises $24M Jun 29, 2023

Parabola, a San Francisco-based startup that uses AI to help expedite back-office processes, particularly in the logistics and ecommerce sectors, today announced that it raised $24 million in a Series B funding round.

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Astrix Security, which uses ML to secure app integrations, raises $25M Jun 29, 2023

Astrix Security, a platform that helps companies manage and secure third-party app integrations, today announced that it closed a $25 million Series A funding round led by CRV with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and F2 Venture Capital.

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AWS launches $100M program to fund generative AI initiatives Jun 28, 2023

Amazon, keen to avoid being left behind in the hyper-competitive AI race, is launching a new program to invest in startups and organizations focused on generative AI.

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BentoML scores $9M funding to expedite AI app development Jun 28, 2023

The success of large language models like GPT has sparked a frenzy of developers eager to make AI-powered applications.

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ThoughtSpot acquires Mode Analytics, a BI platform, for $200M in cash and stock Jun 27, 2023

ThoughtSpot, an AI-powered analytics platform last valued at $4.5 billion, today announced that it’s entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mode Analytics, a business intelligence startup, for $200 million in cash and stock.

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French VC firm Frst reaches $80 million first close for its new seed fund Jun 26, 2023

Frst, the Paris-based VC firm with no vowel in its name, is in the process of raising its second fund.

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Plastic upcycling startup Kubik closes $3.34M seed to scale production in Ethiopia Jun 22, 2023

The amount of plastic waste produced globally is on track to triple to over 1,000 million tonnes by 2060. The OECD report predicts that developed countries will continue to produce the most plastic waste per person, although emerging regions like Africa and Asia are expected to experience the fastest growth owing to rapid population growth.

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Supercritical, a carbon removal marketplace aimed at tech firms, raises $13M Series A led by Lightspeed Jun 22, 2023

Supercritical, the carbon removal marketplace aimed (at the moment) mainly at tech companies that want to hit ‘net zero’, has raised a $13 million Series A funding round, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The round includes funding from RTP Global, Greencode Ventures, MMC Ventures and others.

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BetterBrand’s new dough raises company’s valuation to over $170M Jun 21, 2023

In late 2022, BetterBrand found success on Whole Foods Market shelves, driving over $1 million in gross sales in the first five months.

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Notarize launches Proof to ensure safe online transactions Jun 21, 2023

Notarize, the world’s largest online notary network, is launching Proof, a new company and platform for digital identity verifications. Beginning in August, Notarize’s business tools will be rebranded to Proof, and it is also changing its company name to Proof. Notarize will continue serving its online notary network, which is used by companies like Adobe.

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Seedstars, Fondation Botnar launch new fund to back African startups focused on youth wellbeing Jun 20, 2023

Seedstars Capital and Swiss philanthropic foundation Fondation Botnar have launched Seedstars Youth Wellbeing Ventures, a $20 million investment mandate targeting early-stage startups in Africa that are focused on improving the wellbeing of people below 30 years in low-and-middle-income countries.

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Gladia turns any audio into text in near real time Jun 20, 2023

Meet Gladia, a French AI startup that wants to change how companies interact with audio data. The company develops an audio transcription application programming interface (API) that you can integrate with other products and is supposed to work much better than what’s available out there. And this tech foundation unlocks new use cases around audio.

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Luminoah’s quest to reinvent tube feeding attracts new funding Jun 20, 2023

Luminoah has reinvented a tube feeding device that’s more portable, discreet, and easy to use, and it has raised $6 million dollars.

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Glystn enables creators to mass reply to multiple followers across social media platforms Jun 19, 2023

Glystn is a tool for content creators that allows them to engage with followers and read/answer comments from multiple social media platforms all in one place.

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Wargraphs, a gaming startup with only one employee and no outside funding, sells for $54M Jun 19, 2023

Competition appears to be alive and well in another (smaller) area of gaming: modding and analytics.

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European startups still have a long way to go to achieve gender parity Jun 16, 2023

According to a new study from Sista and the Boston Consulting Group, women are still underrepresented in the European tech ecosystem.

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ChrysCapital invests $100 million in India’s Lenskart Jun 15, 2023

ChrysCapital has invested $100 million in Lenskart, the two said Thursday, pushing the Asian eyewear startup’s raise to $850 million in the past year. The Indian venture firm is buying shares worth $100 million into the Bengaluru-headquartered startup through both primary and secondary transactions, the two said. The new investment follows Abu Dhabi Investment AuthoritY.

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Deepchecks snags $14M seed to continuously validate ML models Jun 15, 2023

As companies increasingly rely on machine learning models, it’s imperative that they continuously check the models to make sure they are working as intended and that the data is valid, unbiased and not corrupted in any way. Deepchecks, an Israeli startup has come up with a solution to continuously test models from development through production.

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Finfra lets Indonesian businesses add embedded finance to their platforms Jun 14, 2023

Finfra, an Indonesian startup that provides the tech infrastructure for online businesses that want to offer embedded finance products, has raised $1 million in new funding. The round included participation from DSX Ventures, Seedstars International Ventures, Cento Ventures, Fintech Nation, FirstPick, BADideas Fund and Hustle Fund. The startup’s new funding will be used on product.

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Kaya Founders backs Philippines startups from “Day 0” Jun 14, 2023

The Philippines’ startup ecosystem is poised for strong growth, thanks to the country’s rising GDP, fast adoption of online services and a new generation of founders. Launched by tech and investment veterans, Kaya Founders wants to back the most promising startups from the very beginning. The venture firm announced today that it has closed $12.

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Oova grabs another $10.3M, unveils membership model for at-home fertility testing Jun 14, 2023

Oova's new membership offering is priced at $99 and includes The Oova Kit, personalized support from healthcare professionals and access to a community of peers.

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Nordic VC Voima Ventures launches €90M fund for deep tech startups Jun 13, 2023

Nordic VC firm Voima Ventures today announced its third fund with an initial closing of €90 million fund and a final target of €120 million, focusing on early-stage “deep tech” startups from across the science realm.

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Navan takes a swipe at expense management startups with new Mastercard and Visa partnerships Jun 13, 2023

Want more fintech news in your inbox? Sign up here. In recent years, a number of startups have made a business out of providing corporate credit cards to companies.

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HSBC rebrands, expands its SVB UK buy as HSBC Innovation Banking Jun 12, 2023

Acquired by HSBC in an emergency sale for just £1 in March as SVB was melting down, SVB UK is now getting a rebrand and expansion under its new owner.

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Cultured meat startup Higher Steaks nabs $30M and rebrands as Uncommon Jun 12, 2023

U.K.-based cultivated meat startup Higher Steaks has raised $30 million in a Series A round of funding and revealed that it’s changing its name to Uncommon.

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Green Coffee Co. percolates on $25M to expand in Colombia, launch alcoholic beverages Jun 09, 2023

Green Coffee is a consolidated arabica coffee farming company, headquartered in the U.S., with operations in Colombia that span 9,000 acres across 14 farms.

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Insify raises another $10.7 million for its business insurance startup Jun 09, 2023

Amsterdam-based insurtech startup Insify has completed its Series A funding round with another €10 million ($10.7 million at today’s exchange rate).

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Contextual AI launches from stealth to build enterprise-focused language models Jun 08, 2023

Large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 are powerful, paradigm-shifting tools that promise to upend industries.

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Positive Ventures’ new impact fund will be triple its flagship fund Jun 08, 2023

With the new fund, Positive Ventures intends to invest in between 20 and 25 companies at the pre-seed and seed levels.

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BOND brings inspirational-driven approach to livestream shopping, raises $2M Jun 07, 2023

BOND's founders say their approach to livestream shopping is creator and content first so that the “creator in the driver's seat and at the forefront of the experience.”

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OurX adds tech spin to Black hair care regimen Jun 07, 2023

OurX has seven products currently for tightly textured hair, and the average regimen of products offered is between $115 and $130.

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Escape dynamically scans APIs to find security flaws Jun 06, 2023

French startup Escape has raised a $3.9 million (€3.6 million) funding round shortly after ending Y Combinator’s winter 2023 cohort.

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Ariga is helping developers define database schema as code Jun 06, 2023

As companies look to update their databases, especially in a cloud native context, with so many different databases out there, it’s a huge challenge for developers when migrating from one environment to another.

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NestAway, once valued at over $225 million, sells for $11 million Jun 05, 2023

PropTech firm Aurum is acquiring NestAway, a once high-flying Indian startup operating in the same space, for up to $10.9 million, in a deal that marks a near complete erosion in value for the startup’s investors.

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Fintech giant Stripe is getting into the credit game Jun 05, 2023

Stripe wants to make it easier for businesses to access credit.

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8Flow.ai raises $6.6M to automate customer support workflows Jun 02, 2023

Working in customer support often means navigating disjointed tools to find data and solve issues. However, many of these actions are routine and repeatable, making them ideal candidates for automation.

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Measurabl, an ESG platform for real estate, raises $93M Jun 02, 2023

Measurabl, a startup developing a platform for environmental, social and governance (ESG) data in the real estate space, today announced that it raised $93 million in a Series D funding tranche co-led by Energy Impact Partners and Sway Ventures.

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Olé Life wants to make buying life insurance for Latin Americans easier Jun 01, 2023

The full-stack insurance carrier is targeting Latin America’s growing middle class that may have previously been unable to obtain financial protection.

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Taxfix, the $1B German accounting startup, slashes 120 jobs amid funding crunch Jun 01, 2023

Taxfix leaped to a $1 billion valuation in 2022 on the back of a popular mobile app used by consumers help with tax returns.

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Strive Health grabs $166M to provide end-to-end kidney care May 31, 2023

Strive Health works with local providers to form an integrated care delivery system that follows a patient from chronic kidney disease to end-stage kidney disease.

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Wellplaece wants to put a smile on dentists’ face with new supply procurement marketplace May 31, 2023

Wellplaece’s takes in a client’s ordering data and then enables the customer to make those specific purchasing behaviors across a large network of suppliers via one shopping cart.

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OMERS Growth Equity leads Carrum Health’s $45M Series C to expand cancer care May 30, 2023

Carrum Health CEO Sach Jain noted that 2022 “was a big year for us” that included nearly doubling its book of business.

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WireMock lands $6.5M to help developers build and test on mock APIs May 30, 2023

As developers work with an increasing number of third-party APIs, they need a tool that mocks those APIs for testing purposes without actually firing the API gateway.

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Celebrity investors pile into consumer savings startup Checkmate May 29, 2023

We’ve all been there. Shopping online and desperately searching for a promo code so that you can save some money on a purchase. Well, at least I’ve been there. Enter Checkmate.

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Nymbus lands $70M to help banks digitally transform May 29, 2023

Nymbus, a startup that partners with banks to migrate their legacy stack and launch neobanks to attract new customers, today announced that it raised $70 million in a Series D round led by Insight Partners.

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Kapital gets more of its own capital to help LatAm businesses monitor cash flow May 26, 2023

Kapital's platform gives small and medium-sized businesses across Latin America a way to see their finances in one place.

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Arc launches HireAI to make finding software developers easier May 26, 2023

Arc, the jobs platform created especially for software developers looking for remote positions, wants to make recruitment easier with the launch of HireAI.

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Generation Prime launches to make fertility services more accessible in Asia May 25, 2023

Generation Prime, a startup that wants to make IVF and other fertility services more accessible to patients in Asia, is launching its first two clinics in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

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Daylight, the LGBTQ+ neobank, calls it quits May 25, 2023

Daylight, an LGBTQ+ banking platform, is shutting down. Its operations will cease on June 30, according to embattled co-founder and CEO Rob Curtis.

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Episode Six raises $48M to streamline payment processes May 24, 2023

Episode Six, a global payments and banking infrastructure provider, today announced that it raised $48 million in a Series C funding round led by Avenir with participation from Anthos Capital.

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Modular app-building platform Buildier.ai raises $250 million Series D funding May 24, 2023

It was only recently that we reported Buildier.ai had signed a strategic collaboration with and undisclosed investment from Microsoft.

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Restaurant365 gobbles up $135M to supersize its software for the food service industry May 23, 2023

The price of food continues to go up and up, but surprisingly that hasn’t (yet?) played out as pressure on the wider restaurant industry.

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With government backing, Ireland’s Elkstone closes first VC fund at $108M for early-stage startups May 22, 2023

Yet another early-stage VC fund has closed in Europe this week, as Elkstone finalized a €100 million ($108 million) pot aimed at Irish startups.

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SoftBank rebrands Opportunity Fund, will invest $150 million in Black and Latino-led startups May 22, 2023

The new fund hopes to deploy the $150 million within three years, and has appointed Paul Judge as its managing partner.

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Stability AI open sources its AI-powered design studio May 19, 2023

Stability AI, the AI startup behind the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, this week announced the release of StableStudio, an open source version of DreamStudio, Stability AI’s commercial AI-powered design suite.

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Union AI raises $19.1M Series A to simplify AI and data workflows with Flyte May 19, 2023

Union AI, a Bellevue, Washington–based open source startup that helps businesses build and orchestrate their AI and data workflows with the help of a cloud-native automation platform, today announced that it has raised a $19.1 million Series A round from NEA and Nava Ventures.

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Swiggy’s food delivery business reaches profitability May 18, 2023

India’s Swiggy said on Thursday that its food delivery business has become profitable, eclipsing its publicly-listed rival Zomato on another key metric a day before the firm is set to report its quarterly earnings.

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Wefox secures new funding at $4.5 billion valuation as it aims for profitability May 18, 2023

Wefox, the German insurtech startup, has closed a new funding round from existing investors.

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Insurtech bolttech gets $196M at $1.6B valuation from investors like MetLife May 17, 2023

Embedded insurtech is still hot, as the $196 million in funding landed by bolttech proves.

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This UK startup plans to radically shake-up the antiquated word of COPD measurement May 17, 2023

In 1846, London surgeon John Hutchinson invented the spirometer, a thing you blow hard into, to measure the volume of air inspired and expired by the lungs.

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Jenfi raises more funding for its “growth capital as a service” platform May 16, 2023

Jenfi, a “growth-capital-as-a-service” platform, can provide online businesses with revenue-based financing in a little as a day.

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Everseen raises over $70M for AI tech to spot potential retail theft May 16, 2023

In 2007, Alan O’Herlihy, who previously worked with large SAP installations as well as retail, set out to find a way to help retailers minimize “shrinkage,” or where a store has fewer items in stock than in its recorded inventory.

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Pale Blue Dot continues investing in its climate vision, with a second, $100M fund May 15, 2023

Sweden-based VC fund Pale Blue Dot bounced onto the scene in 2020 with a €53 million fund to help climate-focused startups.

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AMP Robotics attracts investment from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund May 15, 2023

AMP Robotics, a Denver, Colorado-based startup creating robotic systems that can automatically sort recyclable material, today announced that it extended its Series C round to $99 million, thanks to an investment from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund.

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SLAIT pivots from translating sign language to AI-powered interactive lessons May 12, 2023

Millions of people use sign language, but methods of teaching this complex and subtle skill haven’t evolved as quickly those for written and spoken languages.

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AudiencePlus wants to help every company run its own media platform May 12, 2023

It used to be that having a corporate blog and some paid content was the gist of your marketing department’s content efforts, and that was enough.

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Cable wants to help banks cut financial crime through automated assurance May 11, 2023

Cable enables banks and fintechs to monitor all of their accounts — not just a fraction as before — to know, in real time, if failure controls are working as expected to combat breaches.

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Prewave pulls in $20M as supply chain tech investments remain on VC radars May 11, 2023

Despite the investor caution narrative permeating the startup world throughout the economic downturn, certain startup-types have been a little more impervious to market conditions.

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Ascend raises $25 million for pre-seed AI startups in the Pacific Northwest May 10, 2023

Investing in artificial intelligence (AI) startups is the latest bandwagon VCs are piling onto.

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Invesco cuts Indian food delivery giant Swiggy’s valuation to $5.5 billion May 10, 2023

Invesco, which led Swiggy’s previous round, has marked down the Indian food delivery giant’s valuation in its holding to about $5.5 billion, according to a filing.

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PermitFlow advances construction permitting automation with $5.5M in new capital May 09, 2023

PermitFlow has software for developers and general contractors to streamline the construction permit application and management processes.

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Antimetal is putting AI to work to root out cloud cost inefficiencies May 09, 2023

One constant theme we’ve been hearing from the big cloud infrastructure vendors this year is helping customers increase the efficiency of their cloud spend.

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Go1 snaps up speed reading app Blinkist to expand in enterprise learning May 08, 2023

After raising $100 million at a valuation of over $2 billion last year, the Australian ed-tech startup Go1 is making an acquisition and getting some investment to expand its reach and technology to serve the market of corporate online learning.

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Slash aims to corner the Gen Z market with business-focused banking features May 08, 2023

Around two years ago, Victor Cardenas and Kevin Bai built a fintech platform called Slash that lets users create shareable virtual cards to split recurring expenses.

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AI-powered supply chain startup Pando lands $30M investment May 05, 2023

Signaling that investments in the supply chain sector remain robust, Pando, a startup developing fulfillment management technologies, today announced that it raised $30 million in a Series B round, bringing its total raised to $45 million.

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Green-Got is a neobank for climate-conscious customers May 05, 2023

French startup Green-Got is building an alternative to your traditional bank account with a focus on climate change.

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Mercu meets deskless workers where they are May 04, 2023

Many employee engagement and retention tools were created with the assumption that workers spent most of their time at desks.

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Fiverr Enterprise aims to streamline managing large groups of freelancers May 04, 2023

In 2021, gig marketplace Fiverr acquired Stoke Talent, a startup developing freelance management tools for employers, for $95 million.

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Hackajob matches technical talent with companies looking to hire May 03, 2023

Even today with all of the layoffs we have seen in the tech industry over the last year, there is still a shortage of technical talent.

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Citymapper lowers the paywall for premium features but keeps monthly subscription for removing ads May 03, 2023

Citymapper is lowering the paywall around its premium features and introducing a new subscription plan purely for removing ads.

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Simpplr raises $70M for its AI-powered intranet platform May 02, 2023

Several years ago, entrepreneur Dhiraj Sharma’s first company, a software consultancy, was hired by an HR tech firm to develop an app to improve the employee onboarding experience.

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AI platform to analyze creative advertising raises $5.1M from investors, including a16z May 02, 2023

In this increasingly AI-driven era, creative and media teams will probably need to employ the technology to up their game on analyzing their creative assets and A/B testing — or someone else will simply beat them to the punch.

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Once-hot photo-sharing social app Poparazzi is shutting down May 01, 2023

Poparazzi, the once-hot photo-sharing app that hit the top of the App Store in 2021, is shutting down.

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Chunk Foods close to opening factory to produce ‘millions’ of plant-based steaks May 01, 2023

The company develops whole cuts of alternative proteins using fermentation technology and food-grade microorganisms.

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Clubhouse needs to fix things, and today it cut more than half of staff Apr 28, 2023

Clubhouse, a once skyrocketing social audio app built by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth, has laid off more than half of its staff.

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Bastion is an all-in-one cybersecurity solution for small businesses Apr 28, 2023

Meet Bastion, a French startup that was created in October 2022 to help small companies tackle cybersecurity risks without too many complexities.

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Operant is changing the way you secure cloud native applications Apr 27, 2023

Containers and micro services may not be a new concept at this point, but lots of companies are struggling with the transition to cloud native applications, and the impact of that approach on their security.

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Luup raises $30M ahead of Japan’s new micromobility rules Apr 27, 2023

Japanese shared micromobility startup Luup has raised $30 million in a Series D financing round, which consists of 3.8 billion yen in equity and 700 million yen in debt.

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UniSieve’s filters use special crystals to reduce industrial emissions Apr 26, 2023

The energy-intensive process of separating and purifying chemicals and gases is a big reason why industries like plastic manufacturing cause so much pollution.

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ZEBOX, an incubator for supply chain startups, launches its Asia hub in Singapore Apr 26, 2023

ZEBOX, an international accelerator network founded by shipping conglomerate CMA CGM to introduce more tech innovation into the supply chain industry, announced today the launch of its APAC headquarters.

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Greywing’s new SeaGPT solves email overwhelm for maritime crew managers Apr 25, 2023

Every time a member of their crew changes, maritime crew managers need to handle immigration regulations, COVID requirements and travel plans for each person.

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Constrafor, a construction procurement company, goes ‘SAFE’ route with new capital Apr 25, 2023

Constrafor provides embedded financing and software to keep payments flowing between contractors and their subcontractors.

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Super.com targets $85M equity, debt raise into new savings super app Apr 24, 2023

Super.com's super app is focused on helping “everyday Americans” find deals and savings across multiple categories, including travel and shopping.

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Home energy assessment startup Enter raises €19.4M Series A to expand in Germany and beyond Apr 24, 2023

Largely because of their age, houses in Europe can be notoriously hard to heat. Most were built for an era when the knowledge about energy consumption just wasn’t available in the way it is today.

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Betterdata uses synthetic data to keep real data safe Apr 21, 2023

Betterdata, a Singapore-based startup that uses programmable synthetic data to keep real data secure, announced today it has raised $1.55 million.

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Kate raises $7.6 million for its electric micro-cars Apr 21, 2023

French startup Kate has raised a $7.6 million (€7 million) funding round from a bunch of business angels.

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Primo is the IT tool for companies that are too small for an IT manager Apr 20, 2023

Primo, a French startup that recently raised a $3.4 million funding round to build a software-as-a-service product that handles the IT needs of small and medium companies.

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Cortical Labs raises $10M for its Pong-playing stem cells which eventually could power AI Apr 20, 2023

While Generative AI is buzzy right now, what OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are doing may be only part of the story.

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Rally bags $12M to build the future of e-commerce checkout Apr 19, 2023

Rally provides one-click checkout and post-purchase offers that allow the merchant to inject offers after the checkout.

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Remote working means this startup can use brains in emerging markets to disrupt management consultants Apr 19, 2023

The global management consulting industry is worth billions of dollars but to this day it’s been tough to disrupt with technology.

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B Capital leads Odeko’s $53M Series D to help small coffee shops scale Apr 18, 2023

Odeko has operations software for coffee shops to manage inventory, get data insights and order equipment and supplies from over 400 vendors.

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LLMs come to workplace morale monitoring, as Loopin raises $1.9M for its platform Apr 18, 2023

There have been several startup attempts to measure staff morale, some more halting that others. We reported on Plasticity Labs back in 2014, though their web site seems no longer functioning.

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Device-as-a-service startup Fleet expands beyond laptop leasing Apr 17, 2023

French startup Fleet has been growing nicely over the past four years as the company has deployed nearly 10,000 devices with long-term leasing contracts.

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Stability AI’s new model is slightly better at generating hands Apr 17, 2023

Stability AI, the startup funding a range of generative AI experiments, has released a new version of Stable Diffusion, the text-to-image AI system that was among the first to rival OpenAI’s DALL-E 2.

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Zoom acquires Ireland-based employee communications platform Workvivo Apr 14, 2023

Zoom today announced that it has acquired Workvivo, a six-year-old Irish startup focused on improving companies’ internal communications and culture. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

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Thynk wants to upgrade hotel stays with a vertical software platform Apr 14, 2023

Meet Thynk, a new company that wants to build the definite enterprise software solution for the hospitality industry.

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Otterize raises $11.5M to help developers securely connect software services Apr 13, 2023

Tomer Greenwald, Uri Sarid and Ori Shoshan, software developers by trade, found themselves building and configuring software authentication and authorization mechanisms repeatedly — each time with a different tech stack.

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General Atlantic invests another $100 million in PhonePe Apr 13, 2023

General Atlantic has poured another $100 million in PhonePe, three months after leading a $350 million investment in the Indian fintech startup that has so far raised $750 million in an ongoing financing round.

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Fintech startup Clear Street raises $270M at a $2B valuation Apr 12, 2023

Clear Street, which says it is building “modern infrastructure” for capital markets, has raised $270 million in the second tranche of a Series B funding round at a $2 billion valuation.

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Graneet raises $8.7 million for its vertical SaaS for construction companies Apr 12, 2023

French startup Graneet is building an all-in-one software-as-a-service product focused on small construction companies.

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In edtech, history matters: Reach Capital just closed its largest fund to date Apr 11, 2023

Reach Capital, one of the first venture firms to focus exclusively on edtech, closed its last investment vehicle during an unprecedented boom within tech.

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Gradient Ventures backs Axle’s ‘Plaid for insurance’ approach to data verification Apr 11, 2023

Axle allows users to connect their insurance account to trusted companies in seconds and then automates insurance verification.

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Honeycomb scores $50M investment as observability platform thrives Apr 10, 2023

Honeycomb was founded in 2016 by two former Facebook engineers to create a new way of looking at application monitoring based on the internal tooling they had seen at Facebook.

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Anthropic’s $5B, 4-year plan to take on OpenAI Apr 10, 2023

AI research startup Anthropic aims to raise as much as $5 billion over the next two years to take on rival OpenAI and enter over a dozen major industries, according to company documents obtained by TechCrunch.

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Alternative seafood startup Aqua Cultured Foods reels in $5.5M Apr 07, 2023

Aqua Cultured Foods is using proprietary mycoprotein (fungi) fermentation processes to create whole cuts of calamari, shrimp, scallops and filets of tuna and whitefish.

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SetSail adds ChatGPT questioning capabilities on top of sales data Apr 07, 2023

SetSail set out to build a new way to compensate sales people, where based on the data, companies could pay salespeople on where they were in the pipeline, not in just one big chunk when they landed the sale.

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Alga Biosciences wants to help climate change, one bovine burp at a time Apr 06, 2023

Cows are a significant source of methane emissions, primarily due to their unique digestive system. Milk and beef cows are ruminants, which means they have a specialized stomach chamber (called the rumen), which houses billions of microbes that facilitate the breakdown of fibrous plant material.

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Ensemble raises $100M debut fund to bet on startup teams — but not in the way you think Apr 06, 2023

The firm uses an in-house data algorithm it hopes will help it find startups that have teams designed to scale — beyond just the founders.

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New funding helps CarmaCare accelerate its ‘healthcare-for-your-car’ service Apr 05, 2023

CarmaCare take over where traditional car insurance leaves off to provide an easier way to buy extended warranties for car repairs.

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AirTree backs generative AI content creation and management platform Narrato Apr 05, 2023

Generative AI is hot among venture capital firms now, with $4.5 billion invested in 2022. Narrato, a AI content creation and collaboration platform, announced today it has joined the ranks of other generative AI startups with VC funding.

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Amazon wants to boost ten generative AI startups around the globe Apr 04, 2023

Amazon’s first foray into the world of accelerator programs, designed to help early-stage startups build and launch, was focused on conversational AI back in 2016.

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Tencent backs Singapore’s Horizon Quantum Computing in $18M round Apr 04, 2023

Quantum computers have the potential to carry out highly complicated calculations in minutes that would have taken classical computers thousands of years to work out.

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Artie sidesteps the app stores by putting high-quality games in your browser Apr 03, 2023

When you play a game, how do you play it? Monopoly or Settlers of Catan around the dining table? Mario Kart on your Nintendo Switch? Assassin’s Creed on your Xbox? Among Us on your phone?

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DataDome, which uses AI to protect against bot-based attacks, raises $42M Apr 03, 2023

Online businesses are at risk of bad bot activity, certainly more now than they used to be.

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Qualcomm-backed Aravita wants to help Brazilian supermarkets control food waste Mar 31, 2023

Aravita's AI-powered solution for supermarkets looks at variables, including climate, seasonality and consumer behavior, to manage the purchasing of fresh food.

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Crypto wallet company Ledger raises another $108 million Mar 31, 2023

French startup Ledger has added more money to its Series C funding round. The company designs and manufactures so-called hardware wallets to secure crypto assets.

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Green Labs secures $38.4M in debt financing Mar 30, 2023

Green Labs, a Seoul-based agritech startup, has secured $38.4 million (50 billion won) in debt financing from existing investors BRV Capital Management and Skylake Incuvest.

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Krisp expands from noise canceling to on-device transcription Mar 30, 2023

Krisp got its start as an AI-powered noise cancellation service, but now the startup is moving beyond that with instant on-device transcription of all your calls and meetings — and of course it integrates ChatGPT now for quick summaries as well.

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Amazon-backed Acko nears $120 million in new funding Mar 29, 2023

Indian insurtech Acko is in late-stage discussions to secure $120 million in a funding round at a time when weak global market conditions have subdued large financing deliberations in the South Asian market.

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Isar Aerospace raises $165 million to bring more sovereign launch to Europe Mar 29, 2023

German launch startup Isar Aerospace has scored $165 million (€155 million) in new funding as it races toward the inaugural flight of its Spectrum small rocket later this year.

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Neubility plans to roll out 400 lidar-free delivery and security robots by year-end Mar 28, 2023

Last-mile robotics startup Neubility — which makes autonomous delivery robots that work without lidar — says that it plans bump its fleet up to 400 by the end of this year, up from the 50 it currently has in circulation.

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OpenAI connects ChatGPT to the internet Mar 28, 2023

OpenAI’s viral AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT, can now browse the internet — in certain cases.

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Snap quietly acquired 3D scanning startup Th3rd last year Mar 27, 2023

Snap quietly acquired Amsterdam-based 3D scanning studio Th3rd in the second quarter of last year, at a time when the company was looking to bolster its AR-powered commerce ambitions.

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Workera double downs on AI for upskilling with $23.5M infusion Mar 27, 2023

Workera, an upskilling platform geared toward enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $23.5 million in a Series B round led by Jump Capital with participation from existing investors NEA, Owl Ventures, the AI Fund and Sozo Ventures.

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Former Stripe engineer raises $4M for Beam, a fintech startup out to help contractors get paid faster Mar 24, 2023

Beam, a five-month-old startup out to more easily help general contractors pay subcontractors and get paid themselves, has raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Accel.

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Britive, which helps secure public clouds, lands $20.5M investment Mar 24, 2023

Proving that there’s still plenty of venture money in cybersecurity, cloud identity security platform Britive today announced that it raised $20.5 million in a Series B funding round.

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Reselling marketplace Kream’s valuation rises to $742M with $168M Series C Mar 23, 2023

The startup funding environment is more challenging right now, but some companies and industries still draw investors’ attention and money.

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Clerk is simplifying identity for front-end web developers Mar 23, 2023

Developers building front-end Jamstack web applications often struggle to build identity with traditional API tools.

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Cultivated meat is closer to our plate now that Good Meat also gets FDA blessing Mar 22, 2023

This means that Good Meat’s cultivated chicken was accepted as a product safe for humans to eat.Â

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Duolingo is working on a music app Mar 22, 2023

Duolingo, a language learning app with over 500 million users, is working on a music app, TechCrunch has learned. The Pittsburgh-based tech company currently has a small team working on a music product and is hiring a learning scientist who is an “expert in music education who combines both theoretical knowledge of relevant learning science […]
Duolingo is working on a music app by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

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Pickle launches its truck unloading robot arm Mar 21, 2023

Somewhere along the way, ProMat turned into a robotics show.

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Consumer electronics reseller Reebelo adds to Series A as it lays down roots in US Mar 21, 2023

Reebelo has added embedded financial services, including a buyback program and device upgrade options, while its warranty program, ReebeloCare, grew 330% year over year.
Consumer electronics reseller Reebelo adds to Series A as it lays down roots in US by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Pull Systems launches out of Up.Labs-Porsche partnership to tackle EV performance Mar 20, 2023

When Porsche partnered with venture studio Up.Labs, the mission was to create six startups over three years all designed to solve the German automaker’s biggest problems and be compelling enough as a standalone business it that can attract other customers.

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Cast AI raises $20M to help companies reduce cloud spend Mar 20, 2023

Cloud costs remain a top concern for organizations. According to a recent Anodot survey, 50% of businesses are struggling to control them, in part because they lack visibility into their cloud usage.

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Anonymous app Sidechat picks up rival Yik Yak…and users aren’t happy Mar 17, 2023

Sidechat, the anonymous posting platform that began blowing up last year on college campuses, appears to have acquired a rival anonymous social platform, Yik Yak.

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Zed raises $10M for a code editor built for collaboration Mar 17, 2023

Code editors are complex and demanding pieces of software, but from a business standpoint, they’re notoriously difficult to monetize.

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ADIA invests $500 million in Lenskart Mar 16, 2023

Lenskart has signed a definitive agreement to raise $500 million from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, they said Wednesday, at the height of the market slump as the Indian eyewear retailer bulks up its offerings and scales to international markets.

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LexxPluss expands into US with its warehouse robots Mar 16, 2023

When Masaya Aso worked on autonomous driving technology at Bosch in Japan and Germany, he realized that “many tasks were still manual as over 85% of warehouses have almost no automation at all.”Â

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Medwing, a recruitment marketplace for Europe’s healthcare workforce, raises $47M Mar 15, 2023

Medwing, a European startup building a recruitment marketplace for healthcare workers, has raised €44 million ($47 million) in a Series C round of funding.

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AG5 throws a lifeline to a manufacturing industry drowning in spreadsheets Mar 15, 2023

You’d think that an industry like manufacturing had its own software stack, but in a lot of cases, a huge amount of getting-things-made is managed through Excel spreadsheets.

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Cloud security vendor Mitiga lands $45M, valuing the company at over $100M Mar 14, 2023

Companies moved en masse to the cloud during the pandemic, under pressure to digitally transform. According to a 2021 survey from O’Reilly, cloud adoption steadily rose across industries, with 90% of organizations using cloud computing compared to 88% in 2020.

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Deel makes over $120M of its own cash available to support customers affected by SVB crisis Mar 14, 2023

Global payroll provider Deel plans to provide $120 million of its own cash off its balance sheet to support startups’ payroll operations in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank shutting down.

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After SVB failure, regulators close crypto-friendly bank Signature Bank Mar 13, 2023

Signature Bank is the second casualty of the ongoing banking crisis in the U.S. The New York-based financial institution stopped operating abruptly on Sunday — customers will be made whole.

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Bach, an app for planning bachelorette trips and group travel experiences, raises $9M Mar 13, 2023

Bach, an app for planning bachelorette trips and group travel experiences, has announced $9 million in Series A funding led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital.

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Synctera raises $15M to help companies launch embedded banking products in Canada Mar 10, 2023

Synctera, a banking-as-a-service startup, has raised an additional $15 million as it expands into Canada. NAventures, the corporate venture arm of National Bank of Canada, led the financing, which brings Synctera’s total raised to $60 million since its June 2020 inception.

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MentorcliQ raises over $80 million to grow its employee mentoring software and services Mar 10, 2023

For years, Phil George was the executive sponsor of a mentoring program at McMaster-Carr, an industrial hardware supplier, where he spent weeks trying to match program participants with only scant information about them to go on.

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E-bike maker Cowboy raises new funding round and launches AdaptivePower Mar 09, 2023

Brussels-based startup Cowboy has been in the news lately for its cash burn rate. But the company wants to control its narrative again with some product and business news.

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Threecolts raises $90M to build out its toolkit for third parties selling on marketplaces like Amazon Mar 09, 2023

Amazon rules the roost when it comes to e-commerce, with its marketplace outpacing everyone else when it comes to gross merchandise value, reach and market capitalization.

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Consensus raises $110M to inject automation into SaaS product demos Mar 08, 2023

Garin Hess, a tech entrepreneur based in Utah, experienced what he calls the “demo bottleneck” at a previous software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup while pitching to potential customers.

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Growfin’s AI-based cash collection SaaS expands further to US and Asia Mar 08, 2023

Cash management — tracking who needs to pay an invoice and whether it’s been done — can make or break a business.

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Assured Allies secures $42.5M Series B to help Americans ‘successfully age’ Mar 07, 2023

The company uses machine learning and predictive analytics along with science-of-aging and essential human support to offer retirement products and programs.Â

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Behavioral marketing platform Wunderkind nabs $76M Mar 07, 2023

Wunderkind, a platform that enables brands to target web visitors through emails, texts and other digital advertising formats, today announced that it raised $76 million in a Series C round led by Neuberger Berman.

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Attio raises $23.5M to build a next-gen CRM platform Mar 06, 2023

While a partner at a VC firm, Nicolas Sharp took on the project of finding customer relationship management (CRM) software for the firm.

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Japan’s Geniee acquires AdPushup-operator Zelto for $70 million Mar 06, 2023

Japanese marketing tech firm Geniee, part of the SoftBank Group, has paid about $70 million in cash to acquire the revenue optimization platform Zelto.

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SpotDraft shows that contract lifecycle management remains profitable, raises $26M Mar 03, 2023

VCs see a rich opportunity in tools to manage the contract lifecycle.

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Hexa raises $20.5M to turn images into 3D objects for VR, AR and more Mar 03, 2023

Hexa, a 3D asset visualization and management platform, today announced that it closed a $20.5 million Series A round from Point72 Ventures, Samurai Incubate, Sarona Partners and HTC.

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8VC raises $880M in new fund that aims “to fix a broken world” Mar 02, 2023

Austin-based venture firm 8VC, led by controversial Palantir founder Jon Lonsdale, has raised $880 million in its fifth fund.

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StudentFinance nabs $41M to help Europeans upskill for in-demand jobs Mar 02, 2023

StudentFinance, a European fintech that funds educational programs for individuals through so-called income share agreements, has raised €39 million ($41 million) in a Series A round of funding.

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E-commerce aggregator Una Brands lands $30M just five months after its Series B Mar 01, 2023

Una Brands, a Singapore-based e-commerce aggregator, has raised $30 million in pre-Series C financing just five months after announcing its $30 million Series B fundingÂ that was raised in September of last year.Â

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Cycle is a new product management hub that centralizes all customer feedback Mar 01, 2023

Meet Cycle, a French startup that is building a collaboration tool for product managers where they can collect data from various tools, work on the next product iterations and close the feedback loop with the most engaged customers.

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Pagos raises $34M as the demand for ‘payment intelligence’ rises Feb 28, 2023

With global digital payments revenue expected to reach $14.79 trillion by 2027, payment infrastructure has arguably never been more critical.

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Born of drone tech, InsureTech Flock raises $38M Series B to nudge commercial drivers towards safety Feb 28, 2023

It’s only human nature. If you tell a driver their insurance premium will go down if they drive more safely, then – it turns out – they will probably drive more safely.

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Earthly wants to reinvent continuous integration to make it faster and cheaper Feb 27, 2023

Continuous integration and continuous delivery, aka CI/CD, is a modern development concept where code is being constantly updated and delivered to a central repository, rather than waiting for a set of features to be completed and releasing it all at once. It’s a fairly recent construct, but Earthly Technologies, an early stage startup, believes that […]
Earthly wants to reinvent continuous integration to make it faster and cheaper by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

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Source.ag raises $23M to raise the bar on raising crops with AI Feb 27, 2023

Based in the Netherlands, blossoming agtech startup Source.ag has announced a $23 million Series A funding round to help grow its business, less than a year after its previous, $10 million round.

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Rebuy is out to change the customer buying experience, one personalization at a time Feb 24, 2023

Merchants can use Rebuy to create personalized shopping experiences for their customers through upsells, cross-sells and post-purchase follow-ups.
Rebuy is out to change the customer buying experience, one personalization at a time by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Trust & Will secures $15M after doubling revenue Feb 24, 2023

Drafting a will and planning for what happens to your estate once you pass away is well, not exactly fun.

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Byju’s has discussed shutting down coding platform WhiteHat Jr Feb 23, 2023

Byju’s is weighing whether to wind down WhiteHat Jr, a coding platform that it acquired over two years ago at an enterprise value of $300 million, as the edtech group looks to cut expenses and eliminate a business unit that has drawn considerable criticism to the firm.

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Scoot lands $12M to inject customization into videoconferencing Feb 23, 2023

While much of the white-collar workforce has adjusted to the new norm of videoconferencing from home, that doesn’t mean that they — or their bosses — necessarily like it.

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Finch lands $40M to connect disparate HR systems with a single API Feb 22, 2023

Finch, a platform that helps companies connect to various HR apps, services and systems, today announced that it raised $40 million in a Series B round co-led by General Catalyst and Menlo Ventures with participation from QED Investors, Altman Capital and PruVen Capital.

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Strive gets backing from Y Combinator to show kids that coding is fun Feb 22, 2023

Strive is an online learning platform that teaches kids to code, but it wants to do more than just that.

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Accel, Square Peg back Chronicle’s tool for presentations that won’t put you to sleep Feb 21, 2023

You would expect the co-founder of a startup that improves on traditional slide presentations to hate tools like PowerPoint.

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The entire fintech industry is not in distress – here’s who is hiring Feb 21, 2023

With so many fintechs laying off staff, it can be easy to assume that the entire industry is in distress. But that’s not the case. In fact, some companies are finding opportunity in the masses of layoffs.

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Carbon Maps helps the food industry reduce their climate impact Feb 20, 2023

Meet Carbon Maps, a new French startup that raised $4.3 million (€4 million) just a few weeks after its inception.

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Planetarians grabs $6M to get its plant-based protein into foodservice orbit Feb 20, 2023

Planetarians' plant-based whole cuts of protein have a umami-like flavor and are made with two ingredients: the oil cakes and brewer's yeast.
Planetarians grabs $6M to get its plant-based protein into foodservice orbit by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Singapore-based Transcelestial uses lasers to build affordable internet networks Feb 17, 2023

Transcelestial is on a mission to make the internet more accessible by building a network of shoebox-sized devices that send lasers to one another, creating a fiber-like network.

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Lightspeed backs CommandK’s mission to become the go-to enterprise security command center Feb 17, 2023

CommandK, a startup offering a dedicated platform to manage enterprise security, has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Lightspeed.

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Wefunder’s equity crowdfunding platform has officially expanded to the EU Feb 16, 2023

After two years of seeking regulatory approval, Wefunder has officially received the green light to operate its investment crowdfunding services within the European Union.

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Korea’s Portlogics makes international shipping easier for merchants with its software tool Feb 16, 2023

Most merchants in South Korea keep track of their international shipping logistics via email until their cargo safely gets to its destination.

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Battery recycling startup Cylib recharges its coffers to go faster Feb 15, 2023

In 2024, a number of new EU regulations are expected to come into force, which will tighten the obligation of electric vehicle manufacturers and resellers to recycle batteries at the end of their natural lifespan.

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Crew aims to build the ‘HubSpot for recruiting’ Feb 15, 2023

Amine Skalli recruited teams for ten years, including four as a tech professional recruiter. In her last startup, he relied exclusively on outbound recruiting — in other words, proactively searching for and contacting potential candidates for open positions.

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Singapore-based neobank Aspire raises $100M from Lightspeed and Sequoia SEA Feb 14, 2023

Aspire, the Singapore-based neobank that wants to become the financial operating system for SMEs, has raised an oversubscribed $100 million Series C round.

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Cleantech Qotto embarks on growth plan backed by $8M funding Feb 14, 2023

Qotto, a solar kits provider with operations in Burkina Faso and Benin, has raised $8 million in a Series A equity-debt round led by the IBL group, a billion-dollar conglomerate headquartered in Mauritius with business interests in a number of sectors including energy, financial services, logistics, distribution, and engineering.

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Strava searches for new CEO with cofounder Michael Horvath departing for a second time Feb 13, 2023

Strava is on the hunt for a new CEO, after Michael Horvath revealed that he’s stepping down from the role for a second time.

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Replo gives businesses a low-code option for creating Shopify landing pages Feb 13, 2023

Prior to starting Replo, the co-founders launched and sold Berkeleytime.com, a platform that digitized University of California, Berkeley’s course scheduling system.Â
Replo gives businesses a low-code option for creating Shopify landing pages by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Wikifarmer uses its agricultural knowledge base to bring people to its marketplace Feb 10, 2023

Meet Wikifarmer, an agriculture-focused startup based in Athens that has an interesting two-sided strategy.

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Macro raises $9.3 to layer intelligence on top of digital documents Feb 10, 2023

Jacob Beckerman, a former investment logic engineer at Bridgewater Associates, grew frustrated using standard document apps like Acrobat and Microsoft Office to print out and mark up documents.

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Atlantic Money launches its cheap foreign exchange service across Europe Feb 09, 2023

Fintech startup Atlantic Money is rolling out its international money transfer service to more markets and more platforms.

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EV startup Zypp Electric nabs $25M to hit 30 Indian cities by 2025 Feb 09, 2023

Zypp Electric, an Indian startup that offers an EV-as-a-service platform catering to e-commerce companies and gig workers, has received a $25 million investment led by Taiwan’s battery-swapping giant Gogoro.

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Data observability platform Acceldata raises $50M Feb 08, 2023

Acceldata, the company behind a data observability platform used by multinational enterprises including Oracle and Verisk, today announced it has raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding.

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Dotfile is a one-stop identity verification API for compliance purposes Feb 08, 2023

Meet Dotfile, a new startup backed by eFounders that just raised a $2.7 million funding round (€2.5 million) to help companies verify users and other companies with a single application programming interface (API).

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Gameball raises $3M to scale its CRM platform for consumer brands Feb 07, 2023

The uptake of customer relationship management (CRM) tools has grown immensely over the last few years such that the market size is expected to experience a 12.5% compound annual growth rate, and to be worth $145.79 billion in the next six years.

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Breef raises $16M to match brands with marketing agencies Feb 07, 2023

Breef, a platform that allows brands to manage and service marketing agency projects, today announced that it raised $16 million in a Series A round (an undisclosed portion of which was debt) led by Greycroft with participation from BDMI, UTA.VC, Afterpay’s Touch Ventures and UC Berkeley’s The House Fund.

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Labor marketplace ShiftMed secures $200M to solve nursing shortage Feb 06, 2023

ShiftMed, a Virginia-based W-2 healthcare workforce management marketplace that focuses on nurses and aides, closed on $200 million in new funding.

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Plant-based Rebellyous is raising millions to ‘rethink the nugget’ Feb 06, 2023

Rebellyous, a startup that’s striving to build “a better chicken,” has raised at least $20 million in fresh funding,

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Triple Whale raises $25M for its Shopify data platform Feb 03, 2023

Shopify powers a massive number of e-commerce sites, so it’s also no surprise that there is a vast ecosystem of tools around it that help these merchants manage all aspects of running their stores.

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Lavender lands $13.2M for its AI-powered email marketing engine Feb 03, 2023

Years ago, Will Allred and William Ballance were developing a tech platform, Sorter, to apply personality and communication psychology to marketing campaigns.

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New School Foods’ filet looks and tastes like salmon, but it’s actually plants Feb 02, 2023

New School Foods created a proprietary muscle fiber and scaffolding platform for making whole-cut salmon alternatives with the same colors, flavors, fats, texture and mouthfeel of traditional fish.Â

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Energy X secures $20M at $120M valuation to slash building sector emissions Feb 02, 2023

Countries worldwide have pledged to reduce their energy usage and reach net-zero energy targets by 2050.

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ValueBase, backed by Sam Altman’s Hydrazine, raises $1.6 million seed round Feb 01, 2023

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes AI can help usher in “unbelievable abundance,” but he says he wants to ensure that such abundance is shared.

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Finley closes $17M to turn 100-page debt capital agreements into software-managed code Feb 01, 2023

Finley helps companies taking out debt capital understand their loan agreements and better comply with terms and reporting requirements.
Finley closes $17M to turn 100-page debt capital agreements into software-managed code by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Entocycle grabs $5 million for its insect breeding technology Jan 31, 2023

Even if insects don’t sound appealing to you, black soldier flies could play an essential role in the food chain in the coming years. In particular, these flies’ larvae can become an important source of proteins for livestock and fish. That’s why Entocycle is raising another $5 million in a Series A funding round led […]
Entocycle grabs $5 million for its insect breeding technology by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

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Crypto security startup Hypernative raises $9M to help prevent web3 cyber attacks Jan 31, 2023

Hypernative, a crypto security-focused startup, has raised $9 million in seed funding as it emerges from stealth, co-founder and CEO Gal Sagie exclusively told TechCrunch.

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Twitter co-founder Biz Stone joins board of audiovisual startup Chroma Jan 30, 2023

Chroma, a startup working to build a new type of audiovisual entertainment specifically for mobile devices, is now adding a Twitter co-founder to its board.

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Supernormal raises $10M to automatically transcribe and summarize meetings Jan 30, 2023

Generative AI is the tech industry’s buzzword of the moment.

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Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, closes $10M seed round Jan 27, 2023

Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, closes $10M seed round by Dominic-Madori Davis originally published on TechCrunch

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European smart thermostat startup Tado raises $46.9M after IPO plans falter Jan 27, 2023

Smart home energy startup Tado has raised €43 million ($46.9 million) in a round of funding led by Trill Impact Ventures, as the company pursues plans to become profitable in 2023.

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Mushroom protein company Meati Foods opens ‘mega’ facility; closes $22M in new funding Jan 26, 2023

Mega Ranch enables Meati Foods to grow, harvest and process its mycelium and then produce its products under one roof.
Mushroom protein company Meati Foods opens ‘mega’ facility; closes $22M in new funding by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Sequoia, Marc Andreessen back early-stage fund Kearny Jackson Jan 26, 2023

Sequoia Capital and Bain Ventures are among the high-profile investors that have backed the venture firm Kearny Jackson’s second fund, the early-stage focused firm said Wednesday as it gears up to invest in more startups.

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Japan’s Terra Drone gets $14M lift from Saudi investors Jan 25, 2023

Terra Drone said today it has raised $14 million in Series C funding from Wa’ed Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Aramco, marking the VC firm’s first investment in Asia.Â

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Lightyear stops production on €250,000 solar-powered EV Jan 25, 2023

Solar-powered electric vehicle maker Lightyear said it’s halting production on its flagship Lightyear 0, its premium EV with a sticker price of €250,000.

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Scythe raises $42 million for its electric robotic mower Jan 24, 2023

Scythe first hit our radar when it emerged from stealth in 2021 with a $13.8 million Series B.

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With a focus on patients with chronic illness, Nourish hopes to help Americans eat better Jan 24, 2023

Nourish connects users with a registered dietitian (RD) via telehealth and helps them get their consultations covered by health insurance.

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Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator, severely impacted by Alphabet mass layoffs Jan 23, 2023

Area 120, the Google in-house incubator responsible for products such as Checks, Tables, Stack and ThreadBite, has been significantly affected by broader layoffs at Google parent company Alphabet.

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GoodOnes raises to help make sense of your mess of a camera roll Jan 23, 2023

You know what it’s like — you’ve been on vacation and you’ve taken 28 million photos, and you just want to select the best 12 so you can make a calendar.

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Indian food delivery giant Swiggy to cut 380 jobs Jan 20, 2023

Swiggy plans to lay off 380 jobs as the Prosus Venture and SoftBank-backed Indian food delivery giant looks to navigate the market downturn that has forced firms to become leaner and more disciplined. In an email to employees on Friday, Swiggy co-founder and chief executive Sriharsha Majety said the startup has advanced its plans for […]
Indian food delivery giant Swiggy to cut 380 jobs by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

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German teens went crazy for this ‘compliments’ app, and now VCs are backing its next phase Jan 20, 2023

The teenage market for apps is a tough nut to crack and stay relevant in. Just ask Snapchat.

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Kate is a new car maker focused on micro-cars for everyday use Jan 19, 2023

Meet Kate, a French company that wants to create a tiny car that you can use for your daily commute and various errands.

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P2P lending platform PeopleFund raises $20M Series C extension led by Bain Capital Jan 19, 2023

PeopleFund, a South Korean marketplace that connects borrowers and investors to enable lending, has recently added $20 million to its $63.4 million Series C.

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Good Meat approved to sell serum-free cultivated meat in Singapore Jan 18, 2023

Good Meat announced today it has received regulatory approval from the Singapore Food Agency to use serum-free media for the production of its cultivated meat.

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Luxury fashion meets blockchain on Syky, the Seven Seven Six-backed web3 platform Jan 18, 2023

Syky will serve as an incubator, marketplace and social community for the next generation of fashion designers and consumers.
Luxury fashion meets blockchain on Syky, the Seven Seven Six-backed web3 platform by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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CloseFactor raises $15.2M to automate repetitive sales processes Jan 17, 2023

Several years ago, co-founders Leena Joshi, Ben Cheung and Erik Buchanan experienced frustration with the amount of manual work they were putting into collecting information about sales and marketing accounts.

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Nucleus aims to simplify the process of managing microservices Jan 17, 2023

An increasing number of organizations are adopting microservices, the loosely-coupled, independently-deployable services that together make up an app.

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Google-backed ShareChat cuts 20% workforce to ‘sustain through headwinds’ Jan 16, 2023

ShareChat, the Indian social media startup backed by Twitter, Google, Tiger Global and Temasek, has laid off 20% of its workforce — or over 400 employees — just a month after eliminating more than 100 roles.

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As it shifts focus from DIY computer kits, Kano spins out its creative software suite as a standalone business Jan 16, 2023

Kano Computing (“Kano”),Â the venture-backed company best known for its DIY computer kits and software for teaching coding and STEM skills to kids, is spinning out its creative software suite and online community platform as an independent business.

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Sam Bankman-Fried launches Substack: ‘I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away’ Jan 13, 2023

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried launched his own Substack newsletter today, in a very unusual move for someone who was recently arrested and is facing eight counts of U.S. criminal charges.

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Coho AI, which uses AI to help B2B SaaS companies boost revenue, raises $8.5M Jan 13, 2023

Teams dedicated to boosting customer acquisition, retention and sales don’t necessarily have the time or tools to use data insights effectively.

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Stripe’s internal valuation gets cut to $63 billion Jan 12, 2023

Stripe, a richly-valued payments startup, has cut its internal valuation yet again, according to sources familiar with the manner.

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Project Eaden’s fiber technology poised to spin threads into whole cuts of ‘meat’ Jan 12, 2023

Project Eaden produces edible plant-based protein fibers, similar to those already being used to create textiles, that mimic the texture and appearance of animal-based meats.

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Data observability startup Metaplane lands investment from YC, others Jan 11, 2023

The need for data observability, or the ability to understand, diagnose and orchestrate data health across various IT tools, continues to grow as organizations adopt more apps and services.

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Qarnot creates green data centers by putting servers in central heating boilers Jan 11, 2023

Running a data center means that you have to find innovative ways to manage heat from the servers.

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Korean handmade goods marketplace Backpackr gears up to expand into Southeast Asia Jan 10, 2023

About a decade ago, Donghwan Kim helped his cousin, a ceramist, look for sales channels, like flea markets, to sell his ceramics.

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Nigerian agritech Releaf gets more capital as it launches new tech for food processing Jan 10, 2023

Releaf, a Nigerian agritech startup that supplies ingredients (starting with the oil palm) to consumer goods manufacturers and their food factories, has received $3.3 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round.

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Superscript, a bespoke insurance provider for SMEs, raises $54 million Jan 09, 2023

Superscript, an insurance broker and tech platform targeting SMEs and “high-growth” tech firms, has raised £45 million ($54 million) in a Series B round of funding.

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Microsoft partners with India space agency to work with startups Jan 09, 2023

Microsoft plans to collaborate with the Indian space agency to give Indian space tech startups free access to cloud tools, the two said Thursday, the latest in the U.S. tech giant’s attempts to deepen its ties with young firms in the South Asian market.

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Indian fintech KreditBee nears $700 million valuation in new funding Jan 06, 2023

Indian fintech Kreditbee has raised an additional $100 million in a funding round, it said, as the lender looks to scale its business in the South Asian market.

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OneRoof grabs funding to help apartment dwellers cozy up to their neighbors Jan 06, 2023

In the past year, OneRoof has transformed from a chat room app into a platform offering in-person events, a neighbor directory and a “grow” feature to help people create their own communities.

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MeetKai launches new room-scanning tech and metaverse builder Jan 05, 2023

Not everyone believes that the metaverse — social, VR-centric worlds — has staying power. But MeetKai is among the steadfast optimists.

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SurrealDB raises $6M for its database-as-a-service offering Jan 05, 2023

There’s plenty of vendors in the managed database services market — and plenty that are well-financed.

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Singapore-based AlterPacks turns food waste into food containers Jan 04, 2023

Food waste and food packaging take up a significant portion of the world’s landfills. AlterPacks is tackling both issues with technology that turns food waste into takeout boxes and other containers.

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This startup brings Southeast Asia’s vacant hospital rooms into the sharing economy Jan 04, 2023

Uber and Airbnb have long been the poster children for the sharing economy. In other realms of society, entrepreneurs are also trying to match demand with untapped assets and services.

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Startups set to go to space for the first time on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 mission Jan 03, 2023

SpaceX is poised to launch 114 payloads to orbit on a Falcon 9 tomorrow morning, the sixth mission of its smallsat rideshare program.

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South Korean financial super app Toss closes $405M Series G as valuation rises 7% Jan 03, 2023

Viva Republica, an operator of South Korean finance super appÂ Toss, has finalized a $405 million Series G funding and it says it is now valued at 9.1 trillion won ( $7 billion), up from 8.5 trillion won in June 2021.

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Meta acquires Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company Jan 02, 2023

As Meta faces antitrust scrutiny over its acquisition of VR fitness developers Within, the tech giant is making another acquisition. Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that it is purchasing Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company headquartered in the Netherlands.

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Fintech Vint hopes to turn wine and spirits into a mainstream asset class Jan 02, 2023

Fintech startup Vint thinks everyone should invest in wine and spirits and is hoping to facilitate such investments with the help of fresh seed funding.
Fintech Vint hopes to turn wine and spirits into a mainstream asset class by Anna Heim originally published on TechCrunch

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Helm.ai snags $31M to scale its ‘unsupervised’ autonomous driving software Dec 30, 2022

A few bright spots remain in the autonomous vehicle industry even amid macroeconomic headwinds that have nearly shut off the spigot of venture capital and led to further consolidation.

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Bitcoin miner Argo to avoid bankruptcy with $100M deal from Galaxy Digital Dec 30, 2022

Galaxy plans to acquire Argo’s bitcoin mining facility Helios for $65 million and provide a $35 million loan amid the miner’s restructuring.

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Recall.ai helps companies make the most of virtual meeting data Dec 29, 2022

For organizations that do a good chunk of their work through virtual meetings, simply hitting record or taking notes isn’t enough to capture everything that’s said.

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Y Combinator-backed Poly uses AI to generate art assets Dec 28, 2022

As generative AI like ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 attract investor attention, startup entrepreneurs are looking to cash in with new business models built around them. One of the more interesting ventures to emerge from the space recently is Poly, which lets designers create video game and other virtual assets, including textures for 3D models, using […]
Y Combinator-backed Poly uses AI to generate art assets by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

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Jakarta-based fintech Akulaku raises $200M from Japan’s largest bank Dec 28, 2022

Jakarta-based fintech Akulaku has raised $200 million from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the largest bank in Japan.

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TechCrunch Early Stage focuses on fledgling founders Dec 27, 2022

Whether you’re singing “Take This Job and Shove It” while workin’ “9 to 5”Â or you’re a fledgling startup founder, TechCrunch Early Stage 2023 is the bootstrapping bootcamp designed just for you. The daylong founder-focused summit — on April 20 in Boston, Massachusetts — covers the essential building blocks you need to build a solid foundation […]
TechCrunch Early Stage focuses on fledgling founders by Lauren Simonds originally published on TechCrunch

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Indian fintech Money View valued at $900 million in new funding Dec 27, 2022

Indian fintech Money View said on Monday it has raised $75 million in a new funding round, its second this year, despite the market slump as it looks to scale its core credit business and build more products in the South Asian market.

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Vianova builds a location data platform for shared mobility companies and cities Dec 26, 2022

Meet Vianova, a French startup that is building a data platform for shared mobility companies as well as local governments.

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Reliance buys 23.3% stake in US-based AI firm Exyn Dec 23, 2022

Reliance has backed Philadelphia-based AI and robotics startup Exyn, the Indian conglomerate disclosed in a stock exchange filing on Thursday, making further inroads in startups globally.

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Gynger launches out of stealth to loan companies cash for software Dec 23, 2022

Software spend is becoming a prime target for cuts as it grows into a larger line item in enterprises’ budgets.

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South Park creators’ deepfake video startup Deep Voodoo conjures $20M in new funding Dec 22, 2022

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park and various other media over the years, have raised $20 million to continue work on their professional deepfake studio for creators, Deep Voodoo.

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ImagenAI, which uses AI to personalize photo editing styles, lands $30M Dec 22, 2022

ImagenAI, a startup using AI to help professional photographers edit photos and automate post-production work, today announced that it raised $30 million in an all-equity growth investment from Summit Partners.

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Early-stage Mexico fintech Aviva is making loans as easy as a video call Dec 21, 2022

Aviva uses AI and natural language processing to match customers’ spoken words with fields of a loan application. Within minutes, customers can qualify for up to $1,000.
Early-stage Mexico fintech Aviva is making loans as easy as a video call by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Revel raises $7.8M to become the Instagram and Robinhood of NFT platforms Dec 21, 2022

Social collectibles platform Revel describes itself as 'a cross between Instagram and Robinhood, wrapped in social game economics.'

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Salon software Mangomint raises $13M as it booms in post-COVID labor shortage Dec 20, 2022

Ever needed to read your credit card information on the phone to make a massage appointment?

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Solo GP Nichole Wischoff raises $20M fund backed by Peter Thiel to invest in ‘unsexy businesses’ Dec 20, 2022

Wischoff Ventures closed a second fund of $20 million that will be 'leaning in heavily on B2B.'

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Dropbox buys form management platform FormSwift for $95M in cash Dec 19, 2022

Dropbox today announced that it’s acquired FormSwift, a cloud-based platform designed to help businesses build, edit, approve, share and print custom personalized and documents.

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Protect AI lands a $13.5M investment to harden AI projects from attack Dec 19, 2022

Seeking to bring greater security to AI systems, Protect AI today raised $13.5 million in a seed-funding round co-led by Acrew Capital and Boldstart Ventures with participation from Knollwood Capital, Pelion Ventures and Aviso Ventures.

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With Bling, the fintech startup revolution spreads even to pocket money Dec 16, 2022

Today, banks and fintech startups tend not to provide productsÂ dedicated to families, specifically, and this has appeared as something of a gap in the market.

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Sweep, a no-code config tool for Salesforce software, raises $28M Dec 16, 2022

Businesses often encounter challenges in configuring their customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, whether because of requirements specific to their organization or industry or a lack of institutional technical knowledge.

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Taiwanese startup WritePath’s AI tech speeds up financial disclosure translation Dec 15, 2022

In countries where English is not a main language, listed companies not only have to deal with financial disclosure regulations, but make sure their investor materials are available in English for global backers.

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Vic.ai raises $52M, shows that automating accounting processes can be profitable Dec 15, 2022

AI is an imperfect technology, but one task at which it excels is identifying patterns in vast amounts of data.

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Bondaval raises $15M Series A for its alternative to traditional bank guarantees Dec 14, 2022

Bondaval, the London-based B2B insurtech that gives credit teams assurance that customers will fulfill their financial obligations, has raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Talis Capital.

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TheyDo fires the starting gun on the race to own the customer journey Dec 14, 2022

It doesn’t matter what kind of web site it is, the ‘customer journey’ has always been important, otherwise you lose that engagement and the end result can hit the bottom line.

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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested in The Bahamas Dec 13, 2022

Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested by The Royal Bahamas Police Force following reports that the United States had filed criminal charges against the founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and is likely to request his extradition.

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Akros Technologies, an AI-powered asset management platform, raises funding from Z Holdings Dec 13, 2022

Artificial intelligence is taking over almost every industry.

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Avarni is building a comprehensive dataset to analyze supply chain emissions Dec 12, 2022

For companies aiming toward net zero, tracking scope 3 carbon emissions is a key challenge.

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Computer vision technology startup Brodmann17 has shut down Dec 12, 2022

Brodmann17, an Israeli computer vision technology startup that developed a novel approach to take on a marketplace dominated by Mobileye, shut down this week.

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Instant grocery app Getir acquires its competitor Gorillas Dec 09, 2022

After weeks of rumors, Getir has announced that it is acquiring Gorillas. This is a major consolidation deal for the instant grocery delivery space. The Financial Times first reported that Getir has closed the acquisition of its competitor.

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WeWalk raises cash to bring computer vision to smart cane for visually-impaired people Dec 09, 2022

WeWalk, a U.K.-based startup developing a “smart cane” for visually-impaired people, today announced it has raised £2 million ($2.4 million) in venture funding from several notable institutional and angel investors — this includes Manchester City and German international footballer Ä°lkay GündoÄŸan.

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India’s Uolo raises $22.5M to bring edtech to the masses Dec 08, 2022

Uolo, an Indian edtech platform that works with private K-12 schools to offer online learning programs to middle and low-income families, has raised $22.5 million in a funding round led by UAE-headquartered VC fund Winter Capital.

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Bosch shuts down its app store for AI-powered, internet-connected cameras Dec 08, 2022

In 2018, appliance conglomerate Bosch created a startup, Security and Safety Things (or “SAST” for short), whose stated mission was to develop a platform to help developers create software for AI-equipped cameras.

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Autonomous and electric truck company Einride raises $500M in equity and debt Dec 07, 2022

Einride today announced a $500 million tranche of financing as it looks to expand its autonomous and electric trucks into new markets globally.

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Rezonate raises $8.7M and launches its cloud identity protection platform out of stealth Dec 07, 2022

Rezonate, a Boston- and Tel Aviv-based startup that offers an agent-less cloud identity protection platform that aims to help DevOps teams minimize attackers’ opportunities to breach cloud identity and access, is coming out of stealth today and announcing an $8.7 million seed funding round.

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With $3M new funding, Egyptian startup OneOrder sets out on growth drive Dec 06, 2022

OneOrder, Egypt’s supply chain solutions provider for restaurants, has raised $3 million seed funding led by Nclude with participation from A15, and Delivery Hero Ventures.

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Looks like sextech startup Lora DiCarlo is done for Dec 05, 2022

Lora DiCarlo, a sextech startup that made headlines in 2019 after being blacklisted from the Consumer Electronics Show, seems to have shut down. The company’s website is offline and reportedly orders have gone unfulfilled for months. TechCrunch has reached out to the eponymous founder for confirmation, but it sure looks like the end of the […]
Looks like sextech startup Lora DiCarlo is done for by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch

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Kenya’s Uncover raises $1M to expand skincare product enterprise across Africa Dec 05, 2022

Africa’s beauty and personal care market is growing accelerated by its growing young and fashion conscious population, increasing spending power, and urbanization.

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Mozilla acquires Active Replica to build on its metaverse vision Dec 02, 2022

An automated status updater for Slack isn’t the only thing Mozilla acquired this week.

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Spend management platform Teampay expands partnership with Mastercard, raises $47M Dec 02, 2022

In 2016, Andrew Hoag, formerly a senior manager at Verisign and a web project lead at NASA’s Ames Research Center, founded Teampay, a platform that attempts to automate the software purchasing process for companies.

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Shield, a communication compliance platform for financial institutions, raises $20M Dec 01, 2022

Two months ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it had fined 16 Wall Street firms more than $1.1 billion for “widespread recordkeeping failures” regarding maintaining electronic communications, contravening federal securities laws.

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Airbnb is helping finds renters an apartment so they can Airbnb it Dec 01, 2022

Airbnb really wants you to Airbnb an apartment. So its latest step is to find renters a place, which they can also list on the travel booking platform.

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Natives Rising wins backing to help Native Americans into tech and startups Nov 30, 2022

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Black, Latina, and Native American women represent approximately 16 percent of the total US population, but make up only 4 percent of students obtaining bachelor’s degrees in computing.

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Southeast Asia insurtech Igloo increases its Series B to $46M Nov 30, 2022

Igloo, a Singapore-based insurtech focused on underserved communities in Southeast Asia, announced it has raised a Series B extension of $27 million, bringing the round’s total to $46 million.

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CRED acquires CreditVidya Nov 29, 2022

CRED is acquiring CreditVidya, a SaaS startup that helps firms underwrite first-time borrowers, in the latest of a series of investments from the Bengaluru-headquartered fintech as it broadens its offerings. The firms did not disclose the terms of the deal. The 10-year-old CreditVidya — headquartered in Hyderabad and backed by Navroz Udwadia, Kalaari Capital and […]
CRED acquires CreditVidya by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

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Female Invest acquires sustainability-focused investment platform Gaia Investments Nov 29, 2022

When Female Invest launched in 2019, it did so with the goal of creating a community where women who wanted to invest in the stock market, but weren’t sure where to start, could gain the knowledge and confidence to take the plunge.

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Deepomatic wants to build the AI-based computer vision companion for field workers Nov 28, 2022

French startup Deepomatic has raised a $10.5 million (€10 million) Series B funding round. While the founding round is relatively small, the startup has managed to convince some large-scale clients to use its visual automation platform.

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Google Cloud partners with Indian startup SuperGaming to offer gaming engine to developers Nov 28, 2022

Google Cloud has partnered with SuperGaming to offer the Indian gaming startup’s proprietary gaming engine, SuperPlatform, to developers worldwide, the latest in a series of recent steps from the Android-maker to expand focus into the gaming industry.

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Dat Bike gets another $8M to put more e-bikes on Vietnam’s roads Nov 25, 2022

Dat Bike is on a mission to put more electric bikes on Vietnam’s roads. The startup said today it has raised $8 million led by returning investor Singapore-based firm Jungle Ventures, just seven months after its first round of funding was announced.

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As employees shift from office, Cloudbrink provides a strong, secure internet connection Nov 24, 2022

Most companies have worked hard over the years to produce strong and secure internet connections in the office, but over the last several years in particular, as more employees have been working away from the office, it’s been difficult for IT pros to reproduce that speed and safety.

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Sequoia India’s Surge backs healthtech startup RedBrick AI in $4.6M funding Nov 23, 2022

Healthtech startup RedBrick AI has raised $4.6 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Surge as it plans to expand the market for its medical imagery annotations solution.

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‘Stranger Things’ actor wants to spread the wealth around tbh, his vegan Nutella alternative Nov 23, 2022

Actor Noah Schnapp, who plays Will on Netflix’s hit original series Stranger Things, is passionate about tbh, a company he co-founded which aims to “reinvent” hazelnut cocoa spread Nutella.

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Bitpanda obtains German crypto license as crypto platforms want to prove they are legit Nov 22, 2022

All eyes are currently on the collapse of FTX in the crypto industry. That’s why today’s news from Bitpanda is an important signal for the Austrian unicorn company. Bitpanda has received a crypto license from Germany’s financial regulator (BaFin).

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SponsorUnited secures $35M investment to build out its database of brand sponsorships Nov 22, 2022

Sponsorships are a multibillion-dollar industry. But data on sponsorships, like who’s sponsoring who, can be tough to come by because of the various forms they take — and channels on which those sponsorships take place (think not only websites and social media posts but also physical signage and even sports team jerseys).

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Flipkart chief warns startups of turmoil and funding crunch for another 12 to 18 months Nov 21, 2022

The funding winter for the startup ecosystem may continue for another 12 to 18 months and the industry might have to grapple with a “lot of turmoil and volatility,” e-commerce giant Flipkart chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy has warned executives.

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ReadySpaces, which offers co-warehousing spaces to corporate customers, secures $20M in debt Nov 21, 2022

Jon Zimmerman — the co-founder of ReadySpaces, a warehouse storage provider for small businesses — was working in the self-storage market when he had the idea for a product with the flexibility of self-storage but the capabilities of a traditional warehouse, aimed primarily at enterprise customers.

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With $8.6M in seed funding, Nx wants to take monorepos mainstream Nov 18, 2022

Narwhal, the company behind the popular monorepo-focused open source Nx build system for JavaScript code, today announced that it has raised an $8.6 million seed funding round co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz.

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Elephantech wants to create circuit boards that are kinder to the environment Nov 18, 2022

Printed circuit boards (PCB), which perform essential functions in electronic devices, including displays and sensors, need a lot of energy to create.

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Summer International uses social media data to launch new beauty brands Nov 17, 2022

If you follow #beautytok, #beautytube or any beauty content on social media platforms, you know that popular product trends are hard to keep up with.

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Zest wants to make buying and sending gifts online ‘delightful’ Nov 17, 2022

While e-commerce was on the rise before the pandemic, the massive shift to digital supercharged the online shopping industry — bringing entirely new categories of products (and shoppers) to the web.

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Thailand’s Beam simplifies checkout for social commerce Nov 16, 2022

The social commerce market is already worth more than $13 billion in Southeast Asia, but the checkout process is filled with friction.

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Silkhaus gets $7.75M to digitize short-term rentals across emerging markets Nov 16, 2022

Silkhaus, a Dubai-based platform for short-term rentals coming out of stealth, has raised $7.75 million in seed funding, money it plans to use for expansion across South Asia, Southeast Asia and the MENA region.Â

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Induction cooking heats up with a $20M cash injection for Impulse Nov 15, 2022

All electric, everywhere, all of the time; that’s one of the many climate mantras.

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Directus wants to democratize data across the enterprise Nov 15, 2022

A startup that wants to democratize data in the enterprise?

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Pet insurance startups chase the market as pet ownership booms among Gen Z and Millennials Nov 14, 2022

Walk through any public park these days and you will see a hell of a lot more dogs than you might have done three years ago.

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Airly fights air pollution with a network of affordable sensors Nov 14, 2022

Cleantech startup Airly wants to help communities around the world improve air quality with affordable sensors and software that provides actionable insights.

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Perfekto bags $1.1M to find homes for imperfect produce in Mexico Nov 11, 2022

Perfekto's customers can personalize their subscription box of imperfect produce, of which the company says 1 million pounds have been rescued from landfills since 2021.

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With new capital, Adapty is betting it can help app devs make more money Nov 11, 2022

Adapty hopes to help developers earn more from their apps. So far, it has been doing this mostly by powering A/B testing for paywalls, but it has a broader road map.
With new capital, Adapty is betting it can help app devs make more money by Anna Heim originally published on TechCrunch

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Equals secures $15M investment to supercharge spreadsheets Nov 10, 2022

Equals, a New York-based startup ambitiously aiming to challenge Excel’s dominance with a supercharged spreadsheet, today announced that it raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Craft Ventures, Box Group, Worklife and Combine.

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Kuda takes digital banking play to the U.K. with its remittance product Nov 10, 2022

Kuda, the London-based and Nigerian-operating startup taking on incumbents in the country with a mobile-first and personalized set of banking services, is expanding to the U.K. by offering a remittance product to Nigerians in the diaspora.Â

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Beekeeper, which helps companies engage with their ‘deskless’ frontline workforce, raises $50M Nov 09, 2022

Beekeeper, a platform for businesses to engage with frontline workers, has raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding.

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Eliyan raises $40M from Intel and Micron to build chiplet interconnects Nov 09, 2022

Increasingly, as Moore’s law rears its ugly head, computer chip developers are adopting “chiplet” architectures to scale their hardware’s processing power.

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Security automation startup Veriti launches out of stealth with $18.5M Nov 08, 2022

Veriti, a platform for unifying cybersecurity infrastructure, today emerged from stealth with $18.5 million in funding, a combination of $12 million from Insight Partners and a $6.5 million round led by NFX and Amiti.

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Twitter said to delay verification check mark rollout until after US midterm elections Nov 08, 2022

Twitter is reportedly delaying the rollout of verification check marks to subscribers as the social network attempts to steer clear of possible impact to Tuesday’s midterm elections.

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After 40 million app downloads, PhotoRoom raises $19 million Nov 07, 2022

French startup PhotoRoom has raised a $19 million Series A funding round.

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Sacca’s Lowercarbon doubles down on startup bringing solar modules to Indian rooftops Nov 07, 2022

Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon is doubling down on a startup that is racing to bring solar modules to rooftops in India.

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Spend management startup Pleo lays off 15% of its workforce Nov 04, 2022

Danish startup Pleo has announced that it plans to lay off around 15% of the company’s workforce.

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Dropit picks up $25M to digitize brick-and-mortar stores and unify inventories Nov 04, 2022

Dropit, a retail technology platform that bridges the digital divide by unifying merchants’ online and in-store inventories, has raised $25 million in a Series C round of funding.

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Bump builds a central hub for all your APIs Nov 03, 2022

Meet Bump, a French software-as-a-service startup that wants to help you maintain and use APIs across your organization.

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Former Yext CEO launches Roam to provide a virtual HQ for distributed teams Nov 03, 2022

Roam, which bills itself as a “cloud HQ” for distributed, remote companies, today emerged from stealth with $30 million in Series A funding led by IVP with participation from undisclosed angel investors.

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Microsoft backs web3 game developer Wemade Nov 02, 2022

Microsoft has backed Wemade, a popular video game developer that has made aggressive bets on blockchain in recent years, the latest sign of tech giants’ showing growing interest in web3.

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Digital card and gifting platform Givingli nabs $10M Nov 02, 2022

Three years ago, Ben and Nicole Green were planning their wedding and decided to go digital with registries to save on money and materials.

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HR employee benefits platform Fringe raises $17M to offer customizable perks Nov 01, 2022

Fringe, an HR tech startup enabling companies to offer customizable perks and benefits to employees, today announced that it raised $17 million in a funding round led by Origin Ventures and Felton Group.

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Navina secures $22M to process and summarize medical data for clinicians Nov 01, 2022

Navina, a company developing AI-powered assistant software for physicians, today announced that it raised $22 million in Series B funding led by ALIVE with participation from Grove Ventures, Vertex Ventures Israel and Schusterman Family Investments.

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Twitter will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on November 8 Oct 31, 2022

Twitter’s stock will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and become a private company on November 8, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Integration platform Cinchy lands fresh cash to connect data sources Oct 31, 2022

Cinchy, a startup that provides a data management service for enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $14.5 million in Series B funding led by Forgepoint Capital with participation from IVP, SUV, Techstars and Mars.

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Uber alum rakes in $9.7M to curb finance-related fights between co-parents Oct 28, 2022

The daughter of divorced parents herself, Uber alum Jacklyn Rome founded Onward to help co-parents more easily manage their shared expenses.

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Needl wants to become the search engine for your accounts Oct 28, 2022

Google, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines help you find information from the web. But it’s hard to find documents, messages, meetings, and emails from your own accounts. You need to go to different applications to find things that might be related to one project.

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Valence Security raises fresh capital to secure the SaaS app supply chain Oct 27, 2022

Valence Security, a company securing business app infrastructure, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series A round led by M12, Microsoft’s corporate venture arm, with participation from YL Ventures, Porsche Ventures, Akamai Technologies, Alumni Ventures and former Symantec CEO Michael Fey.

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Duolingo’s owl will now shout fractions at you Oct 27, 2022

Duolingo is launching its math app to the public, and months after a beta version joined the app store.

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WATI, a CRM tool built for WhatsApp, raises $23M led by Tiger Global Oct 26, 2022

WhatsApp is used by more than two billion around the world, and is an important tool for many small businesses.

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AI chip startup Axelera lands $27M in capital to commercialize its hardware Oct 26, 2022

Several years ago, Fabrizio Del Maffeo and a core team from Imec, a Belgium-based nanotechnology lab, teamed up with Evangelos Eleftheriou and a group of researchers at IBM Zurich Lab to develop a computer chip.

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Pantheon Design alleviates supply chain uncertainty with factory-grade 3D printing Oct 25, 2022

In the midst of the pandemic, Pantheon Design, a maker of industrial 3D printers from Vancouver, BC, suddenly found itself getting orders from factories in the Midwest, the center of heavy industries.

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Maro’s new app looks to help schools screen kids for depression and anxiety Oct 24, 2022

Maro has developed a platform that helps families and schools navigate tough conversations about mental health.

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Sensat raises $20.5M to build digital twins for infrastructure companies Oct 24, 2022

Sensat, a platform that helps physical infrastructure companies map and visualize all their data, has raised $20.5 million in a Series B round of funding.

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Handoff is creating a more equitable workforce through job sharing Oct 21, 2022

Many qualified workers are failed by the current model of work in the United States, where jobs are either part-time or full-time.

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Banyan raises $43M to grow its network of item-level purchase data Oct 21, 2022

Banyan, a platform for product purchase data that allows customers such as banks, fintechs, hotels and merchants to automate expense management and more, today announced that it raised $43 million in a Series A funding round.

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N26 adds crypto trading with new Bitpanda integration Oct 20, 2022

Challenger bank N26 is launching a new trading feature in its app — N26 Crypto. Users will be able to easily trade crypto assets using money in their N26 account.

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Makersite lands $18M to help companies manage product supply chains Oct 20, 2022

In 2018, Neil D’Souza, a software engineer by trade and previously the VP of product development at Thinkstep, came to the realization that his ten-plus-year effort to solve enterprise product challenges in the areas of sustainability, compliance and risk were having little impact.

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DigestAI’s 19-year-old founder wants to make education addictive Oct 19, 2022

When Quddus Pativada was 14, he wished that he had an app that could summarize his textbooks for him.

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Streaming data processing platform RisingWave lands $36M to launch a cloud service Oct 19, 2022

RisingWave Labs, a company developing a platform for data stream processing, today announced that it raised $36 million in a Series A funding round led by Yunqi Partners.

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Drivetrain is the “Google Maps for business growth” Oct 18, 2022

Businesses usually plot their growth strategies on spreadsheets, but Drivetrain wants to provide a faster alternative for financial planning and decision making.

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Andreessen Horowitz backs Synonym’s bio-manufacturing facilities Oct 18, 2022

Synonym is developing designs and underwriting for its fermentation farms so that companies can more easily utilize them for bioproduct production.

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Beyond Meat to cut 19% of its workforce amid sales slump Oct 17, 2022

Beyond Meat expects the job cuts to be completed by the end of the year.Â
Beyond Meat to cut 19% of its workforce amid sales slump by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Getaway launches a way for you to enjoy, and own, vacation homes Oct 17, 2022

Being in the business of convincing people that they deserve a vacation is hard.

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Waste4Change is building a circular economy in Indonesia Oct 14, 2022

Even the largest landfills in Indonesia are at (or nearing) capacity, and the government has set an ambitious target of 30% waste reduction by 2025.

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Pillow wants to make crypto saving and investing easy for new users Oct 14, 2022

Pillow aspires to be an all-in-one platform that helps even newbie users save, spend and invest in crypto currency.

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Analytics operating system Redbird makes data more accessible to non-technical users Oct 13, 2022

Data engineers have a big problem.

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Noom lays off more employees amid CFO departure Oct 13, 2022

Noom, a health coaching platform valued at $3.7 billion last year, is laying off a portion of staff for the second time in a matter of months, TechCrunch has learned from sources.

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Homa raises another $100 million for its data-driven mobile gaming tools Oct 12, 2022

French startup Homa has raised a $100 million Series B funding round. Quadrille Capital and Headline are leading the round.

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Insite AI raises $19M to help consumer brands figure out their in-store strategies Oct 12, 2022

Insite AI, a platform for consumer packaged goods companies that uses AI to provide recommendations on how to price, distribute and promote their products in physical stores, today launched out of stealth with $19 million in Series A capital from NewRoad Capital and M12, Microsoft’s corporate venture arm.

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Singapore-based staffing platform Workmate acquired by Persol Asia Pacific Oct 11, 2022

Workmate, a Singapore-based on-demand staffing platform, has been acquired by Persol Asia Pacific, one of the region’s largest HR service providers.

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Trendsi secures $25M to help sellers and manufacturers predict demand Oct 11, 2022

In the traditional business-to-business world, sellers often don’t know how much of a product they should order.

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Real estate investing app Fintor raises $6.2M at $80M valuation Oct 10, 2022

Fintor, a fintech startup making it easier for non-accredited investors to invest in real estate properties, has just launched its mobile app for both iOS and Android.

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Jiko wants to help companies park their cash in T-Bills as everyone yield hunts Oct 10, 2022

Jiko started its life as a mobile bank for consumers. But over time, the fintech startup has evolved its model – mostly fueled by demand – and is now making a push into corporate money storage.

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SaaS platform klikit saves restaurant kitchens from “tablet hell” Oct 07, 2022

The proliferation of delivery services give customers many options, but means chaos for busy restaurants that need to manage orders across multiple apps and channels.

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Identity security platform Oort bags new cash to grow its product Oct 07, 2022

Oort, an identity threat detection and response platform, today announced that it raised $11.5 million in a Series A round co-led by .406 Ventures and Energy Impact Partners with participation from Cisco Investments.

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Techstars unveils sustainability-focused acceleration program in Paris Oct 06, 2022

Techstars, a network of startup accelerators and an investment company, is launching a new accelerator in Paris called Techstars Sustainability Paris.

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Gourmey grabs $48 million to keep working on lab-grown foie gras Oct 06, 2022

French startup Gourmey just raised a Series A funding round led by Earlybird Venture Capital. In total, the company banked $48 million (€48 million).

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IriusRisk lands $29M to automate threat modeling for apps Oct 05, 2022

IriusRisk, a threat modeling platform, today announced that it raised $29 million in a Series B funding round led by Paladin Capital Group with participation from BrightPixel Capital, SwanLab Venture Factory, 360 Capital and Inveready.

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Humaans raises $15M to simplify HR tasks like onboarding Oct 05, 2022

The role of HR professionals grew in scope during the pandemic as companies were forced to navigate major workplace changes, like working from home. Unsurprisingly, those professionals have had some of the highest burnout rates over the past two years, particularly as HR departments remain under-resourced. According to an August survey from Workvivo, an employee […]
Humaans raises $15M to simplify HR tasks like onboarding by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

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Vodafone confirms merger talks with Three UK in a “no cash” deal to scale up in 5G Oct 04, 2022

Another major piece of mobile M&A appears to be in the works in the UK. Today, Vodafone confirmed that it was in merger discussions with Three UK, a carrier owned by CK Hutchison, to accelerate their 5G rollout.

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Web3 banking platform Juno raises $18 million, launches tokenized loyalty program Oct 04, 2022

Juno, a startup that provides checking accounts to crypto enthusiasts and allows them to take their paychecks in digital tokens, has raised a new funding round as it expands its offerings to include a tokenized loyalty program.

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With $17M in funding, Immerok launches cloud service for real-time streaming data Oct 03, 2022

In 2011, the Apache Software Foundation released Flink, a high-throughput, low-latency engine for streaming various data types.

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TestGrid is a “one-stop shop” for testing apps at scale Oct 03, 2022

Created by developer who needed to test apps at scale, TestGrid is an on-demand platform that lets users run tests on websites and apps across browsers, operating systems.

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Arcade scores $7.5M seed to make it simple to build a product demo Sep 30, 2022

Software product marketers typically are charged with creating demos for potential customers.

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Lunio raises $15M to combat click fraud with algorithms Sep 30, 2022

The digital ads market is robust, with Statista predicting that worldwide spend will reach nearly $900 billion by 2026.

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Pigment raises another $65M to build the modern business planning platform Sep 29, 2022

French startup Pigment has raised a new round of funding less than a year after raising a $73 million Series B round.

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Firehawk’s rocket engines and 3D-printed fuel hit testing milestones ahead of first launch Sep 29, 2022

Although today’s rocket engines are advanced and powerful, they tend to rely on traditional — and naturally volatile — fuels like hydrazine or liquid oxygen and kerosene.

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Stockly raises another $12 million to sell out-of-stock items via other retailers Sep 28, 2022

French startup Stockly is raising a $12 million Series A round (€12 million) from Eurazeo, Daphni and several business angels.

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AmazeVR wants to scale its virtual concert platform with $17M funding Sep 28, 2022

AmazeVR, a Los Angeles-based virtual concert platform, said Tuesday it has raised a $17 million funding round to create immersive music experiences through virtual reality (VR) concerts.

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Livin Farms’ investors are betting $5.8M on powdered fly larvae Sep 27, 2022

In a world of climate change-fueled food shortages, insect-based proteins are being viewed as an increasingly valuable potential alternative food service.

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A Strava co-founder races into a lucrative market – lending against life insurance Sep 27, 2022

Mark Shaw likes running around. The serial entrepreneur joined activity and fitness tracking platform Strava as a co-founder in 2009 to lead engineering as CTO. He spent eight years there, and as of its most recent raise in 2020,

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Checkmate captures all of your shopping deals so you don’t have to Sep 26, 2022

Checkmate's shopping tool gathers all the online discount codes, gift cards and personalized deals from your inbox and automatically applies them at checkout.
Checkmate captures all of your shopping deals so you don’t have to by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Steadybit wants developers involved in chaos engineering before production Sep 26, 2022

Chaos engineering was originally developed at large companies to help them pressure test systems in production.

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Cloud kitchen startup CloudEats raises more capital to ramp up Southeast Asian expansion Sep 23, 2022

A cloud kitchen — also known as a ghost kitchen or a shared kitchen — offers restaurant owners and food entrepreneurs a commercial kitchen space at a reduced cost for food delivery and takeout.

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Crypto tax reporting app Binocs helps users navigate regulations Sep 23, 2022

Keeping up with tax compliance for cryptocurrency can be tricky, especially since many laws are new (or haven’t been written yet).

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EV charging operator Bump unlocks $180 million Sep 22, 2022

French startup Bump has signed a multi-year financing partnership with DIF Capital Partners in order to roll out more charging stations for electric vehicles and double down on growth in general.

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Razor’s Edge Ventures closes $340M fund as it looks to invest in defense startups Sep 22, 2022

In a sign that national security tech is a safe bet even during troubled economic times, defense- and security-focused VC firm Razor’s Edge Ventures today announced the closing of its third startup investment fund at just under $340 million.

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Leoparda Electric is bringing battery swapping for two-wheelers to LatAm Sep 21, 2022

Leoparda Electric, a São Paolo–based startup, wants to be the Gogoro of Latin America. In other words, it’s looking to build out a network of battery swapping stations that should help spread adoption of electric two-wheelers in the region.

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Zopper raises $75 million to solve India’s insurance problem Sep 21, 2022

For more than half a decade, Zopper built a platform for small and medium-sized businesses, helping merchants with invoicing and payments through its point-of-sale platform.

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Meta alumni’s startup TrueFoundry raises $2.3 million to accelerate ML deployments Sep 20, 2022

A group of former Meta engineers is building a platform to help enterprises deploy machine learning models at the speed of big tech companies.

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This robot crossed a line it shouldn’t have because humans told it to Sep 20, 2022

Video of a sidewalk delivery robot crossing yellow caution tape and rolling through a crime scene in Los Angeles went viral this week, amassing more than 650,000 views on Twitter and sparking debate about whether the technology is ready for prime time.

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Launch House holds private town hall, says investigation is underway Sep 19, 2022

In a town hall to some members of their community, Launch House addressed the harassment and assault allegations surfaced by a Vox Investigation earlier this week.

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Virtual Internships matches students with top companies around the world Sep 19, 2022

Remote work struck down barriers for many employees, and now Virtual Internships is doing the same for university students around the world by partnering with over 12,000 companies from 100 countries.

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Polywork lands $28 million more to add hyphens to your job title Sep 16, 2022

Stop trying to make Polywork happen. It’s already happening. You may even be polyworking as you read this.

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Denim, a fintech platform for freight brokers, raises $126M in equity and debt Sep 16, 2022

Denim, the fintech platform for freight and logistics formerly known as Axle Payments, today announced that it raised $126 million in a Series B funding round led by Pelion Venture Partners.

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MVP Match, a tech-talent marketplace, raises $5M from Stage 2 Capital Sep 15, 2022

Tech-talent marketplace MVP Match has raised €5 million ($5 million) seed funding from Stage 2 Capital to double down its strategy for pairing companies with talent from across the globe.

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CoverSelf’s customizable platform simplifies the healthcare claims system Sep 15, 2022

The U.S healthcare system is infamously labyrinthine, with a lengthy claims process that results in frequent errors and high administrative costs.

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Cultured meat startup Prolific Machines unveils its ‘Henry Ford approach’ to cell growth Sep 14, 2022

Its technology is a way to grow and control cells without the need for any of those expensive recombinant proteins for cell production.
Cultured meat startup Prolific Machines unveils its ‘Henry Ford approach’ to cell growth by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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How WhiteLab Genomics is using AI to aid gene and cell therapy development Sep 14, 2022

French biotech company WhiteLab Genomics has raised $10 million in funding for an AI platform designed to aid the discovery and development of genomic therapies.

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Industrial IoT startup Litmus Automation bags new cash to grow its product Sep 13, 2022

In recent years, a cottage industry has sprung up around the industrial internet of things (IoT) landscape — and the data generated by it.

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Kenya’s HotelOnline acquires hospitality software company HotelPlus Sep 13, 2022

HotelOnline, a Kenyan-based travel technology scale-up that fashions itself as an e-commerce and digital marketing enabler in the hospitality industry, has acquired HotelPlus, a software provider with clients in 22 countries.

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Diveplane lands $25M to grow its MLOps platform Sep 12, 2022

In 2017, three entrepreneurs — Chris Hazard, Mike Resnick and Mike Capps — came together to launch a platform for building AI and machine learning tools geared toward the enterprise.

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Synthetic DNA startup Catalog partners with Seagate for its DNA-based data storage platform Sep 12, 2022

Data needs to be stored somewhere. However, data storage costs keep growing, and the data people keep producing and consuming can’t keep up with the available storage.

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Stack.io banks $2.7M to teach teens, parents about crypto Sep 09, 2022

The app was designed with Gen Z in mind, a generation that will grow up with the blockchain and most likely own some kind of digital assets.
Stack.io banks $2.7M to teach teens, parents about crypto by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Lucidity keeps cloud block storage neat, tidy and cost-efficient Sep 09, 2022

Cloud storage is expensive (especially in this economy), but many companies often over-provision, cutting their full return on investment. Lucidity was created to help them manage block storage more efficiently with a set of automated tools.

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London-based RegTech SteelEye nabs $21M Sep 08, 2022

London-based regulatory technology (RegTech) startup SteelEye has raised $21 million in a series B round of funding.

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Nektar.ai exits stealth mode to plug CRM data leakages Sep 08, 2022

A lot of important data gets lost along the sales pipeline because sales teams use multiple tools, including email, Zoom and WhatsApp, to talk with buyers.

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Cultivated Biosciences wants to make plant-based dairy ‘feel’ more like the real McCoy Sep 07, 2022

The vegan food market was pegged as a $27 billion industry last year, a figure that’s expected to more than double within a decade.

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JusticeText raises $2.2M to increase transparency in criminal evidence-gathering Sep 07, 2022

The company currently works with 50 public defender agencies and has around 60 clients who are private criminal defense attorneys.

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This Gen Z founder is pitching hundreds of investors… via Venmo Sep 06, 2022

My phone buzzes as I get a text from a friend who’s a partner at a VC firm. It’s a screenshot of a Venmo notification that just came in.

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Indian agency searches fintech Paytm, Razorpay and Cashfree offices in Chinese loan apps probe Sep 06, 2022

India’s financial crime fighting agency searched the offices of fintech unicorns Paytm and Razorpay as well as Cashfree on Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into fraudulent Chinese loan apps, it said Saturday, the latest in a series of probes in recent months.

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Fairmarkit’s AI-fueled platform delivers autonomous procurement sourcing Sep 05, 2022

Companies tend to divide their procurement spending into two main buckets. The first is large purchases over $500,000 with some starting $1 million, depending on the size of the organization. Anything below that figure falls under a category known as “tail spend.”

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With schools increasingly focused on mental health, PsycApps raises Seed round for US expansion Sep 02, 2022

I’ve been tracking PsycApps, a startup that came up with a gamified mental health game ‘eQuoo’, since 2016, and this company – and its founder – is nothing if not persistent in ‘pivoting into the wind’. T

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This dating app fought scammers with bots… hilarity ensued Sep 02, 2022

You know the feeling; you’re on a dating app, and you start a conversation with someone, and things don’t seem like they add up completely.

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Falkon closes $16M round to automate sales workflows and analyses Sep 01, 2022

Falkon, a sales analytics platform that uses AI to attempt to show where successful product sales are occuring in an organization, today announced that it raised $16 million in a funding round led by OMERS Ventures.

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MEDU takes in $4M to develop reusable personal protective equipment Sep 01, 2022

MEDU aims to reduce hospital garment waste and replace single-wear items with its line of sustainable, virus-resistant reusable pieces.

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Kula makes the job recruitment process less exhausting Aug 31, 2022

The process of finding job candidates often entails a lot of tedious manual work for recruiters, like sending versions of the same email over and over again. That’s Kula was created.

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The UK’s £5B Project Gigabit gives out first contract to connect rural areas to high-speed broadband Aug 31, 2022

The first major subsidy contract under the U.K. Government’s £5 billion ($5.9 billion) Project Gigabit scheme has officially been awarded, with Wessex Internet securing £6 million ($7 million) to connect remote properties in South West England to high-speed broadband.Â

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Singapore-based Propseller uses data to take the hassle out of real estate transactions Aug 30, 2022

Headquartered in Singapore, proptech startup Propseller is on a mission to make real estate transactions more efficient and data-driven for sellers and buyers alike. Its platform is able to tell users the likelihood of a conversion each step of the way.

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Supply chain startup FourKites, which recently laid off workers, raises $30M Aug 30, 2022

Weeks after laying off workers, supply chain startup FourKites has raised $30 million as part of an ongoing financing round, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Data analytics startup StarTree secures cash to expand its Apache Pinot–powered platform Aug 29, 2022

StarTree, a company building what it describes as an “analytics-as-a-service” platform, today announced that it raised $47 million in a Series B round led by GGV Capital with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and CRV.

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Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster jazzes up China’s AR startup Nreal with $15M funding Aug 29, 2022

Augmented reality headsets have been around for years, but none of the market players has really expanded beyond the techy demographic and broken into the mainstream.

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SoftBank-backed Tridge, a Korean platform that matches food agriculture buyers and sellers, bags $37.2M Series D at a $2.7B valuation Aug 26, 2022

Supply chain disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine is driving increased costs of goods and services, affecting not only the industrial sector (e.g., semiconductors), but also the agriculture industry.

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Mad Realities’ Devin Lewtan is onboarding crypto users through reality television Aug 26, 2022

Web3 doesn’t have the most inclusive reputation, yet so many crypto founders talk about onboarding the next 100 million users into the space.

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Privado is “Grammarly for code privacy issues” Aug 25, 2022

Privacy breaches are not only bad for users, but also costly for tech companies.

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Apple, Samsung partner Servify raises $65 million for its devices after-sales and management platform Aug 24, 2022

Servify, a startup that manages lifecycle of devices for several popular smartphone vendors including Apple and Samsung in many markets, has raised $65 million as it eyes becoming a public company in two years.

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Dioseve wants to help infertile people with tech that grows egg cells Aug 24, 2022

Based in Japan, biotech startup Dioseve’s ambitious goal is to grow human oocytes, or eggs, from other tissue. Its aim is to help people struggling with infertility, and it recently raised $3 million led by ANRI, with participation from Coral Capital.

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DhiWise takes the tedium out of programming Aug 23, 2022

Programming involves a lot of monotonous tasks. Based in Gujarat, India, DhiWise wants to makes things less onerous for developers with its programming automation platform.

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Massdriver wants to abstract away infrastructure to let devs focus on coding Aug 23, 2022

Modern DevOps turned back the clock on agile software development. Them’s fighting words, but they’re words Cory O’Daniel, the CEO of Massdriver, stands by.

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Stripe has laid off employees behind TaxJar, a tax compliance startup it acquired last year Aug 22, 2022

Stripe has laid off some of the employees that support TaxJar, a tax compliance startup that it acquired last year, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources and firsthand documentation.

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India’s Sunstone raises $35 million for its higher education startup Aug 22, 2022

Sunstone, a higher education startup that collaborates with academic institutions to help upskill their students for employability, has raised $35 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand to more Indian cities. Sunstone founders said Friday WestBridge Capital led the startup’s Series C financing round. Alteria Capital also participated in the funding, […]

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Aero raises $65M for its semi-private airline Aug 19, 2022

Aero Technologies, which describes itself as a “next-generation air travel company” which currently operates on a limited number of routes in the U.S. and Europe, today announced that it has raised $65 million, with $50 million as a Series B funding round co-led by Albacore Capital Group and $15 million in convertible notes. Expa and […]

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WebMD acquires French medical news and information platform Jim.fr Aug 19, 2022

Health information publishing giant WebMD has announced that it’s acquiring Jim.fr, a French-language medical news and information website aimed at healthcare professionals (HCPs).

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Along’s new mobile app lets creators record ‘infinite length’ video collabs Aug 18, 2022

All major social networks including Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have their own take on how collaborations should work.

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Social investment platform eToro to acquire fintech startup Gatsby for $50M Aug 18, 2022

Multi-asset social investment network and Robinhood competitor eToro has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Gatsby.

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India’s Exponent Energy may have found the secret to 15 min rapid EV charging Aug 17, 2022

Bangalore-based Exponent Energy might have come up with a way to deliver 15-minute rapid charging for electric vehicles.

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Mobot secures capital to grow its fleet of robots that bug-test mobile apps Aug 17, 2022

Mobile apps have to be bug-tested across countless devices to ensure they work as intended.

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Upskilling platform GrowthSpace secures $25M to grow its global business Aug 16, 2022

As the jobs market remains tight (mass layoffs and hiring freezes in tech aside), companies are laser-focused on retaining staff.

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Meta invests in Take App, a Singaporean startup that helps merchants sell via WhatsApp Aug 16, 2022

WhatsApp has long transcended its roots as a simple messaging app for friends, and is now a core communication tool for businesses seeking a direct channel to their customers’ pockets — both literally, and metaphorically.

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Nothing negative about Positive Food’s meal expansion plan after $7M investment Aug 15, 2022

Positive Food is going after the $34 billion fresh prepared foods market with its take on salads, heat-and-eat prepared meals and vegan overnight oats.

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Dropbase can help turn your messy spreadsheet into queryable SQL database Aug 15, 2022

It’s not unusual for a tech company to be born by accident. Famously, Slack was created as a byproduct of a now defunct gaming company.

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SaaS startup Stimulus closes oversubscribed $2.5 million seed round Aug 12, 2022

Her product is a hit with investors, the most notable of which include Morgan Stanley, The BFM Fund and Northwestern Mutual Futures Ventures.

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Conversational intelligence company Jiminny nabs $16.5M to unlock sales team insights Aug 12, 2022

Jiminny, a U.K.-based conversational intelligence platform that companies use to record, transcribe, and analyze communications from across sales and other customer-facing teams, today announced it has raised $16.5 million in a series A round of funding.

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Medical simulation platform FundamentalVR raises $20M to help surgeons learn through VR Aug 11, 2022

FundamentalVR, an immersive simulation platform for medical and health care professions, has raised $20 million in a round of funding to “accelerate skill-transfer and surgical proficiency” through virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) applications.

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Expedock cinches Series A to grow its freight paperwork management platform Aug 11, 2022

Since the start of the pandemic, the global supply chain has undergone — and is undergoing — immense strain.

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Egyptian startup Convertedin raises $3M, caters to e-commerce brandsin MENA and Latin America Aug 10, 2022

Convertedin, an Egyptian startup that operates a marketing operating system for e-commerce brands, has raised $3 million in a seed round led by Saudi Arabia-headquartered Merak Capital.

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Miferia wants to expand its wholesale inventory marketplace across Latin America Aug 10, 2022

The Mexico-based company enables retailers to bring their inventory relationships online, expand their product selection and get more favorable credit terms.

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Spin Technology raises $16M to protect SaaS apps against attacks Aug 09, 2022

Spin Technology, a data protection software vendor catering to enterprise clientele, today announced that it raised $16 million in a Series A round led by Blueprint Equity with participation from Santa Barbara Venture Partners and Blu Venture Investors.

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Zenno Astronautics wants to move spacecraft around using electromagnets, not fuel Aug 09, 2022

It’s easy to think about satellites as a bunch of mini-moons, orbiting the Earth seamlessly and without any (noticeable) movement.

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Equalum lands new capital to help companies build data pipelines Aug 08, 2022

The pandemic prompted countless companies to migrate to the cloud. By 2025, driven partly by the need for digital services, 85% of enterprises will have a cloud-first principle, according to Gartner.

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On Deck lays off a third of staff after cutting a quarter just months prior Aug 08, 2022

On Deck, a tech company that connects founders to each other, capital and advice, has conducted another round of layoffs just three months after laying off a quarter of staff.

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Digital marketplace Clutch closes $1.2M pre-seed round led by Precursor Ventures Aug 05, 2022

The duo aims to democratize the tools needed for everyone to become a content creator.

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Employee benefits platform Ben raises $16M to cut HR admin Aug 05, 2022

Employee benefits platform Ben today announced it has raised $16 million in a series A round of funding led by European VC giant Atomico. While salary is undoubtedly the main draw in a company’s compensation offer, additional “perks” can help sweeten the deal for current or would-be employees — this could be anything from gym […]

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This startup just raised $320M to make long-term care inside hospitals obsolete Aug 04, 2022

Cera, a U.K. provider of healthcare inside people’s homes augmented by a platform that allows carers to monitor a patient’s health and potentially flag problems, has raised $320 million (£260 million) in an equity and debt financing round, split roughly 50/50.

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Braxia buys KetaMD to get into remote-delivered ketamine treatments Aug 04, 2022

Braxia Scientific is a Toronto-based company that focuses on depression, suicidality and related mental health conditions. T

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Sprig raises $30M to help companies gauge users’ reactions to products Aug 03, 2022

Sprig, a startup offering tools for user and software product research, today announced that it raised $30 million in a funding round from Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, First Round Capital, Elad Gil and Figma Ventures.

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Emitrr raises $4 million to expand its automation offering for local businesses Aug 03, 2022

Large-scale and mid-sized enterprises and businesses are increasingly adopting — and offering — software-as-a-service platforms as they seek to increase their revenue and parlay their growth into greater efficiency.

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Innoviz lidar will be on all VW vehicles with automated driving capabilities Aug 02, 2022

Israeli lidar startup Innoviz will supply its lidar sensors and perception software to all vehicles with automated driving capabilities within Volkswagen group brands, the company said Tuesday.

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Bolt Mobility has vanished, leaving e-bikes, unanswered calls behind in several US cities Aug 02, 2022

Bolt Mobility, the Miami-based micromobility startup co-founded by Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, appears to have vanished without a trace from several of its U.S. markets.Â

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Hyundai Motor eyes acquisition of Korean lidar-free self-driving startup 42dot Aug 01, 2022

Hyundai Motor is considering increasing its stake in, or fully acquiring, the South Korea-based lidar-free autonomous mobility platform 42dot, the latest signal of its growing interest in the fast-growing space.

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Sports community platform Stadium Live raises $10M to expand its digital world for Gen Z Aug 01, 2022

Today, digital world maker Stadium Live Studios, Inc. announced its $10 million Series A funding round to continue its mission of bringing fantasy sports to a younger generation.

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Leapfin pulls together financial info across data siloes to simplify reporting Jul 29, 2022

When Leapfin founder and CEO Ray Lau was managing financial operations at the game company Zynga a decade ago, he saw just how hard it was for his team to get answers about the financial health of the company quickly.

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Pony.ai forms autonomous truck JV with Sany Heavy Truck in China Jul 29, 2022

Autonomous vehicle company Pony.ai is forming a strategic joint venture with Sany Heavy Truck, a subsidiary of Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer Sany Heavy Industry, to create an autonomous truck brand.

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Switchboard creates virtual rooms to foster better collaboration Jul 28, 2022

Switchboard, a collaboration app that combines features of videoconferencing and digital whiteboarding, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series A round that values the company at $200 million post-money.

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Cordial, which personalizes and automates cross-channel messaging campaigns, raises $50M Jul 28, 2022

Cordial, a cross-channel marketing and data management platform, today announced that it closed a $50 million Series C funding round led by NewSpring.

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RPA Supervisor lands cash to help companies manage their various RPA platforms Jul 27, 2022

Proving that there’s room in the robotic process automation (RPA) market for another vendor, RPA Supervisor today announced that it raised $20 million in a Series A round led by Dawn Capital with participation from S16vc and existing investor MMC Ventures.

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Can a baby’s cry identify neurological disorders? Ubenwa says ‘yes’ Jul 27, 2022

When Charles Onu’ cousin was both born with birth asphyxia and later developed a hearing condition, the seed for Ubenwa, an audio biometric company geared at identifying neurological disorders in infants, was also planted.Â Onu, CEO and co-founder, said he hopes Ubenwa will change the way physicians provide care to infants.Â

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Insightly helps engineering teams increase productivity and reduce burnout Jul 26, 2022

Insightly Analytics helps engineering teams stop problems before they happen, like slow release cycles, bottlenecks and uneven workload distribution that can lead to employee burnout.

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World Fund joins $128M bet that quantum can deliver climate breakthroughs Jul 26, 2022

World Fund, a newcomer in climate-VC land, is taking the lead in a $128 million round for IQM, with hopes the Finnish quantum computing company will one day deliver carbon cuts by the megatonne.

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TomoCredit raises $22M at a $222M valuation toward its goal of making credit scores ‘obselete’ Jul 25, 2022

When Kristy KimÂ started TomoCredit in early 2019, she was on a mission to help international students more easily obtain credit.

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Fairbanc provides BNPL for micro-merchants in Indonesia Jul 25, 2022

“Buy now, pay later” (BNPL) startups have gained traction by targeting consumers, but BNPLs for businesses are also starting to take off.

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Agility’s next Digit robot will have a face and hands Jul 22, 2022

Digit, the bipedal robot developed by Agility Robotics, will continue to evolve and improve, including the addition of a head and some digits of its very own.

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Observability startup Better Stack lands $18.86M in new cash Jul 22, 2022

In the software industry, observability tools provide businesses insights on the health of their production apps. At best, observability tools can flag when apps are performing under par and help identify the root causes of issues. But rarely is it this simple.

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15Five, a pioneer in talent management HR tech, raises $52M to boost its own performance Jul 21, 2022

15Five — an early mover in the world of building technology to help motivate teams, and to improve performance management for execs overseeing those teams — has raised $52 million in a round of growth funding that it will be using to expand its own performance.

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Casavo, an Opendoor-style proptech from Italy, raises $410M to expand its instant buyer platform across Europe Jul 21, 2022

Opendoor opened the door, so to speak, to the idea of applying technology to the concept of house flipping to both scale the opportunity and make it considerably more efficient.

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Charles raises $20M to bring conversational commerce to WhatsApp in Europe Jul 20, 2022

Conversational commerce isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, with countless companies using live chats, messaging apps, chatbots, voice assistants and more to encourage consumers to part with their cash.

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Japanese e-commerce enabler AnyMind raises funding in equity, debt for acquisitions Jul 20, 2022

The pandemic has triggered more demand for online shopping and fueled many smaller retailers to establish their own online offerings.

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X1’s income-based credit card is finally available to the public Jul 19, 2022

The credit card market has become increasingly crowded, with consumer fintech startups like locked in a fierce competition to differentiate their offerings through branding, rewards programs and even crypto compatibility.

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This niche cryptographic technique could transform privacy in web3 Jul 19, 2022

Privacy is a core concern in crypto. Once you know a crypto wallet address corresponds to a certain individual, you can track all the transactions that individual has made through their wallet on any public blockchain, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Some cryptographers think the solution to crypto’s privacy concerns lies in zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), a […]

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Canvas Medical, ‘the Tesla of EMRs,’ raises a $24 million Series B round Jul 18, 2022

When Andrew Hines started Canvas Medical in 2015 he couldn’t have predicted that telehealth would go from niche to norm or that a pandemic would inspire entrepreneurs to launch a new fleet of digital health startups that needed fresh infrastructure.

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Medusa’s open source e-commerce tool for JavaScript developers aims to take on Shopify Jul 15, 2022

Medusa aims to offer APIs beyond the standard marketplaces ones for merchants to build more advanced features like fulfillment, subscriptions or a wholesale channel.

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Meet the all-electric RV startup steered by Tesla alumni Jul 15, 2022

What started as a pet project to electrify food trucks in the San Francisco Bay area — an enterprise inspired by the cacophony of generators that greeted Ben Parker every day during his lunch break at Tesla — has evolved into a much larger, complex and potentially more lucrative undertaking.

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Kindly Health makes hormonal health care more approachable Jul 14, 2022

Hormonal healthcare can be intimidating, since it touches on the most intimate parts of our lives. Kindly Health wants to make it accessible to more people, with a combination of at-home diagnostic tests (including semen tests and tests for polycystic ovary syndrome), telehealth consultations and supplements.

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Deci lands $25M for tech that makes AI models more efficient Jul 14, 2022

Deci, a startup company with 50 employees who are developing a platform to build and optimize AI-powered systems, today announced that it closed a $25 million Series B financing round led by Insight Partners.

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DeltaStream secures cash to build real-time streaming databases Jul 13, 2022

DeltaStream, which is developing a streaming database platform geared toward enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $10 million in a seed round led by New Enterprise Associates.

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Uprise banks $1.4M to be a ‘family office’ for Gen Z Jul 13, 2022

Uprise takes in a user’s full financial picture, including overlooked aspects like employer benefits, and offers recommendations on where to funnel money.

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Scale Computing secures $55M to help companies manage edge infrastructure Jul 12, 2022

Edge computing is seeing an explosion of interest as enterprises process more data at the edge of their networks.

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Despite layoffs, there’s still a talent crunch in Southeast Asia Jul 12, 2022

Tech layoffs have hit almost every region in the world, and Southeast Asia is no exception, with companies like Sea, Crypto.com and JD.ID among those affected. In particular, fintech startups—BNPL, credit and lending, and inventory-holding businesses—are vulnerable, like in other parts of the world.

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For businesses seeking low-code fintech infrastructure options, there’s a Quiltt for that Jul 11, 2022

Company founders pivoted when customers wanted their fintech data engine over their budgeting app.

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Casper king Philip Krim is getting into the insurance business Jul 11, 2022

Since departing his role as Casper CEO in 2021, Philip Krim has spent the majority of his time investing and incubating companies via Montauk Ventures. The latest is an insurance company called Ranger, which aims to elevate the agents in the insurance industry, rather than replace them. Most of the new-wave insurance platforms out there […]

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Six reasons to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt Jul 08, 2022

If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new and awesome opportunity available for early-stage startup founders at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on October 18-20. It’s called the Startup Battlefield 200, and it’s packed with perks and possibility. Here’s the thing — it’s a time-sensitive application process, and you only have until July 31 to […]

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Crypto gaming firm Cauldron raises $6.6M to build ‘Pixar of web3’ Jul 08, 2022

A number of crypto gaming firms have ramped up production in the past year with hopes of revolutionizing the growing industry. Adding to the list is London-based gaming firm Cauldron, which plans on becoming the “Pixar of web3” through a key element: storytelling. The company just closed a $6.6 million seed round and plans to […]

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Wonderbelly is taking on Tums Jul 07, 2022

Deep tech and D2C have very little in common, except Noah Kraft. The Doppler Labs founder, who first came into the spotlight in 2014 with the launch of a wireless earbuds company, is teaming up with his brother to start something brand new. Well, for clarity’s sake, the brother duo are actually disrupting something relatively […]

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Finli puts service-based business payment management in the palm of your hand Jul 07, 2022

Finli’s platform was developed so owners could send invoices, look up customer information and check on payment status in between gigs.

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IBM acquires Databand to bolster its data observability stack Jul 06, 2022

IBM today announced that it acquired Databand, a startup developing an observability platform for data and machine learning pipelines. Details of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Tel Aviv-based Databand had raised $14.5 million prior to the acquisition. Databand employees will join IBM’s data and AI division, with the purchase expected to close on June 27. […]

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Maolac pours new funding into superfood mimicking breast milk health benefits Jul 06, 2022

The company identifies and extracts functional proteins from bovine colostrum and uses them to make milk protein mixtures that could be used for different immune-boosting applications.

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AI-powered photo stock startup Wirestock lands partnership with Getty Images Jul 05, 2022

As a stock photographer, taking great photos is often only just a tiny part of the job. To run a successful business, keywording, categorizing, captioning, and all the other admin that goes with it can take up almost as much time. That’s the problem Wirestock is solving, and the company just landed an important deal […]

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Black Swan analyzes social media to predict which products will be successful Jul 05, 2022

Consumer packaged goods companies — think PepsiCo or Nabisco — face steep challenges from the rising cost of living and distribution. As inflation continues unabated, consumers’ disposable income isn’t going as far as it used to while products are becoming more expensive to ship. The pressure is on businesses to place their bets on the […]

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Short video app Triller confidentially files to go public Jul 04, 2022

TikTok rival Triller has confidentially submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paperwork for an initial public offering of its Class A common stock. The announcement comes as the company ended its $5 billion merger with video-tech company SeaChange International two weeks ago. Similar to TikTok, Triller allows users to create and share short-form […]

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Visby Medical tests positive for a Series E extension at $1B+ valuation Jul 04, 2022

Medical diagnostics company Visby Medical raised $100 million in a Series E round earlier this year.

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Promoted grabs more funding to help e-commerce marketplaces achieve profitability Jul 01, 2022

For many marketplaces, those search, recommendation and ad functions are typically siloed, but Promoted has them all under one umbrella.

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April taps AI to help personalize and autofill tax filings Jul 01, 2022

Most Americans dread doing their taxes. Surveys show as much. But as many as 40% rely on money from tax refunds to satisfy some financial obligation.

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Marketing automation startup Rocket Reach nabs $24M for expansion Jun 30, 2022

Retail Rocket, a retention management platform for brands, today announced that it raised $24 million in a Series A round led by Cyprus-based private equity fund Flintera.

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Nautical Commerce sails away with new funding to bring marketplace tech to the masses Jun 30, 2022

The company is boiling down the time it takes for businesses to create an e-commerce marketplace from two to three years to about 90 days.

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Walmart is acquiring Memomi, an AR startup powering virtual try-on for eyewear Jun 29, 2022

Walmart is expanding its array of virtual try-on services for shoppers with today’s news that it’s planning to acquire Memomi, an AR optical tech company and current Walmart partner offering virtual try-on experience for eyewear.

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Sharebite bags $39M to expand its corporate food ordering program Jun 29, 2022

Sharebite, a startup that partners with restaurants to deliver food to corporate clients, today announced that it raised $39 million in a Series B round led by Prosus with participation from Fiserv, Contour Venture Partners, Reign Ventures, London Technology Club and Not Boring Fund.

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Degreed’s co-founder is back at the company he left…with the startup he built Jun 28, 2022

Edtech up-skilling platform Degreed has acquired Learn In, which creates talent resource hubs for employers to better spin up education services for their teams.

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ConductorOne is bringing automation to identity and access management with $15M investment Jun 28, 2022

The founders of ConductorOne, an identity and access control startup, both came from Okta, which is itself a single sign-on vendor based on the zero trust model.

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Zomato acquires Blinkit for $568 million in instant-grocery delivery push Jun 27, 2022

Zomato has acquired Blinkit, a struggling 10-minute grocery delivery startup, in a $568.1 million all-stock deal as the loss-making food delivery firm looks to broaden its offerings at a time when its shares are trading far below last year’s debut price.

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Cryptoys banks a16z funding to build NFTs for kids Jun 27, 2022

The past several months haven’t been entirely kind to the NFT market — while transaction volume hasn’t stuttered too significantly, the dollar amount invested in the space has been in free fall as cryptocurrency prices have taken a historic dive.

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Epsilon3’s space industry OS powers more than launches as it brings in $15M in new funding Jun 24, 2022

The space industry is evolving, as are the tools it uses; Epsilon3 is a startup trying to make launches, satellite design, rocket manufacturing, and other complex processes easier and more collaborative.

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Tiger Global backs SaaS omnichannel social commerce platform SleekFlow in $8M funding Jun 24, 2022

Social commerce — the process of buying and selling products or services directly through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — is becoming the most natural way for consumers to make purchases since people use social media and messaging apps almost every day.

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Starburst acquires data lake analytics accelerator Varada to challenge Snowflake Jun 23, 2022

Starburst, the well-funded data warehouse analytics service and data query engine based on the open-source Trino project, today announced that it has acquired Varada, a Tel Aviv-based startup that focuses on data lake analytics.

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Fermyon wants to reinvent the way programmers develop microservices Jun 23, 2022

When Fermyon’s founders were working at Microsoft, they helped build a lot of cloud native technologies.

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Vietnam-based Anfin makes stock investing accessible Jun 22, 2022

Based in Vietnam, Anfin wants to turn more people into stock investors with features like fractional trading and in-app communities.

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Platform.sh secures $140M for web app development tools Jun 22, 2022

The growing complexity of web infrastructure is a challenge that many organizations face today. When building and deploying web apps, IT teams must grapple with an array of choices, from selecting which backend system to use to deciding which framework to code in.

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Redwood Materials partners with Toyota to recycle batteries in US Jun 21, 2022

Redwood Materials, the lithium-ion battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, is partnering with Toyota to collect, refurbish and recycle batteries and battery materials that can be sent to the Japanese automaker’s upcoming North Carolina battery plant.

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Mono aims to be ‘first bankingless bank’ for Latin America’s small businesses Jun 21, 2022

Mono is building a fully digital bank with accounts that can be opened in around 15 minutes versus an average of two weeks at an incumbent bank.

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Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder raises $350M at a $3.5B valuation Jun 20, 2022

New York-based Wonder, a mobile restaurant delivery service led by Marc Lore, has raised $350 million in Series B funding. The company is now worth about $3.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Brain data startup Rune Labs gets FDA clearance for Apple Watch-based Parkinson’s tracker Jun 20, 2022

Rune Labs, a precision neurology company in San Francisco, announced that its StrivePD software ecosystem for Parkinson’s disease has been granted 510(k) clearance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin using the Apple Watch to collect and measure data from Parkinson’s patients.

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Indian esports fantasy startup FanClash raises $40 million Jun 17, 2022

Millions of Indians each year assemble virtual sports teams, placing their hopes on the players they pick to perform exceedingly well in real-world matches.

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Zoovu lands $169M to drive online product discovery experiences Jun 17, 2022

The competition in ecommerce has become fiercer as the pandemic drives shoppers online. At the same time, customers have grown to expect better experiences. According to helpdesk software vendor HiverHQ, 32% of consumers want customer service to be both more responsive and empathetic.

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Tabnine raises $15.5M for AI that autocompletes code Jun 16, 2022

Tabnine, a startup creating an “AI-powered assistant” for software developers, today closed a $15.5 million funding round co-led by Qualcomm Ventures, OurCrowd, and Samsung NEXT Ventures with participation from existing backers Khosla Ventures and Headline Ventures.

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Edtech company Pok Pok raises $3M to expand its digital play experiences for kids Jun 16, 2022

Pok Pok, a Toronto-based edtech company, has announced that it raised $3 million in seed funding to expand its play-based learning experiences for kids.

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Cube, which wants to help finance teams plan better and faster, lands $30M after seeing 400% ARR growth Jun 15, 2022

Cube, a startup that wants to help companies “plan their financial future,” has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round led by Battery Ventures.

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Onymos raises $12M to provide plug-in features for apps Jun 15, 2022

Onymos, a “feature-as-a-service” platform for app development, today announced that it closed a $12 million Series A round led by Great Point Ventures with participation from Benhamou Global Ventures, Engineering Capital, and Industry Ventures.

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EV SPAC Faraday Future now has the attention of the DOJ Jun 14, 2022

Amid an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into inaccurate statements to investors, Faraday Future has received a preliminary request for information from the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Boulder Care takes in funding as its opioid telehealth program yields industry-leading retention rates Jun 14, 2022

The company is serving several thousand patients and growing its footprint as a value-add employee benefit.

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Charm Therapeutics applies AI to complex protein interactions, locking down $50M A round Jun 13, 2022

The world of AI-powered drug discovery keeps expanding as the capabilities of machine learning grow. One approach that seemed unthinkable just a few years ago is simulating the complicated interplays of two interlocking molecules.

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Maze raises $40M to help facilitate software product research Jun 13, 2022

Product research generally involves determining whether an idea for a new product might be successful and how to best develop and sell that product. It’s a straightforward process, in theory, but the basic definition belies the barriers that can crop up.

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Luminai (formerly DigitalBrain) gets $16M investment for customer support RPA-like tool Jun 10, 2022

The founders of DigitalBrain have quite a back story, a pair of immigrants living in a hacker house in San Francisco, the two paid bills for a time by competing at hackathons and winning.

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HYCU locks down additional funding to grow its cloud data protection business Jun 10, 2022

Hybrid Cloud Up Time (HYCU), a self-described “backup-as-a-service” company for customers managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments, today announced that it raised $53 million in a “majority equity” Series B round led by Acrew Capital with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Atlassian Ventures, and Cisco Investments.

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TestBox nabs $10M seed to expand platform for software purchase testing Jun 09, 2022

TestBox, an early stage startup, has a goal of making it easier to test software you want to purchase in your own environment. What’s more, it comes pre-populated with synthetic data that is similar to yours.

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Proper raises $4.3M seed round to help other fintechs wrangle data Jun 09, 2022

What’s one of the hottest areas within fintech today? Funny enough, it’s fintech for fintechs (say that a few times fast). Fintech startups have absolutely proliferated in the past few years.

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Former Better.com exec alleges company misled investors ahead of SPAC Jun 08, 2022

One of Better.com’s former executives has filed a lawsuit against the online mortgage lender, alleging that the company and its CEO Vishal Garg misled investors when it attempted to go public via a SPAC, reports the Wall Street Journal.

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Magical makes $35M appear to move data between webpages Jun 08, 2022

It’s the belief of some analysts that the market for robotic process automation, which leverages AI to automate certain software tasks, is headed toward consolidation.

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Child care startup Kinside raises $12M Series A in a round led by mothers Jun 07, 2022

Finding and affording child care is one of the biggest challenges parents face. Kinside makes the process easier by not only providing a marketplace of verified carers, but also helping parents tap into their flexible spending accounts (FSA) and other benefits to afford care.

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Opal secures $10M for dynamic access management Jun 07, 2022

Opal, a platform that decentralizes access management for enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Greylock.

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Agtech robotics firm FarmWise just raised another $45 million Jun 06, 2022

The rest of the startup universe may be struggling to bring in funds, but it’s still a good time to get a robotic raise.

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Temasek’s Pavilion Capital backs South Korean AI chip maker Rebellions with $50M investment Jun 06, 2022

Global venture capital firms are pouring money into the semiconductor startups developing the next generation of chips.

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Mexico City’s Kolors wants to disrupt intercity busing in Latin America Jun 03, 2022

Kolors, a Mexico City-based startup, says its platform that connects intercity bus riders with bus drivers is like “if Uber and Southwest Airlines had a baby.”

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Sanlo, a startup that offers app and game developers access to financial tools and capital, raises $10M Jun 03, 2022

Sanlo, a San Francisco-based fintech startup that offers small to medium-sized game and app companies access to tools to manage their finances and capital to fuel their growth, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Konvoy.

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Chainguard raises $50M to guard supply chains Jun 02, 2022

Chainguard, a startup that focuses on securing software supply chains, announced today that it has raised a $50 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital.

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Chick-fil-A taps Refraction AI for autonomous delivery pilot Jun 02, 2022

When Refraction AI was founded in 2019, its goal was to use robotics to bring down the cost of last-mile delivery.

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Car-sharing startup Turo expands to New York and France Jun 01, 2022

Peer-to-peer car sharing company Turo is expanding to New York State and France in June, the company said on Wednesday.

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One AI raises $8M to curate business-specific NLP models Jun 01, 2022

Whether to power translation to document summarization, enterprises are increasing their investments in natural language processing (NLP) technologies.

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Strong Compute raises $7.8M seed round to speed up ML training pipelines May 31, 2022

Strong Compute, a Sydney, Australia-based startup that helps developers remove the bottlenecks in their machine learning training pipelines, today announced that it has raised a $7.8 million seed round.

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Meta and Google’s Gradient back LatAm startup OlaClick May 31, 2022

More than 80% of food delivery orders in Latin America are still made over phone calls and settled with cash.

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Mintlify taps AI to automatically generate documentation from code May 31, 2022

Mintlify, a startup developing software to automate software documentation tasks, today announced that it raised $2.8 million in a seed round led by by Bain Capital Ventures with participation from TwentyTwo Ventures and Quinn Slack, Sourcegraph’s co-founder.

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Betastore gets $2.5M to solve stock-outs, financing challenges for informal retailers in West and Central Africa May 31, 2022

About 80% of household retail in sub-Saharan Africa is delivered through informal channels, which perennially face several challenges like stockouts, leading to an instability in earnings, and a lack of attractiveness to financiers.

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Foursquare founder banks funding for mystery 3D social network startup May 27, 2022

The excitement around web3 and the metaverse have pulled plenty of entrepreneurs who defined the first generation of native mobile apps to begin questioning what’s next.

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Hugging Face collaborates with Microsoft for new AI-powered Azure service May 27, 2022

Fresh off a $100 million funding round, Hugging Face, which provides hosted AI services and a community-driven portal for AI tools and data sets, today announced a new product in collaboration with Microsoft.

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SoftBank leads $150M round for Firework’s shoppable video May 27, 2022

Firework provides tools for retailers and consumer brands to tap into their own customer data to build engaging video experiences across their own digital properties and social channels.

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Astroforge raises $13M seed round for asteroid mining ambitions May 27, 2022

Although we’ve long understood that asteroids are not simply the rubble of the universe, but potentially profitable stores of precious minerals, humanity has never been able to unlock this value.

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Bowery opens a new vertical farm in Pennsylvania May 27, 2022

When I wrote my big TC1 on Bowery Farming late last year, there was a lot of talk of the company’s third commercial farming site in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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MainStreet’s valuation could fall 60% to $200 million amid investor recapitalization pursuit May 25, 2022

Weeks after laying off about 30% of its staff, MainStreet is said to be raising another round of funding at a $200 million valuation, sources tell TechCrunch.

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Klarna lays off 10% of its workforce May 24, 2022

Swedish payment giant Klarna is going to cut hundreds of jobs in the coming days. Today’s news comes a few days after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was going to cut its valuation in order to raise fresh capital.

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Carbon capture is headed for the high seas May 23, 2022

Unless you live near a port, you probably don’t think much of the tens of thousands of container ships tearing through the seas, hauling some 1.8 billion metric tons of stuff each year.

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FloorFound grabs more capital to grow its oversized recommerce business May 23, 2022

What makes FloorFound stand out from its competitors is its approach to putting retailers, which often struggle with how to effectively do returns, at the center of recommerce.

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Dig emerges from stealth to help organizations secure their data in public clouds May 20, 2022

Dig, a Tel Aviv-based cloud data security startup, has emerged from stealth with an $11 million investment to help organizations protect data stored in public cloud environments.

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ChargeLab’s software layer to power ABB’s EV chargers in North America May 20, 2022

ChargeLab, a Toronto-based startup that builds software to operate and optimize electric vehicle charging equipment for fleets and commercial customers, has raised a $15 million Series A round.

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Joby Aviation acquires Avionyx to accelerate aerospace software certification May 19, 2022

Joby Aviation, a California-based company developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOL) for commercial passenger service, announced the acquisition of Avionyx, an aerospace software engineering firm, on the TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility stage on Wednesday.

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Jungle Ventures closes a $600M fund, bringing its total assets under management to over $1B May 19, 2022

Singapore-based venture firm Jungle Ventures is digging deeper into Southeast Asia and India with the close of its fourth fund.

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Palette sells a sales commission tool for modern sales teams May 18, 2022

Meet Palette, a software-as-a-service startup that is going to be particularly interesting if you’re also running a software-as-a-service startup.

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Fashinza, a B2B supply chain marketplace for fashion brands, raises $100M May 18, 2022

The pandemic has majorly affected the global supply chain, with 60% of U.S. adults in an August 2021 Gallup survey saying that they’ve been unable to get a product they wanted in the past two months because of shortages.

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A.Team emerges from stealth with a gig marketplace for product specialists May 17, 2022

The gig economy has, to use a well-worn word, disrupted industries from ride-hailing to quick-service restaurants. Contract work has its downsides, namely on the pay and benefits side of the equation.

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Uber Eats pilots autonomous delivery with Serve Robotics, Motional May 17, 2022

Uber Eats is launching two autonomous delivery pilots in Los Angeles on Monday with Serve Robotics, a robotic sidewalk delivery startup, and Motional, an autonomous vehicle technology company.

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Classiq raises additional funding for its quantum algorithm design tools May 16, 2022

Tel Aviv-based Classiq, a startup that wants to make it easier for developers to build quantum algorithms and applications, today announced that it has raised additional funding for its service by adding HSBC, NTT Finance, and Intesa Sanpaolo as new investors.

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Bubbles aims to supercharge chats with async video messaging May 16, 2022

Bubbles, a startup that pitches its platform as the “anti-Zoom” for video messaging, today announced that it closed a $8.5 million funding round led by Khosla Ventures, Craft Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, 468 Ventures, and Bain Capital.

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Gusto raises an extension round, following Faire as unicorns react to a changing market May 13, 2022

Gusto, an HR technology unicorn worth nearly $10 billion, has raised an extension to its 2021-era Series E funding round.

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Leland breaks into the coaching space with a focus on careers, not classes May 13, 2022

The coaching world is crowded. There’s BetterUp, a re-skilling platform that wants to bring executive coaching to employees, and Sounding Board, which mixes SaaS and coaching services.

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Singapore-based Good Startup raises $34M fund to invest in alternative protein companies May 12, 2022

Good Startup, a Singapore-based venture capital firm focused on alternative protein, has closed its latest fund.

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Berlin’s GetHenry breaks into last-mile delivery e-bike scene with $17.4M seed May 12, 2022

Berlin-based GetHenry, a startup that provides electric last-mile delivery bikes to couriers and logistics companies, has raised a $17.4 million (€16.5 million) seed round to expand its business across Europe.

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EV startup Canoo sues major investor over sketchy share sales May 11, 2022

Electric vehicle startup Canoo has filed suit against one of its largest shareholders, demanding that the firm pay back more than $61 million in “short-swing profits.”

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Blueland takes its ‘don’t ship water’ model to body wash May 11, 2022

To date, Blueland, fresh off its $20 million fundraise back in February, has mostly been focusing on home cleaning products.

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Fertility startup Hannah Life Technologies gets $5.15M Pre-Series A May 10, 2022

Hannah Life Technologies, a startup for couples trying to conceive, announced today it has raised $5.15 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.

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South Korea’s OHouse lands $128M to add AR to home improvement app May 10, 2022

During the worst days of the pandemic, when people were stuck at home and starving for some form of entertainment beyond streaming yet another TV series, many turned to DIY home improvement projects.

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Daniel Ek pumps $50 million into Spotify: ‘I believe our best days are ahead’ May 09, 2022

Spotify cofounder Daniel Ek said on Friday that he’s pouring $50 million into the music streaming service, driving its stock price up by more than 3% to a high of $108.98 per share during regular trading hours.Â

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Lucid is raising prices on its luxury Air EV by as much as 13% May 09, 2022

Lucid Group is the latest automaker to up the price of its electric vehicles. The company announced Thursday alongside its first-quarter earnings report that it was raising prices of the variants of its luxury Air sedan, beginning June 1.

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Tomorrow Farms wants to revamp the pantry May 06, 2022

Tomorrow Farms is turning the concept of pantry and refrigerator staples on its head to create foods that are better for us.

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Shopify acquires shipping logistics startup Deliverr for $2.1B May 06, 2022

Shopify today announced that it will acquire Deliverr, a San Francisco, California-based ecommerce fulfillment startup, for $2.1 billion.

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As supply chain issues mount, Fictiv helps companies get from prototype to manufacturing May 05, 2022

It used to be getting from prototyping to manufacturing meant long, expensive trips to places like Shenzhen and a whole lot of trial and error. Fictiv was founded back in 2013 to address some of the biggest pain points of bringing products to market.

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Fundid’s injects first funding into providing capital, credit for small businesses May 05, 2022

Fundid has a three-pronged approach to simplifying access to capital for small businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

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Getlife wants to democratize life insurance in Europe May 04, 2022

Meet Getlife, a Madrid-based startup that just raised $6.3 million (€6 million) in seed funding. The company wants to make it easier to access life insurance products in Europe. For instance, there’s no medical exams needed to subscribe to Getlife.

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Backed by Tiger Global and Sequoia India, Toplyne helps product-led growth teams tackle user conversion May 04, 2022

For product-led growth companies (PLG), the perennial question is: how do we get non-paying customers to subscribe?

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LottieFiles raises Series B to make the animation format even more ubiquitous May 03, 2022

Lottie animations are everywhere. The JSON-based file format, first introduced as an open-source library by Airbnb engineers, can now be seen in the top 500 iOS and Android apps, said LottieFiles co-founder Kshitij Minglani.

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Anthropic’s quest for better, more explainable AI attracts $580M May 03, 2022

Less than a year ago, Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI VP of research Dario Amodei, intending to perform research in the public interest on making AI more reliable and explainable. Its $124 million in funding was surprising then, but nothing could have prepared us for the company raising $580 million less than a year.

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Vyoma is the latest player seeking to prevent satellite collisions with space junk May 02, 2022

As you might’ve heard, it’s getting a little crowded in space, between thousand-satellite constellations à la SpaceX’s Starlink and the millions of pieces of space junk accumulated from decades of launches.

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Glorang scores $10M Series A to expand its edtech marketplace across Asia May 02, 2022

Glorang, a Seoul-based edtech startup that offers after-school classes and extracurricular activities via online for students between the ages of 3 and 18, said Friday it has raised a $10 million Series A funding co-led by Korea Investment Partners and Murex Partners, along with Japan’s Pksha Capital.Â

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HackerOne buys YC-backed PullRequest to add code review to bug-squashing platform Apr 29, 2022

PullRequest, a five year old startup that came out of Y Combinator in 2017, helps software developers by providing an external code review team.

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Madison Reed, which made DTC hair color a thing, is now going after larger retail footprint Apr 29, 2022

Buoyed by a new $33 million investment, plans are in the works to add another 20 hair color bar locations and hire 850 new colorists by the end of the year.

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Deepset raises $14M to help companies build NLP apps Apr 28, 2022

Natural language processing (NLP), the field of AI that involves parsing text for tasks including summarization and generation, is a fast-growing technology.

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Zippedi is using robots to digitize inventory for last-mile delivery Apr 28, 2022

Luis Vera believes the third time is the charm. The self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur admits that his vision for digitizing retail was a decade or two early when he started his journey in the 90s.

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Umaro is turning ocean-farmed seaweed into imitation bacon Apr 27, 2022

Don’t call it a pivot, exactly — but it’s a fascinating journey, nonetheless. Umaro Foods, which is set to release a seaweed-based bacon replacement, entered the world as Trophic.

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Qualified raises $95M to help Salesforce users with sales pipeline generation Apr 27, 2022

Lead generation is a critical cornerstone in the world of sales — in a seemingly infinite sea of potential customers, you need to know who wants to buy, or who might buy.

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Lengow acquires e-commerce intelligence startup Netrivals Apr 26, 2022

A bit more than a year after private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Lengow, the company is expanding its product offering with the acquisition of Netrivals.

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As it brings its bipedal robots to market, Agility announces a $150M round Apr 26, 2022

Yesterday, Amazon announced that Agility Robotics is one of the five initial startups benefitting from the company’s $1 billion innovation fund.

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Manila-based MadEats is more than a ghost kitchen startup Apr 25, 2022

MadEats, Y Combinator alum, claims to be the first “‘full-stack’ delivery-only startup in the Philippines,” with their own virtual storefront, ghost kitchens and fleet of drivers.

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Skyflow and Plaid partner in effort to bolster fintech data security Apr 25, 2022

Skyflow, which sells data privacy tools for corporate customers, this morning announced a partnership with Plaid, a unicorn that helps pass fintech data between parties through an API.

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Construct Capital’s $300M fund targets critical infrastructure automation Apr 22, 2022

The firm invests in the manufacturing, transportation and logistics sectors, which, they say “represent over half our country’s GDP and have not been tech-enabled.”

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Meet Morado, a two-month old Colombian marketplace for the beauty industry that just raised $5M Apr 22, 2022

Morado, a two-month-old Colombian startup aiming to digitize beauty salons in Latin America, has raised $5 million in a pre-seed round from a bevy of global investors.

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Singapore-based healthcare startup Ordinary Folk gets $5M to fight stigma Apr 21, 2022

Ordinary Folk, a Singapore-based telehealth startup dedicated to men and women’s health issues, has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding from Monk’s Hill Ventures.

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SaaS demo platform Demostack raises $34M to expand to new markets Apr 21, 2022

Demostack, a San Francisco, California-based startup creating a “demo experience” platform for software-as-a-service (SaaS) sales teams, today announced that it raised $34 million in a Series B round led by Tiger Global Management.

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Everstage raises $13M Series A to make sales commissions more transparent Apr 20, 2022

For sales reps, commission plans are often complicated and lack transparency, leading to accounting errors and frustration. Everstage, a sales commission platform, solves that, letting sales rep see exactly how much they earned.

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Planetary wants to help food startups brew up more fake meat Apr 20, 2022

Planetary aims to bring all of the alternative protein production planets into orbit with its scaling technology.

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Chipotle launches $50M venture fund in bid to foster new restaurant tech Apr 19, 2022

In a bid to position its brand as more tech-forward — and, in the process, foster new culinary innovations — Chipotle today announced the launch of Cultivate Next, a venture fund run by Curt Garner, the restaurant chain’s chief technology officer.

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Nowadays puts its spin on plant-based nuggets Apr 19, 2022

Its first product is a crispy, plant-based riff on chicken nuggets that is made with just seven ingredients.

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Sika lets patients ‘hack’ their health savings accounts to buy wellness products tax-free Apr 18, 2022

What if you could buy a Peloton with pre-tax dollars? How about vitamins and supplements? Skincare products? Or even mattresses and massages?

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Speckle snags $5.5M seed to build open source platform for 3D drawings Apr 18, 2022

The founders of Speckle, an early-stage startup based in London, are both trained architects and engineers, probably a rare combination. It enabled them to see and understand firsthand the issues associated with exchanging large proprietary 3D files from vendors like Autodesk and Trimble.

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Itilite secures $29M to automate corporate expensing workflows Apr 15, 2022

For the bulk of the past two years, the pandemic has put the kibosh on corporate travel of nearly any kind.

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Tokyo-based Luup to more than double shared e-scooters, e-bikes Apr 15, 2022

Shared micromobility company Luup has raised $8 million (1 billion yen) in debt and asset financing to meet the growing demands of Japan’s micromobility market, which according to a recent report, is projected to reach $11.6 billion in 2030.

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Shipium gives e-commerce retailers Amazon-like supply chain tech Apr 14, 2022

E-commerce retailers of all sizes can have that supply chain coordination layer that enables them to provide fast and cheaper shipping, too.

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Snap debuts its fifth cohort of Yellow accelerator startups Apr 14, 2022

Snap’s in-house Yellow accelerator program, which invests in startups, has debuted its fifth batch of investments.

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Hookdeck snares $2.4M seed to help developers manage webhooks Apr 13, 2022

Hookdeck founders Alexandre Bouchard and Eric Tran were working on a product to help manage webhooks in 2020 when they became discouraged and decided to step away to gain some perspective.

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Montonio is building the payment and checkout solution to rule them all Apr 13, 2022

Meet Montonio, an e-commerce checkout solution created by a small startup based in Tallinn, Estonia. The company just raised a $12 million Series A funding round (€11 million) led by Index Ventures.

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Bosch picks up Five.ai after the self-driving startup pivoted to B2B and then put itself up for sale Apr 12, 2022

Consolidation is moving ahead in the world of autonomous driving, with the latest development coming out of Europe.

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ProtonMail buys email alias startup SimpleLogin Apr 12, 2022

Proton, the Geneva, Switzerland-based startup behind the eponymous E2E encrypted webmail service ProtonMail, has acquired French startup SimpleLogin, which offers a freemium, open source service for creating email aliases to let people shield their actual email address when they sign up for digital services.

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Windmill wants to drag window AC units, kicking and screaming, into 2022 Apr 11, 2022

It’s hard to think of a product category that is less sexy than window air conditioning units. Windmill begs to differ, bringing a breath of fresh air to an industry that’s been steadfastly clunking away in the corner.

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Lilt raises $55M to bolster its business-focused AI translation platform Apr 11, 2022

Lilt, a provider of AI-powered business translation software, today announced that it raised $55 million in a Series C round led by Four Rivers, joined by new investors Sorenson Capital, CLEAR Ventures and Wipro Ventures.

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Airbyte acquires data synchronization service Grouparoo Apr 08, 2022

Airbyte, the well-funded open-source data integration platform, today announced that it has acquired Grouparoo, an open-source startup that focuses on helping businesses sync data between their data warehouses and cloud-based tools.

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The Parentinc raises $22M led by East Ventures for its parenting community and D2C brand Apr 08, 2022

The Parentinc, a Singapore-based startup that runs a parenting community and direct-to-consumer product line, announced today it has raised $22 million.

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Fanatics raises $1.5B at a $27B valuation as it evolves into a ‘digital sports platform’ Apr 07, 2022

Fanatics’ latest raise shows there is tremendous value in appealing to sports fans.

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Affirm is giving job offers to the ‘vast majority’ of Fast engineers Apr 07, 2022

Fast, a one-click speedy checkout platform, is shutting down today. In conjunction with that decision, Fast is giving a “vast majority” of its engineers the chance to join Affirm, a public fintech company in the buy now, pay later space, according to Affirm.

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Lightning Labs raises funding to enable stablecoin transfers through Bitcoin network Apr 06, 2022

Lightning Labs is building infrastructure that would enable users to send money across the world almost instantaneously and at a low cost through the Bitcoin network.

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Sweep helps corporations live up to their lofty carbon promises Apr 06, 2022

There’s coming hard out of the gates with a new company, and then there’s Sweep. The company was founded in 2020, then raised a $22 million Series A round a few months ago, following by a $73 million Series B round announced today.

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Crowdcube brings its equity crowdfunding platform to France Apr 05, 2022

If you live in the U.K. or the U.S., you may already be quite familiar with equity crowdfunding.

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Craving ‘wild’ foods? Foraged’s marketplace uncovers all that and more Apr 05, 2022

The community marketplace for wild and specialty foods provides foragers with a place to sell food items they dig up.

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As Docker gains momentum, it hauls in $105M Series C on $2B valuation Apr 04, 2022

It wasn’t that long ago that Docker looked like it was on the ropes. In 2019, it sold its enterprise business and decided to focus strictly on a developer audience with a set of commercial and open source tools.

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Yelp expands restaurant health ratings in partnership with food tech startup Hazel Analytics Apr 04, 2022

Yelp is broadening its partnership with Seattle-based food tech startup Hazel Analytics to expand health ratings on its platform, the company announced on Thursday.

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Womens leadership network Chief surges to unicorn status Apr 01, 2022

As Ariana Grande would say, god is a woman. So it should come as no surprise that Chief, the network designed to develop the leadership skills of women, has hit a $1.1 billion valuation in a matter of three years.

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Quantum Machines acquires QDevil to build out its full-stack quantum orchestration platform Apr 01, 2022

Quantum Machines, the well-funded Israeli startup that specializes in building control systems for quantum computers, today announced that it has acquired QDevil, a well-known Danish company that specializes in building control hardware for quantum systems.

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Flux Marine revs up its electric outboard business with $15M A round Mar 31, 2022

The race is certainly on in the electrification of boating… even if everyone is jockeying for position before the market materializes.

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Wing Security launches its end-to-end SaaS security platform, raises $26M Mar 31, 2022

As businesses increasingly rely on an ever-growing number of SaaS products, it has become imperative for security teams to get a better understanding of which applications a company’s employees are actually using and the risks associated with those.

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Cyberpion raises $27M Series A for its external attack surface management platform Mar 30, 2022

It’s no secret that digital supply chains are increasingly under attack as hackers look to use this vector to get access to company networks and confidential information.

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Smart electric panel company Span gets a $90M jolt of cash Mar 30, 2022

The lowly breaker panel has been around for a century without getting much love, and along comes Span.

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Singapore-based esports startup Ampverse lands $12M Mar 29, 2022

Singapore-headquartered esports startup Ampverse has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Falcon Capital.

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Australian fintech Zepto raises $25M Series A to enhance payment infrastructure Mar 29, 2022

Zepto, an Australian real-time account-to-account (A2A) merchant payments platform, said Monday it has raised a $25 million Series A co-led by AirTree Ventures and Decade Partners.

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Freelancer marketplace Malt acquires consulting marketplace Comatch Mar 28, 2022

It’s consolidation time in the freelancer marketplace industry. French startup Malt is acquiring Comatch, a competing marketplace focused on consultants and industry experts.

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Oslo-based Unleash nabs $14M Series A to build open source feature management tool Mar 28, 2022

As developers build new features into software, they have to be sure that the new functionality doesn’t break what’s already there. So they often will roll it out slowly and see what happens using a technique of placing feature flags in the code.

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Rental car delivery startup Kyte is growing its fleet to 10,000 vehicles Mar 25, 2022

Kyte, the startup that delivers rental cars to customers’ doors, has raised $200 million in asset-backed credit financing from Goldman Sachs and Ares Global Management, money the company will use to pay for new vehicles that will fuel its expansion.

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Rugged’s construction layout robots land $9.4M Mar 25, 2022

It’s been a little less than a year since we first noted Rugged Robotics. The Houston-based startup developed a robot that prints building layouts on the floor of construction sites, so workers know where — and where not — to build.

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Skyline scores $6.5M to wash windows with robot arms Mar 24, 2022

I would put window washing fairly high (so to speak) on the list of jobs it makes sense to automate.

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ShopThing raises $10M to scale its live video shopping marketplace Mar 24, 2022

ShopThing, a live shopping marketplace focused on luxury brands, has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Origin Ventures, with participation from Pritzker Group and Interplay.

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Datagen raises $50 million Series B to empower computer vision teams Mar 23, 2022

With its self-serve platform, Datagen now has a much more scalable way to help clients themselves generate the visual data that they need to train their computer vision applications.

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Wealth poised to make estate planning accessible to all Mar 23, 2022

Wealth gives you a one-stop shop where your entire financial portfolio can live and accumulate in real-time.

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With $9.3M in fresh funding, Zestworld plans a newsletter service for creator-owned comics Mar 22, 2022

The comics world has seemingly been waiting for a digital revolution since the birth of the internet. Launched in 2007, ComiXology has come the closest to delivering such a play to the medium, so naturally, Amazon went and purchased the service and messed it up.

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Kenya-based agritech Apollo raises $40 million in Softbank-led round, joined by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, CDC Mar 22, 2022

Kenya-based agritech Apollo Agriculture, which helps farmers access high-quality farm inputs, financing and markets, plans to double the number of farmers it is serving by the end 2022 and to introduce other products that deliver more value per acre of land.

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Upstash snags $1.9M seed to build serverless data platform for Redis and Kafka Mar 21, 2022

When it comes to data-intensive applications, setting up the infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming. You’re often paying for resources you aren’t using, even in the cloud.

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The Expert jumps into home goods e-commerce Mar 21, 2022

The Expert, which provides video consultations with top designers, expands into e-commerce to become what co-founder Leo Seigal referred to as “Farfetch for home.”

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Hence secures $1.8M seed to grow its legal services sourcing technology Mar 18, 2022

Hence Technologies, a Kigali and London based startup that uses data and AI technologies to match companies with external legal service providers is set to scale its precision matching engine after raising $1.8million in seed funding from various institutions and angel investors.

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SentinelOne scoops up Attivo Networks for $617M Mar 18, 2022

Security companies typically start by focusing on one particular problem, but the biggest ones like Palo Alto Networks, FireEye and Symantec have shifted to a horizontal approach typically gaining functionality over time through acquisition.

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Arcol aims to do for building design what Figma did for UI design Mar 17, 2022

The company is building web-based tools that can turn a 2D sketch into a 3D representation so that someone can design anything from a small building to a skyscraper.

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TruEra raises $35M for its AI analytics and monitoring platform Mar 17, 2022

TruEra, a startup that offers an AI quality management solution to optimize, explain and monitor machine learning models, today announced that it has raised a $25 million Series B round led by Menlo Ventures.

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Plantish fishes for restaurant partners to try plant-based salmon filets Mar 16, 2022

Plantish aims to get its salmon product into the first five restaurants by December 2023.

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Motto to launch a new electric bike subscription service in Paris Mar 16, 2022

Meet Motto, a new French startup that plans to offer electric bikes in Paris.

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inFeedo gets $12M to help employers find out how their workforce really feels Mar 15, 2022

Employee sentiment can be hard to gauge, even at smaller businesses. This can lead to burnout and attrition, when managers least expect it.

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Pareto thinks it shouldn’t be so hard to collect lead-generation data Mar 15, 2022

Pareto’s team of data experts offer actionable insights on everything from TikTok influencers to qualifying B2B sales leads.

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Fleet thinks companies should rent laptops instead of buying them Mar 14, 2022

French startup Fleet wants to become your IT department’s best friend by managing hardware as a service. Fleet clients can rent computers and smartphones for a flat monthly fee. If there’s a hardware issue, the startup handles returns and repairs.

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Zeta Surgical comes out of stealth with a $5.2M raise for image-guided surgery Mar 14, 2022

Boston-based Zeta Surgical comes out of stealth this week, with the announcement of a $5.2 million seed round. The funding, led by Innospark Ventures, follows a $250,000 pre-seed featuring Y Combinator and Plug and Play Ventures.

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Stilt secures $114M in debt & equity to help fintechs and neobanks launch credit offerings with its API Mar 11, 2022

Stilt, which started its life as a provider of financial services for immigrants, has raised $14 million in Series A funding led by Link Ventures as it expands its focus to include a B2B offering.

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Zaya Care partners with payers to bring the European model of maternal care to the States Mar 11, 2022

Despite the fact that we spend more on healthcare per capita, the U.S. leads the wealthy world in maternal mortality. And health inequity plays a big part.

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Blink looks to simplify cloud operations management with $26M investment Mar 10, 2022

Blink’s co-founders have been working in security and automation for a number of years, and they observed that there was a strong overlap between developer operations (DevOps) and security operations (SecOps) when it came to managing cloud infrastructure.

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Kodiak Robotics is moving autonomous freight for Ceva Logistics Mar 10, 2022

Autonomous trucking startup Kodiak Robotics has partnered with Ceva Logistics to deliver freight autonomously between Dallas-Forth Worth and Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, the company said on Wednesday, marking its first publicly announced customer.

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Sneaker e-commerce platform Kicks Crew raises $6M Series A Mar 09, 2022

The global thirst for an up-charged pair of Yeezy’s or limited edition Jordan’s combined with a growth in a digital ecosystem is creating new opportunities, particularly in the sneaker resale market, for companies like Kicks Crew, a Los Angeles- and Hong Kong-based sneaker and apparel platform.

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Fundrise invests $128M into expansion of Saltbox’s warehouse, co-working spaces for entrepreneurs Mar 09, 2022

Fundrise will acquire warehouses ranging in size from 50,000 to 150,000 square feet that will house the new Saltbox locations.

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Better.com plans to lay off about 4,000 people this week, sources say Mar 08, 2022

Online mortgage lender Better.com is poised to lay off roughly 50% of its staff of about 8,000 this week, according to sources familiar with internal happenings at the company.

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Infrastructure is broken, Gecko is using robotics to help fix it Mar 08, 2022

Gecko Robotics’ mission statement is “To protect today’s critical infrastructure, and give form to tomorrow’s.”

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Environmental, social and governance tracking gets easier with ESGgo Mar 07, 2022

You can’t swing an ethically sourced, locally produced, sustainably raised dead fish these days without hitting a set of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals in a company’s board meetings or annual reports.

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Volocopter raises $170M, now valued at $1.87B, to fuel the first commercial launches of its flying taxi fleet Mar 07, 2022

Volocopter, the startup out of southern Germany (Bruchsal) that has been developing electric VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft and a business model for operating them in taxi-style fleets in urban areas, has picked up another big round of funding as it inches closer to its first commercial launches.

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YC-backed Blocknom wants to become the “Coinbase Earn of Southeast Asia” Mar 04, 2022

Blocknom, a crypto-earning platform in Y Combinator’s current batch, has aspirations to become the “Coinbase Earn for Southeast Asia.” Today the company announced it has raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator, Number Capital and Magic Fund.

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Shares raises $40 million for its social investment app Mar 04, 2022

Shares has closed a $40 million Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures. The company has been working on a mobile app that lets you easily buy and sell shares, but with a social twist.

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Microsoft partners with VCs, accelerators to back 10,000 startups in Africa Mar 03, 2022

Microsoft has today announced plans to support 10,000 startups in Africa over the next five years through a series of initiatives including partnerships with accelerators and incubators across the continent.

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After raising $4 million, Emtech supports central banks across Africa, the Caribbean to deploy regulatory sandboxes Mar 03, 2022

For fintechs to thrive in such a way that they remain meaningful to economies, a synergy between them and regulatory bodies is inevitable.

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Enterpret launches with $4.4M, NLP technology to decipher customer feedback Mar 02, 2022

Enterpret is building and deploying customer-specific models, based on customer feedback, for product development teams.

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Live near an ocean? Kin Insurance’s data aims to more accurately predict home risk Mar 02, 2022

By using data and technology to accurately price the risk, Kin Insurance is able to remove some of the costs of traditional insurance firms, like agents.

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Payhawk becomes a unicorn as it extends its Series B Mar 01, 2022

European spend management startup Payhawk has added $100 million to its Series B round that I already covered back in November.

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Flashfood raises $12.3M to scale its grocery app that helps tackle retail food waste Mar 01, 2022

Toronto-based Flashfood, a mobile marketplace that provides customers with access to discounted food nearing its best-by date, has raised $12.3 million in Series A funding led by S2G Ventures.

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Better Dairy slices into new funding for animal-free cheeses Feb 28, 2022

Better Dairy is using precision fermentation to produce cheeses that are molecularly identical to traditional dairy.

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Singapore-based micromobility startup Beam secures $93M Series B, enters new markets Feb 28, 2022

Beam, a Singaporean shared micromobility operator, announced today that it has raised $93 million in a Series B round to accelerate growth into new countries in Asia.

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Cococart sweetens the process for e-commerce companies to take orders immediately Feb 25, 2022

Cococart's tools enable merchants to set up an online store in minutes with no code, no design and no app downloads.

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AnyRoad helps brands measure customer experiences Feb 25, 2022

Brands don’t often know everyone who is attending their big events, which leads to limited return on investment and actionable insights. AnyRoad provides that insight.

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With mission to modernize data streaming, Redpanda snares $50M Series B Feb 24, 2022

When Redpanda launched in 2019, company founder and CEO Alexander Gallego thought a startup devoted to modernizing streaming data should have an appropriately nerdy name.

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Vendr acquires Blissfully, combining its SaaS buying services with management tools Feb 24, 2022

Vendr, a startup that aims to help its customers buy software products faster and at a lower cost, announced this morning it has acquired Blissfully, a startup that builds SaaS management tooling.

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thatDot launches Quine, a streaming graph engine Feb 23, 2022

ThatDot, a Portland, Oregon-based startup that focuses on streaming event processing, today announced the launch of Quine, a new MIT-licensed open-source project for data engineers that combines event streaming with graph data to create what the company calls a ‘streaming graph.’

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Last mile delivery e-bike supplier Zoomo tacks on $20M to Series B Feb 23, 2022

Zoomo, an Australian startup that builds utility e-bikes for delivery workers, has raised an additional $20 million in equity to close out its Series B round. In November, the company raised $60 million in equity and debt for its Series B, which it used to fund further software development and more vehicles to expand.

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Agility Robotics and Playground Global join TechCrunch Live to speak on fundraising robotic delivery Feb 22, 2022

Delivery has become one of the fastest growing verticals for robotics investments amid pandemic-related shutdowns. There’s been plenty of interest in the category over the years, but Covid-19 has accelerated interest on all sides of the equation.

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Sweden’s Volta raises $260M at a $490M valuation to get its all-electric trucks into production by the end of this year Feb 22, 2022

Volta Trucks — the Swedish electric vehicle startup that believes it can build better urban delivery vehicles and other trucks that are safer and take up a smaller carbon footprint than their gas-guzzling, more clumsy, existing counterparts.

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Voltron Data grabs $110M to build startup based on Apache Arrow project Feb 21, 2022

Voltron Data was launched last year by former employees from NVidia, Ursa Computing, BlazingSQL and the co-founder of Apache Arrow.

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ICON raises $185M in Tiger-led round to build more homes with its 3D printing tech, now approaching $2B valuation Feb 21, 2022

ICON, which creates homes using 3D printing, has raised an additional $185 million in a round led by Tiger Global Management, TechCrunch has learned exclusively.

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Ibex Investors’ newest fund is betting on a mobility revolution Feb 18, 2022

When Ibex Investors founder and CEO Justin Borus looks at the transportation industry — and the technological changes that are coming — he sees one of the biggest opportunities in a lifetime. And with a fresh $113 million fund focused on early stage mobility companies, his firm is tapping into it. “There will be more […]

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Actual, which renders company ESG data in a SimCity-like platform, raises $5M seed Feb 18, 2022

Trying to deal with the huge amount of data associated with how companies are going to transition to a “net zero” economy is an uphill task.

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Dutch raises $20M to scale its telemedicine platform for pets Feb 17, 2022

Virtual veterinarian care platform Dutch has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Forerunner Ventures and Eclipse Ventures.

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Genesis raises $200M in Tiger-led round to grow its finance-focused low-code application platform Feb 17, 2022

Genesis, which has built a low-code/no-code application platform specifically for the financial markets, announced today it has landed a $200 million investment led by Tiger Global Management.

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Employment Hero raises $181M AUD at $1.25B AUD valuation, acquires KeyPay Feb 16, 2022

Human resources platform Employment Hero announced today it has raised $181 million AUD (or about $129 million USD), putting it at unicorn valuation in Australian dollars of $1.25 billion.

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Scrona has big manufacturing plans for its tiny 3D printing Feb 16, 2022

Scrona AG caused a minor splash all the way back in 2015 when it snagged a Guinness World Record for the “smallest inkjet-printed color image.”

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Tropic takes in more capital as demand for software procurement savings continues Feb 15, 2022

Tropic’s technology brings a click-and-approve approach to buying and managing all of that software.

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Insify is modernizing insurance, but this time for SMEs Feb 15, 2022

Meet Insify, an insurtech startup that raised a $17 million (€15 million) Series A round led by Accel. The company wants to modernize the insurance market.

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Lung-health startup Respira Labs inhales $2.8M to help respiration patients breathe easier Feb 14, 2022

Respira Labs, a medical technology company specializing in respiratory care, which first unveiled its product to the world last year, successfully raised $1 million in funding and an additional $1.8 million in grants to continue building its acoustic resonance technology to assess lung function and changes therein.

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RedRoute wants answering customer service calls to be as easy as using ‘Alexa’ Feb 14, 2022

It takes as little as 30 minutes to get RedRoute set up, and customers can try the software with zero upfront costs.

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Remote work and events startup twine acquires YC-backed Glimpse to launch on Zoom Feb 11, 2022

Twine, a company that provides networking tools for virtual events and remote teams, will soon bring its services to Zoom thanks to its just-closed acquisition of the Y Combinator-backed startup, Glimpse, which had developed a “speech matching” platform designed for virtual events.

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Neo.tax raises $10M to help startups access R&D tax credits Feb 11, 2022

For most people, mention of the word “taxes” conjures up unpleasant things like tedious processes, mountains of paperwork and shelling out a lot of money to the government.

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Republic’s metaverse real estate arm spins off, rebrands as Everyrealm Feb 10, 2022

Over $500 million worth of real estate was sold on the top four metaverse platforms in 2021, data shows.

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Shift5 raises $50M to defend transport networks from cyberattacks Feb 10, 2022

You might not think much about the train or the airplane that gets you from one place to another, but behind any transportation link is a vast sprawling network of electronics, devices, and data that keep trains on the tracks and planes in the sky.

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Cooks Venture, the chicken company with big dreams, eats up $50M Feb 09, 2022

Chicken is the most consumed meat in the United States and the world. And yet, the system in place to breed and feed and raise all this chicken is incredibly detrimental to our overall wellbeing.

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Silvr wants to bring revenue-based financing to Europe Feb 09, 2022

French startup Silvr has raised a $20.6 million (€18 million) Series A funding round and has opened a $128 million (€112 million) debt line for its activities.

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Endgame grabs another cash infusion as product-led growth momentum builds Feb 08, 2022

Endgame connects the dots between product usage and sales opportunities to put employees in the driver's seat of the software they like to use instead of a top-down approach.

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Bumble makes its first acquisition with deal for French Gen Z dating app, Fruitz Feb 08, 2022

Dating app company Bumble, Inc. is making its first acquisition with today’s news that it’s adding the fast-growing French dating app Fruitz to its family of applications.

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GM Ventures invests in startup building fast charge-capable battery tech Feb 07, 2022

Soelect, a battery technology startup based in North Carolina, has closed an $11 million Series A round. It plans to use the fresh capital to scale its fast charge-capable anode technologies that might enable the next generation of batteries for electric vehicles.

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Over 500 mobile apps are now using the term ‘metaverse’ to attract new users Feb 07, 2022

A true “metaverse” may not yet exist, but that hasn’t stopped marketers from adopting the buzzword to promote their apps and games on mobile app stores.

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No plastic clamshells here: Zero Grocery aims to eliminate unnecessary plastic in grocery delivery Feb 04, 2022

Even small changes made by individuals to reduce plastic waste can add up to a big positive impact on the environment, founder and CEO Zuleyka Strasner said.

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Scale AI gets into the synthetic data game Feb 04, 2022

Scale AI’s path to becoming a $7.3 billion company was paved in real data from images, text, voice and video.

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Waldo raises $15 million for its automated mobile testing service Feb 03, 2022

Waldo has raised $15 million for its ‘no code’ automated testing tool. Mobile development teams using Waldo can set up tests without writing a line of scripting code.

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Whose Your Landlord raises $2.1M for its rental review and data service Feb 03, 2022

Whose Your Landlord,1 or WYL, announced a $2.1 million seed round today led by Black Operator Ventures, better known as BlackOps Ventures.

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Framework looks to expand repairability beyond the laptop Feb 02, 2022

Last November, Apple announced the launch of Self Service Repair — a surprising addition for a company that has notoriously lacked such capabilities. Those changes didn’t happen in a vacuum, of course. The president and Congress have both been pushing to open the so-called right to repair.

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Jellyfish aims to ‘do for engineering what Salesforce did for sales’ Feb 02, 2022

Jellyfish essentially pioneered the term “engineering management” to provide a software tool for insight into engineering organizations, including what they are working on and how they operate.

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VendorPM raises $6M to scale its marketplace for property managers and service vendors Feb 01, 2022

VendorPM, a Toronto-based marketplace that connects property managers with reputable vendors, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners.

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Dashworks is a search engine for your company’s sprawling internal knowledge Feb 01, 2022

As a company grows, the amount of important information employees need to keep track of inevitably grows right along with it. And, as your tech stack gets more complicated, that information ends up split up across more places.

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Rise is a new calendar app with a scheduling engine for teams Jan 31, 2022

Meet Rise, a new startup working on a calendar app that is specifically designed for team work.

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bloss, which connects expectant parents with experts, raises £1M pre-seed led by Antler Jan 31, 2022

bloss is a UK startup that connects would-be or existing parents to pre-vetted parenting experts.

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After QuizUp and Trivia Royale, Thor Fridriksson’s next act is a mobile MMO Jan 28, 2022

QuizUp founder Thor Fridriksson is at it again. The Icelandic serial entrepreneur is two-for-two in creating viral mobile games, but has thus far struck out in turning those into viable businesses.

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Singapore-based edtech Cialfo gets $40M led by Square Peg and SEEK Jan 28, 2022

Applying to colleges is one of the hardest parts of high school, especially for students who want to study abroad. Cialfo wants to make the process easier.

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Identity verification provider Veriff raises $100M Series C co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon Jan 27, 2022

Identity verification provider Veriff, has raised a $100 million Series C round co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon. They were joined by existing investors IVP and Accel, bringing Veriff’s total funding to date to $200 million.

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Atrium grabs fresh capital to help sales teams meet their quota Jan 27, 2022

Is sales management having a “Money Ball moment?”

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Electric Sheep raises $21.5M to make off-the-shelf lawnmowers autonomous Jan 26, 2022

IRobot announced Terra three years ago this week. After making some tough internal decisions to delay launch back in 2020, the robot mower is still MIA.

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Wandelbots raises another $84 million to teach robots without code Jan 26, 2022

Dresden, Germany-based Wandelbots has raised a healthy sum in the years since it appeared on our Disrupt Berlin stage, way back in 2017.

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Mark Cuban on his online pharmacy: ‘Our KPI is how much we can reduce the stress of our patients’ Jan 25, 2022

Mark Cuban’s announcement over the weekend of an online pharmacy selling over a hundred generic drugs at near cost was totally unexpected but will likely be welcomed by millions who struggle to afford medication.

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Cana Technology raises glass to new capital as it readies beverage printer for market Jan 25, 2022

Cana focused on identifying the basic set of ingredients, basically deconstructing beverages to figure out what makes it taste like a certain drink.

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AccuWeather acquires air pollution startup Plume Labs Jan 24, 2022

Weather forecast company AccuWeather is acquiring French startup Plume Labs —Â terms of the deal are undisclosed. Originally founded in 2014, Plume Labs has gradually expanded its product offering to offer three different products focused on air pollution data.

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Metalenz PolarEyes upgrades digital sensing with polarized light Jan 24, 2022

Tech sees differently, and can fuse multiple types of data we can’t even perceive: lidar, IR, ultrasonic, and so on. Metalenz, maker of highly compact “2D” cameras for advanced sensing, hopes to bring polarized light into the mix for security and safety.

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Weavit’s new app wants to be a ‘Shazam for your thoughts’ Jan 21, 2022

A new app called Weavit wants to be a “Shazam for your thoughts” — that is, it wants to offer people a different way to quickly capture their thoughts in a note-taking tool with a press of a button.

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Tom Brady’s buzzy celebrity NFT startup Autograph banks $170M from Silicon Valley’s top crypto investors Jan 21, 2022

Autograph, an NFT agency co-founded by athlete Tom Brady with a particularly deep bench of star power, has banked new funding from crypto investors who hope the platform can bring a new generation of celebrities and their fans into the fold of crypto collectibles.

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Nowsta takes in fresh capital to show some tech love for hourly workforces Jan 20, 2022

Nowsta’s web and mobile app rolls workforce management tools into an all-in-one resource that includes an on-demand labor marketplace connecting employers with a skilled pool of workers.

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Ancient8 secures $4M in seed to democratize social and financial access in the metaverse Jan 20, 2022

Ancient8, Vietnam’s blockchain gaming guild, develops a community and software platform to enable everyone to play P2E (play-to-earn) games and build the metaverse while earning rewards.

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First EV mass transit bus by Swedish-Kenyan startup Opibus begins operation amidst plans for regional launch by 2023 Jan 19, 2022

The first electric bus by Swedish-Kenyan EV startup, Opibus, has hit Kenya’s roads marking the beginning of the company’s venture into the mass transit industry. Opibus first announced plans to roll out electric public transport buses last year when it raised $7.5 million in a pre-Series A round.

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Space startup Wyvern raises $4.5M and joins YC’s latest cohort Jan 19, 2022

A Canadian startup working at the cutting edge of satellite imaging has raised $4.5 million across a combination of a $2.25 million seed round, and $2.25 million from a combined pre-seed and government funding.

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Spendesk is the fifth French startup to reach unicorn status this month Jan 18, 2022

Fintech startup Spendesk is announcing that it has raised an extension to its Series C round. Tiger Global is investing $114 million (€100 million) in the startup.

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Warehouse robotics system Exotec raises $335 million Jan 18, 2022

French startup Exotec has raised a $335 million Series D round in a new round of funding led by Goldman Sachs’ Growth Equity business. Following today’s investment, the company has reached a valuation of $2 billion.

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Juro draws $23M into its browser-based contract automation platform Jan 17, 2022

London-based legaltech startup Juro has grabbed $23 million in Series B funding for its browser-based contract automation platform.Â In total the startup has raised $31.5M since being founded back in 2016.

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Payment orchestration platform Gr4vy pulls in another $15M in a Series A extension Jan 17, 2022

Retailers often build their own “orchestration” platforms for payment processing and routing, but these can be complex to maintain.

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Meet Paysail, the startup making B2B payments faster using crypto Jan 14, 2022

Companies use invoices to pay for many of their major costs, ranging from materials to contract work.

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Tiger Global backs Accrue Savings’ ‘save now, pay later’ approach to consumer purchases Jan 14, 2022

When the consumer opens an account and hits savings milestones for products they want to buy from their favorite brands, they can receive cash contributions from the brands.

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Shield bags $15M Series A to address surging demand for its AI-powered communication compliance platform Jan 13, 2022

Over the past two years, since the pandemic hit, there has been a sharp rise in financial crime compliance costs, nearing $50 billion in 2021, up 58% compared to 2019, in the U.S. and Canada.Â Â

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Assemble scores $5M seed to bring order and equity to compensation Jan 13, 2022

Every company has to decide what to pay their employees and track that compensation in some way, often in spreadsheets and across disparate payroll, finance and HR systems.

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Headspace Health acquires AI-powered mental health and wellness company Sayana Jan 12, 2022

Headspace Health has acquired Sayana, an AI-powered mental health and wellness company, for an undisclosed amount. Headspace Health says the acquisition of the San Francisco-based company will expand its ability to provide personalized self-care to its users.

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Flush with new capital, Foxtrot’s ‘convenience store of the future’ is coming to a location near you Jan 12, 2022

Foxtrot is reimagining the convenience store experience by seeking out the best food items by local artisans along with its core offerings of coffee, ready-to-eat cafe meals and wine.

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Arcade launches ‘try before you buy’ demo capabilities with $2.5M in new capital Jan 11, 2022

The company's technology makes it easier for companies to create demonstration videos, called “arcades,” that walk people through how their tools work.

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Career Karma lands $40M to evolve into an edtech employee benefit Jan 11, 2022

Career Karma raised its first millions off of a pitch that resonates with anyone who has ever googled coding bootcamps: a navigation tool for aspiring students and working professionals.

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Parrot, a tool for digitizing Mexico’s restaurants, takes in $9.5M Jan 10, 2022

ParrotConnect is a point-of-sale software for restaurants enabling them to digitize and take advantage of the home delivery boom to accelerate growth.

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FanDuel founder and Sequoia bet on Spanish-language fantasy sports app Draftea Jan 10, 2022

Founder Alán Jaime Misrahi grew up devoted to soccer, eventually playing in Mexico’s third division. While he didn’t necessarily make it to the “big leagues” playing the sport, his new company Draftea aims to win over the 350 million sports fans in Latin America.

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Startups at CES showed that age-tech can help everyone Jan 07, 2022

Age-tech startups at this year’s CES demonstrated the potential breadth of the sector. If tech can help an older person live more comfortably, it can also help out a lot of other people.

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Zuddl raises $13M for its simple but powerful virtual events platform Jan 07, 2022

Will the world ever go back to big in-person events? Of course. Eventually. CES already moved in that direction this year, for better or worse.

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Doosan announces $33.7M raise, as it introduces a robotic camera system at CES Jan 06, 2022

Doosan Robotics this week announced $33.7 million in funding, led Praxis Capital Partners and Korea Investment Partners. The fundraising news arrives as the Seoul-based company shows off its wares at CES in Las Vegas.

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New pet tech at CES treats dogs and cats like the complex beings they are Jan 06, 2022

There’s always fun tech for pet owners at CES, and 2022 is no different.

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DriveU.auto to power remote piloting of EasyMile’s autonomous shuttles, Coco’s sidewalk robots Jan 05, 2022

Autonomous shuttle company EasyMile and sidewalk robot delivery startup Coco are integrating DriveU.auto’s teleoperation and connectivity platform into their operations, DriveU.auto, an Israeli startup that came out of stealth last year, they announced at CES.

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Refinery Ventures’ second fund aimed at getting startups to Series A Jan 05, 2022

Refinery focuses on “early scale” companies, a term the firm uses to describe companies that secured a seed, but need that “oomph” to get it to Series A.

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Smart contact lens startup Mojo Vision partners with Adidas and other sports brands Jan 04, 2022

For the past few years, Mojo Vision has had a small presence at CES, offering up glimpses into the potential of its augmented reality contact lenses. Every year, the picture seems a little closer, if still far away.

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Smarter Health gets $5.15M SGD to reduce healthcare costs in Southeast Asia Jan 04, 2022

Organizing information from providers, insurers and patients not only takes a lot of time, but increases private healthcare costs.

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AIMMO bags $12M Series A to advance data labeling technology Jan 03, 2022

Most artificial intelligence models are trained through supervised learning, meaning that humans must label raw data. Data labeling is a critical part of automating artificial intelligence and machine learning model, but at the same time, it can be time-consuming and tedious work.

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Southeast Asian startups to watch in 2022 Jan 03, 2022

As someone who covers Southeast Asia startups and funding stories, the best word I can think of to describe 2021 is “whoa!”

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Voyant raises $15M to scale production of its tiny, inexpensive lidar tech Dec 31, 2021

The future of lidar is uncertain unless, as Voyant hopes to do, its price and size are reduced to fractions of their current values.

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Tech-led biofuel startup Koko Networks launches new consumer goods business in Kenya Dec 30, 2021

Koko Networks, a Kenya-based bio-fuel technology enterprise has extended its business to cover other fast-moving consumer goods, through a new tech platform that will capitalize on its established distribution networks in low-income neighborhoods.

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TuSimple completes its first driverless autonomous truck run on public roads Dec 30, 2021

Autonomous trucking startup TuSimple has completed its first autonomous truck run on open public roads without a human in the vehicle, according to the company.

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India’s GlobalBees joins unicorn club for its Thrasio-like house of brands Dec 29, 2021

GlobalBees, which raised one of the largest Series A financing rounds in India earlier this year, has entered the unicorn club as the New Delhi-headquartered firm scales its Thrasio-like house of brands.

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Nigerian edtech startup Teesas secures $1.6 million in pre-seed round, to launch tutor marketplace, expand in East, Southern, Francophone Africa in 2022 Dec 29, 2021

After seven years in the production of electronic gadgets, under his company Imose Technologies, Osayi Izedonmwen took leave to explore an idea that he had toyed with for some time.

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Indian neobank Jupiter raises $86 million to launch lending and wealth management services Dec 28, 2021

Industry veteran Jitendra Gupta’s consumer-focused neobankÂ Jupiter has raised about $86 million in a new financing round as the Bangalore-based startup gears up to offer its customers lending and wealth management services.

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Automation Anywhere expands into process discovery with FortressIQ acquisition Dec 27, 2021

Automation Anywhere, which is best known for its robotic process automation (RPA) software, plans to expand the platform. This morning, the company announced that it intends to acquire process discovery startup FortressIQ.

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Skio raises $3.7M to help brands on Shopify sell subscriptions Dec 27, 2021

Skio, a startup that aims to take the pain out of selling subscriptions for brands on Shopify, has raised $3.7 million in a seed funding round. Kennan Davison, an engineer who previously worked at Hulu and Pinterest, founded the startup in April.

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With $36 million Series C, Brazil’s Ambar hopes to make civil construction more efficient Dec 24, 2021

Brazilian construction tech startup Ambar announced it has raised a large Series C round of R$204 million, approximately $36 million, to boost the digitization arm of its business.

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TikTok rival Triller to go public via merger with SeaChange International Dec 23, 2021

Short video app Triller is set to go public via a reverse merger with video-tech company SeaChange International, the two companies announced on Wednesday. The combined entity will be valued at approximately $5 billion.

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Ampla raises $40M Series A for its business of providing credit to commerce brands Dec 22, 2021

Ampla Technologies, a startup which provides financing to small-to-medium sized consumer-facing businesses, announced today it has raised $40 million in a Series A round of funding co-led by VMG Partners and Forerunner Ventures.

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Airtable acqui-hires Walrus.ai’s founding team Dec 22, 2021

Airtable today announced that it quietly acquired Walrus.ai, a no-code software testing platform, earlier this year. ‘Acquired’ may be overstating things a bit, though.

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Rocket Companies buys Truebill for $1.275B Dec 21, 2021

Rocket Companies announced this morning that it will purchase Truebill for $1.275 billion in cash. Rocket Companies is best known for its Rocket Mortgage product, while Truebill is a consumer-facing app that helps consumers manage subscriptions, automate savings and budget.

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Melbourne-based edtech startup Vivi raises $20M to accelerate overseas expansion in race to reach 1M classrooms Dec 21, 2021

Australian edtech start-up Vivi has raised $20 million from education investor Quad Partners, funds that it intends to use to improve its platform, upgrade its operational infrastructure, and hire more sales and marketing teams in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

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GDevelop wants to make game development accessible Dec 20, 2021

GDevelop is a game engine that lets you develop a video game without any specific development experience. While the ‘no-code’ trend has been quite popular this year, GDevelop has been around for a few years already.

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Tiger Global backs fintech CreditBook in first Pakistan investment Dec 20, 2021

Two years ago, a group of entrepreneurs in Pakistan began surveying the market to understand why financial services weren’t reaching the majority of merchants in the world’s fifth most populous nation.

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Z Fellows wants to give you $10K to launch a crypto startup Dec 17, 2021

Capital may help someone take the jump into entrepreneurship, but what about the activation energy to let them think that big in the first place?

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Gopuff, the instant grocery startup, is raising $1.5B in a convertible note at up to a $40B valuation, ahead of going public as soon as mid-2022 Dec 17, 2021

Instant grocery — where urban-dwelling consumers buy food and other essentials and can get them delivered in 15 minutes or less — continues to be a big business.

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Taxdoo raises $64M to expand from tax compliance to a wider set of financial tools for e-commerce companies Dec 16, 2021

With e-commerce becoming increasingly globalized, a company called Taxdoo, which builds API-based tools to help e-commerce companies with tax compliance and other accounting needs, is announcing a round of funding.

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Quo.com raises $7.2M seed round led by SignalFire to broaden access to mortgages Dec 16, 2021

Almost three million Americans a year are denied a mortgage. Most don’t even know where to start or understand what would qualify them. The system has become complex and confusing, causing people to never make it onto the housing ladder at all.

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Crypto company Anchorage raises $350 million at $3 billion valuation Dec 15, 2021

Less than a year after raising an $80 million Series C round, Anchorage is announcing that it has raised a $350 million Series D round. With today’s funding round, the company has reached a valuation of more than $3 billion.

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Pair Eyewear focuses on adult glasses as it takes in $60M Dec 15, 2021

If Pair’s announcement is any indication, the direct-to-consumer eyewear market is doing quite well.

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Weather-focused IBISA raises seed round to back its microinsurance solutions for low-income small farmers Dec 14, 2021

Agricultural microinsurance startup IBISA raised a seed round of approximately $1.70 million led by London-based Insurtech Gateway, with participation from Rockstart’s AgriFood fund and others.

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Brand incubator Harry’s Labs makes acquisition of D2C deodorant brand LumÄ“ Dec 14, 2021

Prior to agreeing to acquire LumÄ“, Harry’s had looked at over 100 companies for possible M&A opportunities.

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LiveKit co-founder believes the metaverse needs open infrastructure Dec 13, 2021

The company is developing a free, open source infrastructure for building and scaling real-time audio and video experiences in applications.

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Anakin’s pricing tool gives e-commerce companies jump on competitors Dec 13, 2021

The company launched its tool in March that help e-commerce stores and brands increase their revenue using pricing, products and trends data from other companies.

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First Resonance brings its space-scale manufacturing OS to hardware makers with $14M A round Dec 10, 2021

First Resonance makes software for making hardware. The company’s Ion platform provides an all-in-one option for anyone who has to manage manufacturing lines, supply chains, engineering and design, among other things.

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Deed raises $10M for its workplace giving platform Dec 10, 2021

As I wrote earlier this year, Deed‘s mission is a clearcut one: take the employee giving/charity/volunteer program that many big companies have, and make it better.

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Petra emerges from stealth with $30M raised for tunnel-boring robot, Swifty Dec 09, 2021

Petra emerged from stealth this week, announcing a $30 million Series A.

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Black Ops Ventures launches to invest in Black founders Dec 09, 2021

The venture capital market is on a tear, pumping capital into a host of startups around the world. It’s generally considered a great time to raise capital and build a technology-centered, disruptive business. For some, that is.

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Lydia grabs another $100 million for its European financial super app Dec 08, 2021

Just a few weeks after announcing stock and crypto trading, French fintech startup Lydia is announcing that it has raised a $100 million Series C round. With this funding round, the startup has reached a unicorn valuation, which means that it is currently valued at more than $1 billion.

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Ursa Major raises $85M to disrupt the vertically-integrated launch sector Dec 08, 2021

The launch sector is getting crowded. Many of the biggest players are building their own rocket engines, but space startup Ursa Major is betting that many new launch providers would rather outsource the engine than build it in-house.

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Supplier, grocer connector Clubbi secures $4.5M to expand in Brazil Dec 07, 2021

Clubbi launched in October 2020 with 24-hour delivery, no minimum order quantity and flexible payment terms. It is currently working with 1,000 grocery stores in Rio de Janeiro.

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Berlin’s Everphone raises $200M in debt and Series C equity Dec 07, 2021

Berlin-based smartphone-as-a-service provider Everphone has topped up with $65 million in a Series C equity raise in addition to taking $135 million in debt financing — for a total raise of $200 million.

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TamatemGames raises $11M Series B led by PUBG maker Krafton Dec 06, 2021

Jordan-based mobile game publisher TamatemGamesÂ announced today it has raised $11 million in a Series B led byÂ KRAFTON, a South Korean game developer behind PUBG, marking its first investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

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Umamicart bags $6M to deliver traditional Asian ingredients right to your home Dec 06, 2021

Umamicart aims to be a one-stop shop for home cooks, offering staple products and pantry essentials, recipe inspirations and occasion-specific kits.

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Judging by the future, not the past, Stride takes steps to turn student finance upside down Dec 03, 2021

If you’re trying to get a mortgage or an auto loan, banks will put on their judging glasses and look into your past. Makes sense; it’s a reasonably reliable indicator as to whether you’ll be able to repay your loans or not.

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Social app IRL makes its first acquisition with deal for digital nutrition company AaBeZe Labs Dec 03, 2021

IRL, the SoftBank-backed social app and recent unicorn, is today announcing its first acquisition.

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Toronto-based VFX startup MARZ raises $5.3M to develop AI technology solutions Dec 02, 2021

Technology and visual effects startup Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies (MARZ) has raised $5.3 million in Series A funding. The investment was led by Round13 Captial with participation from Rhino Ventures and Harlo Equity Partners.

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Better.com gets $1B cash infusion in new agreement with its SPAC backers Dec 02, 2021

Digital mortgage lender Better.com, which announced in March that it was going public via a SPAC, is getting a cash infusion from its backers sooner than expected.

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Bitly makes first acquisition with QR code leader Egoditor Dec 01, 2021

The acquisition is in line with Bitly’s goal of becoming a global SaaS company that enables organizations to engage with customers and for people to connect with digital experiences.

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Partech raises $750 million growth fund Nov 30, 2021

Paris-based VC firm Partech has announced the closing of the fundraising of its new growth fund. Partech Growth II is the firm’s second growth fund. And the team managed to raise $750 million.

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Quick-commerce startup YallaMarket eyes Saudi Arabia and Qatar next year after U.A.E expansion Nov 30, 2021

YallaMarket, a Dubai-based quick-commerce startup, is planning to expand within the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E), and to enter Saudi Arabia and Qatar next year, to tap the appetite for speedy and convenient grocery shopping.

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Pyxo wants to build the biggest network of reusable food containers Nov 29, 2021

Meet Pyxo, a French startup that has been thinking a lot about single-use plastic food packaging for the past three years.

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Jefa raises $2 million for its challenger bank for women in LATAM Nov 29, 2021

Fintech startup Jefa has raised a $2 million seed round to build a challenger bank with a product specifically designed for women living in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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TabTrader raises $5.8M for a mobile app that aggregates crypto exchange data Nov 26, 2021

As many of the top cryptocurrencies seem to temporarily stabilize near all-time highs, users looking to speculate on tokens that are a bit more volatile are searching across exchanges to find deals.

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Attio wants to build the CRM for the Airtable generation Nov 24, 2021

Meet Attio, a new CRM for people who are familiar with modern collaboration tools, such as Airtable, Notion and Zapier.

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Arc hooks another $30M in investment as EV interest spills over into electric boats Nov 24, 2021

Arc is not even a year old and the electric boat startup has attracted investment from top VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, entertainment industry big wigs and now a $30 million raise led by an early Tesla executive who led the automaker’s early manufacturing efforts.

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Payhawk raises $112M to better compete in the heated corporate card race Nov 23, 2021

If you’ve followed corporate card and spend management startups in the U.S., you might be familiar with Brex and Ramp. Payhawk is also offering an all-in-one financial management solution for businesses, but with a focus on European customers. And the company just raised a $112 million Series B round at a $570 million valuation.

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Wave brings some science and sanity to the business of mental health Nov 23, 2021

The kids aren’t alright. According to the founders of Wave, 75% of Gen Z is struggling with their emotional well-being.

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Deliverr bags another giant round as it works to move inventory closer to customers Nov 22, 2021

E-commerce fulfillment is certainly having a moment.

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Food tech company Amara gobbles up $12M for its nutrient-dense infant products Nov 22, 2021

This year, Amara produced its Yogurt Smoothie Melts, which CEO Jessica Sturzenegger touts as “the only melt-in-mouth snacks for babies and toddlers without any added sugar.”

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Workday to acquire external workforce management startup VNDLY for $510M Nov 19, 2021

Workday announced this afternoon that it intends to acquire VNDLY, a Mason, OH startup that helps companies manage external workforce personnel for $510 million.

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Eatron, which makes ‘intelligentautomotive software’, raises $11M Series A led by MMC Nov 19, 2021

An electric vehicle is, essentially, just ‘software on wheels’, and requires lots of moving parts, not physical but, of course, virtual. That software needs to continually optimize the performance, efficiency, and safety of the EV it’s running.

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Kandji pulls in $100M Series C on $800M valuation, up 10x since last year Nov 18, 2021

Kandji, the startup building an Apple device management business, has been doing pretty well for itself with rapidly growing revenue, a fat valuation and lots of investment capital rolling in.

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Practice Ignition lands $50M to scale globally Nov 18, 2021

Practice ignition, an Australia-based client engagement and commerce platform for professional service businesses, has raised $50 million (65 million AUD) in a Series C round to accelerate its growth and expand globally. It brings the startup’s total raised to $75 million, said Guy Pearson, CEO and founder of Practice Ignition.

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LiveOak Venture Partners takes in $210M aimed at Texas entrepreneurs Nov 17, 2021

The firm touts this fund as “the largest institutional Texas-focused, early-stage venture fund in the past decade” at a time when funding to companies within the state is at an all-time high.

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Credit-focused company Upgrade raises $280 million at $6 billion valuation Nov 17, 2021

Fintech company Upgrade has raised a Series F round just four months after raising its previous round. Today, the company is announcing $280 million in new funding at a $6 billion pre-money valuation. In August, the company announced its Series E round — $105 million at a $3.325 billion valuation.

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Real estate marketing software provider Luxury Presence raises $25.9M in a Bessemer-led Series B Nov 16, 2021

Luxury Presence, a startup selling marketing software to real estate brokerages, announced today it has raised $25.9 million for its Series B round. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round alongside fellow existing investors Toba Capital and Switch Ventures.

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Lifen raises $58 million to digitize the healthcare industry Nov 16, 2021

French startup Lifen has raised a $58 million (€50 million) funding round. The startup has been working on digital infrastructure for the healthcare industry, starting with medical reports. 600 healthcare facilities are using the product to send and receive medical documents.

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Doola raises $3M to help global founders launch an LLC in the US Nov 15, 2021

Doola, a startup that aims to help global entrepreneurs form a U.S. business, has raised $3 million in seed funding. Doola actually started its life in 2020 as StartPack as a pivot from another startup called Standups.

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Foody cooks up marketplace for culinary creators Nov 15, 2021

Husband-and-wife co-founders Daniel and Brenna Stitzel have developed a way for foodies to monetize their culinary creations.

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Weflow pours pre-seed funding into tool that makes updating Salesforce faster Nov 12, 2021

Salesforce users tend to have a similar complaint in the amount of time it takes to update records, but Weflow aims to conquer this form of “Salesforce fatigue.”

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Collectible card trading platform Alt raises $75M as it eyes other asset categories and preps its mobile launch Nov 12, 2021

When we last checked in with Alt back in March, it had just raised $31 millionÂ for its alternative asset platform — a platform, thus far, used primarily by those looking to research, trade, and securely store high-value sports cards.

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E-commerce logistics startup Hive buzzes following $34M investment Nov 11, 2021

Hive levels the logistics playing field by streamlining fulfillment so that DTC companies get the same inventory management, cost structure and customer notifications that big brands use.

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Subscription carbon offsetting platform Ecologi hits $8M total raised, includes General Catalyst Nov 11, 2021

People subscribe to music so why wouldn’t they subscribe to carbon offsetting to alleviate their conscience about the climate crisis?

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igniteXL Ventures closes debut fund to target ‘$5T oversight’ in beauty, wellness Nov 10, 2021

General Partner Claire Chang’s plan is to deploy capital into 30 new investments and keep some back for follow-on investments.

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Health tech startup Color raises $100M at a $4.6B valuation Nov 10, 2021

Health tech startup Color has raised $100 million in Series E funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $4.6 billion.

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Point One Navigation raises $10M to bring its precise location tech to all vehicles Nov 09, 2021

Drivers who spend any time commuting in a new car or truck have likely experienced ping ponging — a phenomenon when a vehicle equipped with an advanced driver assistance system has trouble centering itself in a lane and bops back and forth until it finds that sweet spot.

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HawkEye 360 raises $145M to scale space-based radio frequency data and analytics Nov 09, 2021

The biggest players in the Earth observation industry use imaging satellites to deliver intelligence and analytics, but startup HawkEye 360 is taking a different tack.

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Fidelity, Visa and Kingsway back South African fintech JUMO in $120M round Nov 08, 2021

JUMO, a South Africa- and London-based company that offers financial services to entrepreneurs and businesses in emerging markets, has raised $120 million in a new round of funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Company.

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Guardian’s Collective wants to make parenting easier, or at least less alone Nov 08, 2021

While few would argue over the need for a tech-enabled solution to make parenting easier, the demand is more obvious than the execution. Parenting is hard and requires support for a whole range of moments, from when your kid accidentally eats a button to early signs of depression during the remote school day.

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MilkRun lands new capital to deliver farm-fresh groceries Nov 05, 2021

The company offers a recurring subscription, and 50% of every dollar spent goes back to farmers.

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Gwoop raises $1.8M for its esports training platform as it starts working with high school gaming leagues Nov 05, 2021

Earlier this year I wrote about Gwoop, a team out of Minnesota building a collection of browser-based games meant to help you get better at video games overall.

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Housing startup QuintoAndar to open first technology hub outside Brazil in Portugal Nov 04, 2021

The new office will serve as its first in Europe and will be operational in March, initially staffing up to 50 by the end of next year.

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Spartan Radar raises a total of $25M to help radar compete with lidar tech Nov 04, 2021

Take a dollop of machine learning, a handful of radar sensors and a market that is clamoring for autonomous cars not mowing down hordes of pedestrians, and you’ve got yourself a particularly frothy fundraising environment.

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BrainCheck brings in another $10M to detect, manage cognitive impairment Nov 03, 2021

BrainCheck has several new initiatives in the works to close the loop with the patient journey that will be brought to market soon.

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Walmart acquires design tool Botmock as its invests in shopping by voice and text Nov 03, 2021

Walmart is further investing in technology that will enable shopping via voice and chat with its latest acquisition.

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Music wearable Mictic raises $2.5M to get you shredding, scratching and strumming Nov 02, 2021

Switzerland-based Mictic has created a pair of wearables that turns thin air into your concert hall. Imagine a theremin without the theremin, hooked up to a clever loop station, and you’ve got the right idea.

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OctoML raises $85M for it for its machine learning acceleration platform Nov 02, 2021

OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that helps enterprises optimize and deploy their machine learning models, today announced that it has raised a $85 million Series C round led by Tiger Global Management.

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Zeit secures $2M in seed funding for its stroke-detecting wearable Nov 01, 2021

Zeit Medical, which makes an early warning system for strokes during sleep, has raised $2M in a seed round just after leaving Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort.

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Will Smith, Kevin Durant and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs invest in electric boat startup Arc Nov 01, 2021

Arc, a startup that launched 10 months ago with ambitions to electrify everything on the water, starting with a limited-edition $300,000 boat, has captured the attention and capital of some of the entertainment industry’s biggest stars.

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Social Chat launches with $6M to bring brands closer to their customers Oct 29, 2021

Social Chat was founded on the premise that social commerce should be the standard for every store, and it may very well be soon.

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Atlys raises $4.25M to make visa applications faster and easier Oct 29, 2021

International travel is slowly opening up again, but that also means business and leisure travelers alike will once again have to think about visa restrictions as they take to the air. Nobody has ever enjoyed the process of applying for a visa, but Atlys promises to take the hassle out of the process.

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Gamma brings in $7M to bring the slide deck into the 21st century Oct 28, 2021

Co-founder and CEO Grant Lee refers to building content in Gamma like “choosing your own adventure.”

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Daring Foods bites into third round in 12 months as plant-based chicken product enters Walmart Oct 28, 2021

The company saw 900% growth over the past 12 months and will be using the new funding to support that growth and new innovation.

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Truepill’s latest funding boosts valuation to $1.6B as it works on B2B side of healthcare Oct 27, 2021

The new funding represents a “hyper growth moment” for the company, which is in position to bring in some $300 million in revenue this year.

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Speechmatics pushes forward recognition of accented English Oct 27, 2021

Speech recognition has gone from convenient to crucial over the last few years as smart speakers and driving assist modes have taken off — but not everyone’s voice is recognized equally well.

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Market demand for cybersecurity products helps Devo raise $250M at unicorn valuation Oct 26, 2021

Devo, a Boston-area startup focused on log management and cybersecurity, announced this morning that it has closed a $250 million round of funding.

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Heart to Heart raises $750K to bring sweet, sweet flirtation to your ear-holes Oct 26, 2021

Radio has long been described as the most intimate of media. Quips about putting radio on the internet aside, the persistent popularity of podcasting and the cockamamie climb of Clubhouse shows that audio-based platforms will continue to echo around the upper echelons of the ecosystem for a while yet.

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Routine is a new productivity app that combines task management and notes Oct 25, 2021

Meet Routine, a new startup working on a productivity tool that should help you manage your work day more efficiently. It’s a brand new take on to-do lists as it combines both tasks, non-actionable notes and a daily planner.

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Citcon raises $30M to make paying with mobile wallets ‘as easy as paying with a credit card’ Oct 25, 2021

Citcon, a mobile wallet payment provider, has closed on $30 million in funding in a Series C round co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Cota Capital.Â

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Audit Sight takes on new capital to eliminate all of the back and forth between auditors, companies Oct 22, 2021

The company intends to build out several SaaS applications and is poised to roll out its first two modules for revenue and accounts receivables by the end of the year.

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AirGarage, a full-stack parking operator, raises $12.5M in round led by a16z Oct 22, 2021

Parking can often feel almost laughably old-fashioned, with some lots still hiring an attendant to collect fees and check for valid tickets.

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Customer engagement platform Batch raises $23 million after years of bootstrapping Oct 21, 2021

If you’ve been working in the French tech ecosystem, you may remember a startup called AppGratis. The app discovery and promotion startup basically had to stop operating overnight following a long and nasty fight with Apple.

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SoftBank-backed Flock Freight is the freight industry’s newest unicorn Oct 21, 2021

The global shipping and freight industry has never been more in the spotlight, as the pandemic and other disruptions have led to enormous supply chain bottlenecks.

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Credo AI launches out of stealth with $5.5 million to help companies with “ethical AI” Oct 20, 2021

There are many in the world of AI who worry about its implications.

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Vertical Oceans aims to grow sustainable shrimp in huge ‘aqua towers’ inside cities Oct 20, 2021

John Diener, the CEO of an aquaculture nutrition and genetics company, would visit hundreds of shrimp farms as part of his job. But gradually he became frustrated by some of the environmentally unsustainable practices used in many locations.

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Frozen coffee startup Cometeer raises $35M Series B and launches its product in earnest Oct 19, 2021

Gloucester, Massachusetts-based Cometeer has been around for nine years. In that time, the company has built up a mad scientist’s lair worth of coffee scientists, equipment and processes to jolt some fresh life into the industry.

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Dance Church raises $4.7M to get your bootie back on the (virtual) dance floor Oct 19, 2021

Our DJ, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy dancefloor come, thy steps be done, on earth, as it is at Dance Church.

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VC Lab introduces free fund formation documents to make startup investing cheaper and easier Oct 18, 2021

There may be plenty of funding for some startups these days. But plenty of companies will tell you otherwise. VC Lab, an accelerator for venture capital firms, wants to create investors who will back the rest of the world.

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Founded by ex-Braintree and PayPal execs, Pagos raises $10M to offer API-driven payment intelligence Oct 18, 2021

Pagos, a payment intelligence infrastructure startup founded by former Braintree and PayPal execs, has raised $10 million in seed funding. Started earlier this year, the remote-first Pagos is building a data “platform” and API-driven micro-services that it says can integrate with any payment stack.

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Space Perspective raises $40M Series A for stratospheric balloon rides Oct 15, 2021

The successful commercial launches of Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have officially ushered in a new era of space tourism.

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Reliable Robotics lifts $100M to take autonomous cargo planes where none have gone before Oct 15, 2021

When flying cargo from one part of the world to another, you typically need a pilot for two parts: The take-off and the landing.

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Cannabis commerce company Dutchie doubles valuation following new funding round Oct 14, 2021

The industry will continue to see adoption across all areas, especially as more people are educated on finding the right product and modality and more states legalize cannabis.

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ScienceIO leaves stealth with millions to structure health data Oct 14, 2021

Years before he co-launched a stealthy business to fix the messy world of health data, Gaurav Kaushik was slowly connecting the dots on how better visualization could impact health outcomes.

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Jow raises $20 million for its meal and grocery planning service Oct 13, 2021

French startup Jow has raised a $20 million funding round led by Eurazeo. Jow wants to make it easier to cook at home by taking care of menu ideas and helping you manage your online orders of groceries.

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VanMoof teases new high-speed electric bike Oct 13, 2021

E-bike manufacturer VanMoof recently raised a $128 million funding round. And the company is already using some of that cash to develop a brand new product — the VanMoof V. This is a new product in the VanMoof lineup, a high-speed bike.

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ThoughtFull gets $1.1M seed to make mental health support more accessible in Southeast Asia Oct 12, 2021

Depression and anxiety were taking a serious toll on peoples’ well-being even before COVID-19, and the pandemic prompted more interest (and venture capital) in mental health startups.

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Varda Space Industries will send its first space factory to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Oct 12, 2021

Varda Space Industries, a startup that wants to build in-space manufacturing facilities, will be sending its first spacecraft to orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2023. The actual spacecraft — the startup’s first to go to orbit.

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Mobile gaming startup Homa Games raises $50 million Oct 11, 2021

Just days after Voodoo acquired Beach Bum, another French mobile gaming company has news to share. Homa Games is raising a $50 million Series A round led by Northzone. The company partners with indie game studios and acts as a publisher.

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Alpha Paw brings in $5.2M to carve out its niche in the pet wellness space Oct 11, 2021

Alpha Paw offers pet products for dogs and cats like food and supplements that are customized with pet breed in mind.

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Tiger Global in talks to lead over $100M investment in India’s Slice Oct 08, 2021

A number of high-profile investors are chasing to invest in Slice, a fintech startup that is attempting to expand the market for credit cards in India. Tiger Global is in advanced stages of talks to lead a round of over $100 million in the Bangalore-based startup, sources familiar with the matter told me.

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Microsoft acquires Ally.io, OKR startup that raised $76 million Oct 08, 2021

Microsoft announced today that it has acquired Ally.io, a software service that helps companies measure their progress against OKRs or objectives and key results, a common way the management measures both individual and company progress. The two firms did not share the purchase price.

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MindLabs gets $3.5M seed to make mental wellness engaging Oct 07, 2021

Making sure mental wellness is part of your routine can be difficult, especially if you are already busy and stressed. MindLabs wants to make it easier with a combination of on-demand or live video classes and community features.

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BeeHero’s precision pollination platform wings its way to $19M in new funding Oct 07, 2021

Move over, precision agriculture — precision apiculture is what’s on the minds of all future-focused farmers. BeeHero has been growing fast since its debut and seed round last year.

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Goldman Sachs spinoff Juven to back African high-growth companies with large checks Oct 06, 2021

Mauritius and U.K.-based investment company Juven went live today with plans to fund growth-stage technology and consumer companies in Africa. The one-year-old firm is looking to invest large checks in companies “that have proven business models, strong revenue traction and large addressable markets,” it said in a statement.

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Podcastle raises $7M for its all-in-one platform for podcast production and publishing Oct 06, 2021

Both Anchor and Descript have made their names as being among the most significant Podcast creation platforms of recent times, but hoving into the rear-view mirror recently has been Podcastle, an all-in-one platform that can cover off recording, production and publishing, all on the one platform.

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YC grad Wasp land $1.5M seed to help developers build web apps faster Oct 05, 2021

It seems that a lot of startups are trying to help developers reduce the complexity involved in coding an app. Last week we covered the seed round for RunX, a company that helps developers code back-end cloud resources more quickly. Today, Y Combinator Winter 2021 graduate Wasp announced a $1.5 million seed round to help […]

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Ladder raises $100M on a $900M valuation for a platform selling flexible term life insurance Oct 05, 2021

Life insurance has had a new lease on life in the era of insuretech, and today one of the companies building a business out of rethinking everything.

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Komunidad, a Philippines-based environmental intelligence platform, lands seed round Oct 04, 2021

The Philippines is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, with geography that makes it vulnerable to typhoons, floods, volcanos, earthquakes and droughts. While working in IT, Felix Ayque began compiling cyclone reports and sending them as email alerts to communities.

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ProductWind raises $1.67M to connect your brand with hundreds of influencers Oct 04, 2021

Brands wanting to get into influencer marketing can use ProductWind's platform to set up campaigns with hundreds of influencers.

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Climate volatility helps agtech platform Semios raise $100M round led by Morningside Oct 01, 2021

One of the greatest challenges for farmers today is the increasing volatility in the climate, leading to unpredictable weather patterns, making growing conditions challenging. If farmers can’t grow crops, then our food security is as risk. Gradually, the field of agtech is attempting to address this issue. There are increasing numbers of FaaS (farming as […]

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Mobile gaming company Voodoo acquires Beach Bum Oct 01, 2021

French startup Voodoo has made a significant acquisition in the casual mobile gaming market. The company is acquiring Beach Bum, a game studio based in Israel and specialized in tabletop and card games.

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Spudsy bags $3.3M to turn ‘ugly’ sweet potatoes into snacks Sep 30, 2021

Spudsy is on track to save 1 million of these so-called flawed sweet potatoes by the end of 2021.

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Starfish Space raises $7M for in-orbit servicing space tug Sep 30, 2021

Satellite servicing company Starfish Space has closed $7 million in funding to accelerate the development of a space tug vehicle that can extend the life of spacecraft and get rid of orbital debris. Servicing satellites used to be nigh impossible, due to the extreme costs associated with going to orbit.

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Tonic.ai raises $35M Series B to help engineers create synthetic data sets Sep 29, 2021

When engineers are building software, they often run into issues around testing it without using actual customer data. Creating a meaningful test set can be time-consuming and challenging. Tonic.ai, a startup that helps engineers create synthetic data sets is trying to fix that, and today the company announced a $35 million Series B. Insight Partners […]

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Federated Genomic data startup Lifebit raises $60M round led by Tiger Global Sep 29, 2021

Genomic data is considered to be the key to unlocking so-called “precision medicine”. Some estimates suggest that by 2025, 500 million human genomes will have been sequenced, but only a fraction of it is being utilized for drug discovery and precision medicine.

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Indonesian ID and data verification startup Verihubs gets $2.8M led by Insignia Venture Partners Sep 28, 2021

For many financial institutions in Southeast Asia, verifying new customers takes a week or two, said the founders of Verihubs. The startup cuts that time down to as little as five seconds, using AI-based identity authentication technology and APIs that let companies continue verifying returning customers through SMS, WhatsApp or flash calls. Verihubs announced it […]

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YC-backed Malloc wants to take the sting out of mobile spyware Sep 28, 2021

Mobile spyware is one of the most invasive and targeted kinds of unregulated surveillance, since it can be used to track where you go, who you see and what you talk about. And because of its stealthy nature, mobile spyware can be nearly impossible to detect.

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Singapore-based logistics startup Ninja Van secures $578M Series E Sep 27, 2021

Ninja Van, a Singapore-based logistics startup, has closed a $578 million Series E round to support its operations infrastructure and technology systems growth.

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Robotic farming firm Iron Ox raises $53M Sep 27, 2021

Bay Area-based autonomous farming startup Iron Ox this week announced a $53 million round. The Series C, led by Breakthrough Energy Venture, brings the firm’s total funding up to $98 million.

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Loyal raises $27M, aims to give dog owners more time with their pets Sep 24, 2021

Loyal is building an animal pharmaceutical company that is developing therapeutics aimed at extending both lifespan and healthspan for dogs.

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Nosh uses AI to help people and businesses cut down on their food waste Sep 24, 2021

When founder Somdip Dey was a computer science masters student at the University of Manchester, his parents got in a terrible car accident. He sent all of his money back to his parents in India to help with their medical bills, but then he faced a problem familiar to too many.

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Crypto asset management platform Cobo bags $40M Series B Sep 23, 2021

Cobo, a Singapore-based crypto asset management platform, raised a $40 million Series B to accelerate the development of decentralized finance as a service (DFaaS). The round was co-led by DST Global, A&T Capital and IMO Ventures. The company will use its proceeds for the development of DeFi as a service (DFaaS) infrastructure and its existing […]

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Sunday raises $100 million for its fast restaurant checkout flow Sep 23, 2021

Sunday, a startup that didn’t exist just a few months ago, has raised a $100 million Series A funding round. Today’s funding round is led by Coatue with participation from partners of DST Global. Investors in the restaurant, hospitality and tech industries are also participating.

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Tatum lets you interact with blockchains using API calls Sep 22, 2021

Meet Tatum, a blockchain infrastructure startup that wants to make it much easier to develop your own blockchain-based product. The company operates a platform-as-a-service product so that you don’t have to manage your own nodes and learn how to interact with each client. Tatum is participating in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. While blockchain […]

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Alan acquires Jour and launches mental health service Alan Mind Sep 22, 2021

French startup Alan is better known for its health insurance products — they now insure 200,000 people. But it has been slowly building a superapp for your health and expanding with new services. Today, the company announced its first acquisition ever with the acquisition of Jour for $20 million. This is going to be the […]

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Near Space Labs closes $13M Series A to send more Earth imaging robots to the stratosphere Sep 21, 2021

The decreasing cost of launch and a slew of other tech innovations have brought about a renaissance in geospatial intelligence, with multiple startups aiming to capture higher-quality and more frequent images of Earth than have ever before been available. Most of these startups, however, are focused on using satellites to collect data. Not so for […]

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Fivetran hauls in $565M on $5.6B valuation, acquires competitor HVR for $700M Sep 21, 2021

Fivetran, the data connectivity startup, had a big day today. For starters it announced a $565 million investment on $5.6 billion valuation, but it didn’t stop there. It also announced its second acquisition this year, snagging HVR, a data integration competitor that had raised over $50M, for $700 million in cash and stock.

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Flippa raises $11M to match online asset and business buyers, sellers Sep 20, 2021

Flippa uses a proprietary business valuation tool and algorithm to match online business owners to qualified buyers.

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Ketch raises another $20M as demand grows for its privacy data control platform Sep 20, 2021

Ketch's OTC enables developers to embed security and governance into a piece of data as they build software.

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Defy Partners leads $3M round into sales intelligence platform Aircover Sep 17, 2021

Aircover’s conversational AI software integrates with Zoom and automates parts of the sales process to lead to more effective conversations.

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Fiberplane nabs € 7.5M seed to bring Google Docs-like collaboration to incident response Sep 17, 2021

Fiberplane, an Amsterdam-based early stage startup that is building collaborative notebooks for SREs (site reliability engineers)Â to collaborate around an incident in a similar manner to group editing in a Google Doc, announced a â€‹â€‹€ 7.5M (approximately $8.8 million USD) seed round today. The round was co-led by Crane Venture Partners and Notion Capital with […]

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AI startup Sorcero secures $10M for language intelligence platform Sep 16, 2021

Its natural language processing platform aids subject-matter experts in finding answers to their questions.

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Relyance AI scores $25M Series A to ensure privacy compliance at the code level Sep 16, 2021

Relyance AI, an early stage startup that is helping companies stay in compliance with privacy laws at the code level, announced a $25 million Series A today. At the same time, they revealed a previously unannounced $5 million seed round.

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Folk helps you share contacts with your team Sep 15, 2021

Folk is a new productivity tool started by European startup studio eFounders. And the startup just raised a $3.3 million seed funding round led by Accel with a big group of business angels. When you think about managing contacts and relationships in a professional environment, you might think that companies have solved this already.

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Tonal adds live classes to its strength training workouts Sep 15, 2021

Wall-mounted fitness startup Tonal this morning announced that it’s bringing live courses to it portfolio of strength training workouts. The company did a soft launch of the live offering back in December of last year, though at the time, it wasn’t live, so much as prerecorded — “live, on tape,” to steal a line from […]

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Logistics robotics startup Ambi raises $26M Sep 14, 2021

Five months ago, Ambi Robotics emerged from stealth with a $6 million raise. Today the Bay Area-based firm is back with several times that, announcing a $26 million Series A, led by Tiger Global. The new round also features participation from existing investors, including Bow Capital, Vertex Ventures US and The House Fund.

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JumpCloud raises $159M on $2.56B valuation for cloud directory tool Sep 14, 2021

JumpCloud, the late-stage startup that is modernizing the notion of corporate directories in a cloud context, announced a $159 million Series F investment on a healthy $2.56 billion valuation today. Sapphire Ventures led the round with new investors participating including Owl Rock, Whale Rock Capital, Sands Capital and Endeavor Catalyst along with existing investors General […]

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MarginEdge, a restaurant management software company, raises $18M Sep 13, 2021

MarginEdge’s tool is a restaurant management app that works with a business’ point of sale to streamline inventory, cost-tracking, ordering and recipes to eliminate the paperwork.

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Quizlet plans for IPO over a year after hitting unicorn status Sep 13, 2021

Quizlet, a flashcard tool turned artificial intelligence-powered tutoring platform, is planning an initial public offering nearly a year after it was valued at $1 billion. According to people familiar with the matter, Quizlet is considerably far along in the process to go public. A recent job filing shows that it is hiring for senior roles […]

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Snyk snags another $530M as valuation rises to $8.4B Sep 10, 2021

Snyk, the Boston-based late-stage startup that is trying to help developers deliver more secure code, announced another mega-round today. This one was for $530 million, with $300 million in new money and $230 million in secondary funding, the latter of which is to help employees and early investors cash in some of their stock options. […]

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Affinity, a relationship intelligence company, raises $80M to help close deals Sep 10, 2021

Affinity is focused on industries like investment banking and venture capital, where there aren’t CRMs or networking platforms that cater to the specific needs of the long-term relationship.

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Digital therapeutics startup Neuroglee raises $10M to help people with neurodegenerative conditions Sep 09, 2021

Neuroglee Therapeutics, a startup developing digital therapeutics for people with neurodegenerative diseases, has raised a $10 million Series A led by Openspace Ventures and EDBI. The funding will be used to launch virtual neurology clinics and to support Neuroglee’s move to Boston. Other participants included Ramen Singh, the former chief executive officer of Mundipharma; Biofourmis […]

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Indonesia-focused Intudo Ventures closes $115M third fund Sep 09, 2021

Intudo Ventures, the “Indonesia-only” investment firm, announced today it has closed its third fund, totaling $115 million. Called Intudo Ventures Fund III, it was raised in less than three months and oversubscribed. Fund III’s limited partners include Black Kite Investments, the family office of Singaporean businessman Koh Bon Hwee; Wasson Enterprises, the family office of […]

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E-commerce aggregator Rainforest raises $20M just months after its last funding Sep 08, 2021

Four months after its last funding announcement, Singapore-based e-commerce aggregator Rainforest has closed a $20 million pre-Series A round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. Other participants included January Capital, Crossbeam Venture Partners, Amasia and Lo & Behold Group, along with returning investors Nordstar and Insignia Venture Partners. Rainforest announced in May that it had raised […]

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DigitalOcean enhances serverless capabilities with Nimbella acquisition Sep 08, 2021

As developers look for ways to simplify how they create software, serverless solutions, which enable them to write code without worrying about the underlying infrastructure required to run their applications, is becoming increasingly popular. DigitalOcean announced today that it is enhancing its existing offering in this area with the acquisition of serverless startup Nimbella. The […]

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Playbyte’s new app aims to become the ‘TikTok for games’ Sep 07, 2021

A startup called Playbyte wants to become the TikTok for games. The company’s newly launched iOS app offers tools that allow users to make and share simple games on their phone, as well as a vertically scrollable, fullscreen feed where you can play the games created by others. Also like TikTok, the feed becomes more […]

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Barbershop technology startup theCut sharpens its platform with new $4.5M round Sep 07, 2021

The mobile app that provides information and reviews on barbers for potential customers while also managing appointments, mobile payments and pricing on the back end for barbers.

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Customer experience startup Clootrack raises $4M, helps brands see through their customers’ eyes Sep 06, 2021

Clootrack is a real-time customer experience analytics platform that helps brands understand why customers stay or churn

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Challenger bank Bunq rolls out Spanish IBANs Sep 06, 2021

Amsterdam-based challenger bank Bunq is updating its service with a handful of new features. In addition to Dutch, German and French bank account numbers, existing and new users in Spain can now get a Spanish IBAN. European IBANs are supposed to work across Europe.

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VanMoof raises $128 million to become the world’s leading e-bike brand Sep 03, 2021

Amsterdam-based startup VanMoof has raised a $128 million Series C funding round. The company designs and sells electric bikes that are quite popular in some markets. It now wants to become the world’s leading e-bike brand by iterating at a faster pace. Asia-based private equity firm Hillhouse Investment is leading the round, with Gillian Tans, […]

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Pancake aims to make customers flip for its virtual home design platform Sep 03, 2021

Pancake is democratizing interior design services to make it accessible to everyone.

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Pixalate tunes into $18.1M for fraud prevention in television, mobile advertising Sep 02, 2021

Pixalate provides fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics for connected television and mobile advertising.

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Tribe and Arkam back Jar app to help millions in India start their savings journey Sep 02, 2021

Even as hundreds of millions of people in India have a bank account, only a tiny fraction of this population invests in any financial instrument. Fewer than 30 million people invest in mutual funds or stocks, for instance.

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Cheeterz Club wants to make reading glasses hip Sep 01, 2021

Can reading glasses actually be cool? A new eyewear company called Cheeterz Club thinks so. The startup is working to change the perception of reading glasses from being just cheap, disposable items you pick up from a rotating display rack at your local drug store to being something you’d actually be proud to wear.

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Dance launches its e-bike subscription service in Berlin Sep 01, 2021

German startup Dance is launching its subscription service in its hometown Berlin. For a flat monthly fee of €79 (around $93 at today’s exchange rate), users will get a custom-designed electric bike as well as access to an on-demand repair and maintenance service. Founded by the former founders of SoundCloud and Jimdo, the company managed […]

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As 5G demand grows, Sitenna helps telcos find more cell tower locations, faster Aug 31, 2021

The buildout of 5G networks continues apace, with wide-scale deployments across much of the developed world. Yet, one of the largest challenges with closing the gaps in coverage maps are constraints on 5G transmissions.

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Stipop offers developers and creators instant access to a huge global sticker library Aug 30, 2021

With more than 270,000 stickers, Stipop’s library of colorful, character-driven expressions has a little something for everyone. The company offers keyboard and social app stickers through ad-supported mobile apps on iOS and Android, but it’s recently focused more on providing stickers to developers, creators and other online businesses. “We were able to gather so many […]

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Accounting platform Synder raises $2M to automate e-commerce bookkeeping Aug 30, 2021

The company bills itself as an easy accounting platform for e-commerce businesses.

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Job offer management platform Compa emerges from stealth with $3.9M Aug 27, 2021

The offer management platform provides “deal desk” software for recruiters to easily manage compensation strategies.

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Celebrity chef Michael Chernow whips up new lifestyle brand, Kreatures of Habit, raises $2.2M Aug 27, 2021

Michael Chernow is already known as a restaurateur, chef, television host and entrepreneur, but now he can also add lifestyle and wellness guru to that list.

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Shares is a new stock trading app with a focus on social features Aug 26, 2021

Meet Shares, a new European startup that wants to add a social twist to financial investment —Â in that case, the company means ‘social’ as in ‘social network’. The startup has been developing its product under the radar for a few months already. It is also moving at a fast pace.

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Forward Kitchens cooks up $2.5M to transform existing kitchens into digital storefronts Aug 26, 2021

Forward Kitchens provides a turnkey tool for restaurants to set up an online presence.

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testRigor scores $4M seed to turn a list of actions into a QA testing script Aug 25, 2021

Imagine typing out of a series of steps in plain English that would reflect a list of actions a human QA tester would undertake to test an app, then turning that list into an automated testing script. That’s exactly what testRigor, a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2021 cohort has done.

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NoRedInk raises $50 million Series B to help students become better writers Aug 25, 2021

“In order to become a better writer, read your written words out loud.” That’s one of the first, and best, writing tips I ever received. I always found the advice ironic because it required me to change the medium of my writing to become a better writer. Still, all these years later, it’s true: vocalizing […]

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Elastic acquires build.security for security policy definition and enforcement Aug 24, 2021

Less than a year after raising its $6 million seed funding round, Tel Aviv and Sunnyvale-based startup Build.security is being acquired by Elastic. Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed at this time. The deal is expected to close in Elastic’s Q2 FY22, ending Oct. 31, 2021.

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Givz raises $3M in seed funding to make donations a marketing tool for businesses Aug 24, 2021

Givz, which has developed an API-powered platform that gives brands a way to convert discounts into donations, has raised $3 million in seed funding. Eniac and Accomplice co-led the financing for the New York-based startup. Additional investors include Supernode Ventures, Claude Wasserstein of Fine Day, Phoenix Club and Dylan Whitman. Givz was founded in 2017 […]

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Y Combinator-backed Adra wants to turn all dentists into cavity-finding ‘super dentists’ Aug 23, 2021

Adra is bringing AI into the dentist's day-to-day workflow so they can spend less time finding cavities and more time with patients.

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Rutter comes out of stealth with $1.5M in funding for its e-commerce API Aug 23, 2021

Rutter is developing a unified e-commerce API that enables companies to connect with data across any platform.

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Diamond Age raises $8M to speed up home construction with 3D printing and robot arms Aug 20, 2021

Bay Area-based Diamond Age this week announced that it has raised $8 million. The seed round is led by Prime Movers Lab and Alpaca VC and features a slew of additional firms, including Dolby Family Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, Towerview Ventures, GFA Venture Partners and Suffolk Construction. The startup looks to put a slew of […]

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Split.io announces $50M Series D to continue growing feature flag platform Aug 20, 2021

As developers build applications, they often want to test new functionality on a limited set of users to blunt any possible negative impact or to gauge user reaction to the change before rolling it out more broadly. They use a technique called a feature flag, and Split.io, a startup that has built a platform to […]

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FloodMapp wants to predict where water goes before it washes away your home Aug 19, 2021

Floods are devastating. They rip asunder communities, wipe out neighborhoods, force the evacuation of thousands of people every year, and recovering them can take years — assuming recovery is possible at all. The U.S. government estimates that floods in recent decades (exclusive of hurricanes and tropical storms) have caused an estimated $160 billion in damage […]

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Mealworm farming company Beta Hatch raises $10M Aug 19, 2021

Last time I was in Hong Kong, a startup gave me a jar of mealworms as a snack. They were crunchy and a bit odd looking (as one might expect from a jar full of baked larvae). They really didn’t offer much in the way of flavor, though, so maybe supply your own seasoning.

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Food conglomerate Forward Foods becomes Starday, raises $4M Aug 18, 2021

Forward Foods, creating healthy and sustainable food products, changed its name to Starday and raised $4 million in seed funding to take on “big food” incumbents.

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Apple’s sustainability-focused Impact Accelerator invites first 15 Black- and brown-owned companies Aug 18, 2021

Among Apple’s more recent social good initiatives is the Impact Accelerator, an effort launched about a year ago intended to find and elevate minority-owned small businesses taking on sustainability and climate change. The program now has its first 15 participants, gathered from all over the country for a three-month program and a shot at an […]

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Tropic picks up $25M to streamline software procurement experiences Aug 17, 2021

The pandemic was a catalyst for showing companies looking to cut costs, just how much they were spending on their software tools.

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Shopistry bags $2M to provide ‘headless commerce without the headaches’ Aug 17, 2021

Shopistry enables customers to create personalized commerce experiences accessible to all.

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ThirdAI raises $6M to democratize AI to any hardware Aug 16, 2021

ThirdAI is building tools to speed up deep learning technology without the need for hardware like graphics processing units.

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Kiddom grabs early revenue amid $35M Series C funding Aug 16, 2021

Kiddom, a platform that offers a digital curriculum that fits the core standards required by states, announced today that it has raised a $35 million Series C round led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Owl Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Outcomes Collective. The financing came nearly three years after Kiddom’s Series B, a $15 million […]

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Talkdesk’s valuation jumps to $10B with Series D for smart contact centers Aug 13, 2021

Talkdesk uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve customer service for mid-market and enterprise businesses.

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Motivo raises $12.5M Series A to speed up chip design with AI Aug 13, 2021

Chip design is a long slog of trial and error, taking years to bring a design to market. Motivo, a five year old startup from a chip industry veteran is creating software to speed up chip design from years to months using AI. Today the company announced a $12.5 million Series A.

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Consumer goods software company Aforza bags $22M to open US headquarters Aug 12, 2021

Built on Salesforce and Google Cloud platforms, consumer goods companies can use Aforza to digitally transform product distribution and customer engagement.

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Space manufacturing startup Varda inks deal with Rocket Lab for three spacecraft Aug 12, 2021

Orbital manufacturing startup Varda Space Industries is moving fast. Only a few weeks after announcing a $42 million Series A, Varda has signed a deal with launch company Rocket Lab for three Photon spacecraft to support the startup’s initial missions. The first spacecraft will be delivered in the first quarter of 2023, with the second […]

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Bite Ninja scoops up pre-seed funding to reimagine restaurant working environments Aug 11, 2021

The company's remote hiring technology enable restaurants to fill last-minute drive-thru or cashier shifts.

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The art of startup storytelling with Julian Shapiro Aug 11, 2021

"Signal is more important than frequency in an era where we're overloaded with content."

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WoodSpoon’s food delivery service cooks up support for home chefs with $14M round Aug 10, 2021

The co-founders reached out to local home chefs and gathered them together in a marketplace where they could share their culture and passion of food with others.

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Canopy raises $15M Series A after posting 4.5x customer growth in H1 2021 Aug 10, 2021

Canopy's leaders expect focused fintech products to win out over large bundles of services.

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CommandBar raises $4.8M to make web-based apps searchable Aug 09, 2021

James Evans and his co-founders at CommandBar were working on a different software product when they hit a wall while trying to find certain functionalities within the software.

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The first Zambian startup to get into YC is developing Africa’s first card-issuing API Aug 09, 2021

More than 40 African startups from a handful of countries have gone through YC over the past decade. Zambia joins that list today, and its entrant, Union54, is a worthy first entry. Union54 (54 is a nod to the number of African countries) is a fintech company founded by Perseus Mlambo and Alessandra Martini. The […]

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Micromobility startup Voi raises $45 million to end sidewalk riding, improve safety Aug 06, 2021

Micromobility startup Voi has raised $45 million, funds it says will be used to research and develop technology that will improve safety, keep users from riding on sidewalks and ensure scooters are properly parked.

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3 invaluable founder lessons I learned on my immigration journey Aug 06, 2021

In my journey to the U.S., I became good at three things: accepting uncertainty, building resilience and maintaining a positive mental attitude. I needed them all to get my startup off the ground.

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Bluecore lands $125M Series E on $1B valuation as e-commerce personalization grows Aug 05, 2021

During the pandemic, especially when we were in lock down, just about every retailer had to build its online presence and do it quickly. As people move to shop online in larger numbers, being able to personalize that experience has become more crucial.

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Robinhood is now a stonk Aug 05, 2021

The wild swing in the price of Robinhood today appears from our vantage point to be another stonk moment.

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Buildots raises $30M to put eyes on construction sites Aug 04, 2021

Buildots' technology automatically validates images captured by hardhat-mounted 360-degree cameras, detecting any gaps between the original design and what's actually happening on construction sites.

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Why Draper Esprit doubled down on its status as a publicly listed VC Aug 04, 2021

Draper Esprit, another British venture capital firm, moved from the AIM to the LSE proper, with a secondary listing on Euronext Dublin.

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Wireless charging firm Aira raises $12M Aug 03, 2021

Founded in 2017, Arizona-based Aira didn’t waste any time proving out its technology. We’ve written about the company’s wireless charging a few times over the years, including the “FreePower” technology it has baked into Nomad’s charging pads, which brings a more streamlined version of the Apple’s abandoned AirPower. The tech allows for users to charge […]

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Planted raises another $18M to expand its growing plant-based meat empire (and add schnitzel) Aug 03, 2021

Swiss alternative protein company Planted has raised its second CHF 17M (about $18.5M at present) round of the year, a “pre-B” fundraise that will help it continue its growth and debut new products. A U.S. launch is in the cards eventually but for now Planted’s exclusively European customers will be able to give its new […]

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Platform-as-a-service startup Porter aims to become go-to platform for deploying, managing cloud-based apps Aug 02, 2021

Any DevOps team can use Porter to manage applications in the cloud, delivering the full flexibility of Kubernetes through a Heroku-like experience.

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Catch takes hold of $12M to provide benefits that aren’t tied to employers Aug 02, 2021

Catch is working to make sure that every gig worker has the health and retirement benefits they need.

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Japanese sneaker platform SODA raises $56.4M, accquires rival Monokabu Jul 30, 2021

Just half a year after leading SODA’s Series B, SoftBank Ventures Asia is raising its bet on the Tokyo-based sneaker resell platform. The early-stage venture capital arm of SoftBank Group announced today it has returned to lead SODA’s Series C, which currently totals $56.4 million.

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ConverseNow is targeting restaurant drive-thrus with new $15M round Jul 30, 2021

One year after voice-based AI technology company ConverseNow raised a $3.3 million seed round, the company is back with a cash infusion of $15 million in Series A funding.

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Student labor marketplace Pangea closes $2M seed round Jul 29, 2021

The startup runs a marketplace that links college-age talent to companies in need of their services. Social media and web developer work are popular on the Pangea platform.

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Egyptian ride-sharing company Swvl plans to go public in a $1.5B SPAC merger Jul 29, 2021

Queen's Gambit Growth Capital, the women-led SPAC in charge of the deal, called Swvl 'a disruptive platform that solves complex challenges and empowers underserved populations.'

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MedRhythms raises $25M to get patients back in tune after a stroke Jul 28, 2021

The company's digital therapy platform works to measure and improve someone’s ability to walk after they have experienced a neurologic injury or disease.

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Blameless raises $30M to guide companies through their software lifecycle Jul 28, 2021

Blameless’ platform provides the context, guardrails and automated workflows so engineering teams are unified in the way they communicate and interact while building their software systems.

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SoftBank-backed Embark Veterinary valued at $700M after $75M Series B Jul 27, 2021

Now that you have that COVID dog, Embark Veterinary wants to help him or her be in your life for a long time by offering DNA testing with the goal of increasing their lifespan.

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iRocket to begin rocket engine testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Jul 27, 2021

Reusable rocket startup iRocket has entered into a new partnership with NASA in its quest to reach commercialization in just two years. The partnership will give iRocket access to testing facilities and engineering support, chiefly at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The company is hoping that it will conduct its first […]

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Sproutl is an online marketplace for gardeners founded by former Farfetch executives Jul 26, 2021

Meet Sproutl, a marketplace for gardeners living in the U.K. The startup founded by former Farfetch executives has raised a $9 million seed round. It wants to make gardening more accessible by providing a curated list of items, relevant advice as well as inspiration.

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Serverless Stack raises $1M for open-source application framework Jul 26, 2021

Open-source framework startup Serverless Stack announced Friday that it raised $1 million in seed funding from a group of investors that includes Greylock Partners, SV Angel and Y Combinator. The company was founded in 2017 by Jay V and Frank Wang in San Francisco, and they were part of Y Combinator’s 2021 winter batch. Serverless […]

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i80 Group has quietly committed $1B in credit to the fintech and proptech worlds Jul 23, 2021

Not every startup wants to raise venture capital. And then there are those that do want to raise VC money but don’t want to use it for specific things. In recent years, a number of firms have emerged looking to meet the credit needs of such venture-backed and growth startups: i80 Group is one of […]

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Mural raises $50M Series C after tripling its ARR in the last year Jul 23, 2021

This morning Mural, a startup that builds digital collaboration software with a focus on visual presentation, announced that it has closed a $50 million Series C. The new capital, co-led by prior investors Insight Partners and Tiger Global, values the startup at more than $2 billion.

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Spendesk raises $118 million for its corporate spend management service Jul 22, 2021

French startup Spendesk has announced earlier today that it has raised a $118 million funding round (€100 million) led by General Atlantic. Overall, the company has raised $189 million (€160 million) since its inception. Existing investors Index Ventures and Eight Road Ventures participated once again in today’s funding round.

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Okendo raises $5.3M to help D2C brands ween themselves off of Big Tech customer data Jul 22, 2021

While direct-to-consumer growth has exploded in the past year, some brands are finding there’s still plenty of room to forge ahead in building a more direct relationships with their customers. Sydney-based Okendo has made a splash in this world by building out a popular customer reviews systems for Shopify sellers, but it’s aiming to expand […]

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Little Spoon scoops up $44M to grow its children’s nutrition delivery service Jul 21, 2021

The quest to disrupt the traditional baby food aisle continues as more of today’s parents seek out nutritional food for their children.

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Metal 3D printing company Fabric8Labs raises $19M Jul 21, 2021

Fabric8Labs this morning announced that it has raised $19.3 million. The Series A was led by Intel Capital and features Lam Capital, TDK Ventures, SE Ventures, imec.xpand, Stanley Ventures and Mark Cuban. It follows $4 million in seed funding raised in mid-2018. The San Diego-based startup specializes in metal 3D printing.

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CityRow raises $12M for connected rowing machines and studios Jul 20, 2021

Founded in 2014 as an in-person rowing studio, CityRow was relatively early to adopt the at-home connected model. The New York-based company launched a digital platform in 2018, two years before the pandemic completely transformed the way many of us work out. Of course, things have been trending that way a while, but 2020 accelerated […]

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LeagueApps raises $15M to be the ‘operating system’ for youth sports organizations Jul 20, 2021

Youth sports are an integral part of our communities, bringing families together and helping kids all over gain confidence and skills. Most of us don’t think about all the work that goes into setting up, growing and maintaining these leagues. It’s a lot. Today, LeagueApps, which aims to be the operating system for youth sports […]

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Rise Gardens grows with $9M Series A to help anyone be an indoor farmer Jul 19, 2021

As more consumers embrace plant-based diets and sustainable food practices, Rise Gardens is giving anyone the ability to have a green thumb from the comfort of their own home.

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Taste intelligence startup Halla closes $4.5M Series A1 to predict which grocery items shoppers will buy Jul 19, 2021

Halla wants to answer the question of how people decide what to eat and now has $4.5 million in fresh Series A1 capital from Food Retail Ventures to do it.

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Lightyear nabs $13M Series A as online network procurement takes shape Jul 16, 2021

It seems like everything is being pushed online now, but network procurement stubbornly has remained an in-person or phone-based negotiation. Lightyear, an early stage New York City startup decided to change that last year, and the company announced a $13.1 million Series A today. The round was led by Ridge Ventures with participation from Zigg […]

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Shopmonkey raises $75M Series C to help auto repair shops streamline their business Jul 16, 2021

Walking into an auto repair shop can sometimes feel like taking a step into the past. The handwritten notes and receipts, the clunky point-of-sales system and scheduling tools — if those are even there — can make customers feel like they’re in the 1990s, not the 21st century. Shopmonkey is trying to change that.

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Gourmey is a cell-based poultry startup working on lab-grown foie gras Jul 15, 2021

Meet Gourmey, a new French startup that recently raised a $10 million founding round in equity and debt. The startup is working on meat grown in laboratories from animal cells. In particular, the company is focusing on poultry and aims to convince chefs that they should use the company’s products in their restaurants. “We’ve been […]

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Cadoo gets $1.5M to gamify fitness with betting challenges Jul 15, 2021

Cadoo, a US-startup that’s gamifying fitness by turning it into a betting opportunity, using the prospect of winning (or losing) cold hard cash to motivate people to get off the couch, has collected $1.5 million in seed funds from Sam & Max Altman’s Apollo VC and the student-focused Dorm Room Fund.

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Looking Glass launches second-gen holographic displays Jul 14, 2021

Brooklyn-based Looking glass today announced the release of a pair of second-gen holographic displays. Following up on late-last year’s release of the entry-level Portrait, the startup is offering new versions of the Looking Glass 4K and 8K systems, which sport 15.6- and 32-inch displays, respectively.

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Sourcegraph raises $125M Series D on $2.6B valuation for universal code search tool Jul 14, 2021

Sourcegraph, a late stage startup that wants to bring the power of search to code, announced a $125 million Series D investment today on a $2.625 billion valuation, a 3x growth from its previous valuation in December 2020, according to the company.

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Mighty Buildings lands $22M to create ‘sustainable and affordable’ 3D-printed homes Jul 13, 2021

Oakland-based Mighty Buildings, which is on a quest to build homes using 3D printing, robotics and automation, has raised a $22 million extension to its Series B round of funding.

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VU raises $12M to remove cybersecurity friction from digital experiences Jul 13, 2021

Pretty soon, people won’t have to provide a fingerprint or a driver’s license to prove their identity — if VU has its way.

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Dovetail, the venture studio that has worked with startups like Afterpay, is raising a new fund Jul 13, 2021

Based in Sydney and Auckland, Dovetail is a full-service venture studio that works closely with founders who have a great idea, but may lack technical backgrounds.

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Cloud security platform Netskope boosts valuation to $7.5B following $300M raise Jul 12, 2021

Netskope, focused on Secure Access Service Edge architecture, announced Friday a $300 million investment round on a post-money valuation of $7.5 billion.

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r2c raises $27M to scale its security-focused code analysis service Jul 09, 2021

This morning r2c, a startup building a SaaS service around the Semgrep open-source project, announced that it has closed a $27 million Series B. Felicis led the round, which the company said was a pre-emptive deal.

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Rootly nabs $3.2M seed to build SRE incident management solution inside Slack Jul 09, 2021

As companies look for ways to respond to incidents in their complex micro services-driven software stacks, SREs or site reliability engineers are left to deal with the issues involved in making everything work and keeping the application up and running.

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Younited Credit raises $170 million for its data-driven credit offering Jul 08, 2021

French startup Younited Credit has raised a $170 million funding round. Goldman Sachs is leading the round with existing investors Eurazeo, Bpifrance and AG2R La Mondiale also participating. The company offers several credit products to European consumers. It also has a diversified distribution strategy.

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WellSaid attracts $10M A round for higher quality synthetic speech Jul 08, 2021

WellSaid Labs, whose tools create synthetic speech that could be mistaken for the real thing, has raised a $10M Series A to grow the business. The company’s home-baked text-to-speech engine works faster than real time and produces natural-sounding clips of pretty much any length, from quick snippets to hours-long readings.

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Lacuna raises $16 million in Series A to help cities manage mobility via digital twin Jul 07, 2021

Lacuna Technologies, a startup that helps cities create and enforce transportation policies by building and managing open-source digital tools, has raised $16 million in a Series A round, bringing the company’s total investment to $33.5 million.

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Satellite operator Planet to go public in $2.8B SPAC merger Jul 07, 2021

Planet, which operates a network of around 200 satellites that provides Earth imaging, as well as analytics of the data derived from that observation, is going public in a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) dMY Technology Group IV.

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Didi app pulled from app stores in China after suspension order Jul 06, 2021

China has ordered app-store operators to remove the app of Didi from their stores, the latest as tension escalates between the nation’s largest ride-hailing giant and local regulators.

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E-commerce logistics startup Locad gets $4.5M seed round led by Sequoia Capital India Jul 06, 2021

E-commerce is booming in Southeast Asia, but in many markets, the fragmented logistics industry is struggling to catch up. This means sellers run into roadblocks when shipping to buyers, especially outside of major metropolitan areas, and managing their supply chains.

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Tinybird turns raw data into realtime API at scale Jul 05, 2021

Meet Tinybird, a new startup that helps developers build data products at scale without having to worry about infrastructure, query time and all those annoying issues that come up once you deal with huge data sets. The company ingests data at scale, lets you transform it using SQL and then exposes that data through API […]

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Edtech startup Microverse raises $12.5M to bring income share agreements to the developing world Jul 05, 2021

Edtech startup Microverse has tapped new venture funding in its quest to help train students across the globe to code through its online school which requires zero upfront cost, instead relying on an income-share agreement which kicks in when students find a job.

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Singularity 6 raises $30M to fund upcoming fantasy ‘community simulation’ MMO Jul 02, 2021

LA-based game studio Singularity 6 has banked more funding as it scales itself up and readies for the launch of its debut title. The startup tells TechCrunch, they’ve raised $30 million in a Series B bout of funding led by FunPlus Ventures.

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Demand Curve: Email marketing tactics that convert subscribers into customers Jul 02, 2021

Email has the highest return on investment than any other marketing channel because you have a captive audience who has opted-in to you communicating with them.

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Codat raises $40M from Tiger for its SMB-focused API service Jul 01, 2021

This morning Codat, a startup that provides APIs to link small-business fintech data to external services, announced that it has closed a $40 million round led by Tiger Global.

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Rocket startup Gilmour Space raises $46M Series C to take small launch vehicle to orbit Jul 01, 2021

Australian rocket launch startup Gilmour Space Technologies is betting that bigger isn’t always better. The company has developed a small launch vehicle it calls Eris, a 25 meter (82 foot) rocket that can deliver payload of up to 215 kilograms (474 lbs) to sun synchronous orbit. Now, it’s raised a $61 million AUD ($46 million […]

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Relativity Space will open a 1 million square foot factory to scale Terran R production Jun 30, 2021

Fresh off the heels of a $650 million Series E funding round, 3D printed rocket startup Relativity Space is now preparing to increase production capacity by a factor of ten, with the opening of a 1 million square-foot factory headquarters in Long Beach, California.

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Zoom to acquire German startup to bring real-time translation to meetings Jun 30, 2021

As companies expand worldwide, and meet online in tools like Zoom, the language barrier can be a real impediment to getting work done. Zoom announced that it intends to acquire German startup Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions or Kites for short, to bring real-time machine learning-based translation to the platform. The companies did not share the […]

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Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley steps back from the company Jun 29, 2021

Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley has announced that he is stepping back of his full-time role at the company. During the first seven years of the company, he was the startup’s Chief Executive Officer. In 2016, Crowley moved to an executive chairman position. He’s also been running the Foursquare Labs R&D group since then.

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Real estate tech startup Side raises $50M more at a $2B valuation as it preps for an IPO Jun 29, 2021

Side, a real estate technology company that works to turn agents and independent brokerages into boutique brands and businesses, has raised “$50 million-plus” in a funding round that doubles its valuation to $2 billion. The latest financing comes just three months after the San Francisco-based startup raised $150 million in a Series D funding round […]

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PayMaya owner Voyager Innovation raises $167M from KKR, Tencent and IFC, to launch digital bank in the Philippines Jun 28, 2021

Voyager Innovations, the Manila-based owner of PayMaya, one of the Philippines’ most popular payment and financial services apps, announced today it has raised $167 million in new funding to launch more financial services, including a digital bank. The raise includes $121 million in new funding, and $46 million from previously committed funds. Voyager announced in […]

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Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR Jun 28, 2021

Mercuryo, a startup that has built a cross-border payments network, has raised $7.5 million in a Series A round of funding. The London-based company describes itself as “a crypto infrastructure company” that aims to make blockchain useful for businesses via its “digital asset payment gateway.” Specifically, it aggregates various payment solutions and provides fiat and […]

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Circle wants to help companies access DeFi lending markets with new API Jun 25, 2021

Cryptocurrency company Circle has announced that it plans to launch a new API for companies using Circle accounts to manage crypto assets — and in particular USDC stablecoins. The new API will let companies access decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols starting with Compound lending pools. Circle is better known as one of the founding members of […]

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Env0 lands $17M Series A as infrastrucure as code control plane gains traction Jun 25, 2021

As companies deliver code ever faster, they need tooling to provide some semblance of control and governance over the cloud resources being used to deliver it. Env0, a startup that is helping companies do just that, announced a $17 million Series A today. M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, led the round with participation from previous investors […]

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Revolut revenue grew by 57% in 2020 Jun 24, 2021

Fintech startup Revolut has filed some financial results and is sharing details with the press. In 2020, the company reported $361 million in revenue (£261 million) — that’s a 57% increase compared to 2019 revenue of $229 million (£166 million). Interestingly, those revenue figures have been adjusted to include fair value gains on cryptocurrency assets […]

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Autonomous trucking startup Embark to go public in $5.2B SPAC deal Jun 24, 2021

Five-year old self-driving truck startup Embark Trucks Inc. said Wednesday it would merge with special purpose acquisition company Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. II in a deal valued at $5.2 billion. Embark takes a different approach to autonomous trucking: As opposed to manufacturing and operating a fleet of trucks themselves, which is the route rival TuSimple […]

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These Forge cofounders just raised $5 million to work on a new, still-stealth investing startup Jun 23, 2021

Sohail Prasad and Samvit Ramadurgam are cofounders who met during Y Combinator’s 2012 summer batch and went on to cofound Forge, which helps accredited investors and institutions buy and sell private company shares and which most recently raised $150 million in new funding in May.

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Vantage raises $4M to help businesses understand their AWS costs Jun 23, 2021

Vantage, a service that helps businesses analyze and reduce their AWS costs, today announced that it has raised a $4 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. A number of angel investors, including Brianne Kimmel, Julia Lipton, Stephanie Friedman, Calvin French Owen, Ben and Moisey Uretsky, Mitch Wainer and Justin Gage, also participated in this […]

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Fintech veteran Jitendra Gupta is ready for his new inning — now he is going after banks in India Jun 22, 2021

For most people in India, having to engage with banks doesn’t instill a sense of joy. Banks in the South Asian market are notorious for making unannounced spam calls to upsell customers loans and credit cards, even when they have been explicitly asked not to do so. Moreover, when a customer does reach out to […]

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Uber to become the sole owner of grocery delivery startup Cornershop Jun 22, 2021

Uber has reached a deal to become the sole owner of Latin American delivery startup Cornershop, just one year after acquiring a majority stake in the company. The ride-hailing giant said in a regulatory filing Monday that it will purchase the remaining 47% interest in Cornershop in exchange for 29 million shares.

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Vietnamese financial services app MFast gets $1.5M pre-Series A led by Do Ventures Jun 21, 2021

MFast, a mobile app that lets Vietnamese users in remote areas access financial services, announced it has raised a $1.5 million pre-Series A today. The round was led by Do Ventures, with participation from JAFCO Asia.Â Launched in 2019 by fintech company Digipay, MFast says it has been used by 600,000 people to date. It […]

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Mediflash is a freelancer marketplace for health professionals Jun 21, 2021

Meet Mediflash, a new French startup that wants to improve temp staffing in healthcare facilities, such as nursing homes, clinics and mental health facilities. The company positions itself as an alternative to traditional temp staffing agencies. They claim to offer better terms for both caregivers and institutions.

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Neo4j raises Neo$325m as graph-based data analysis takes hold in enterprise Jun 18, 2021

Databases run the world, but database products are often some of the most mature and venerable software in the modern tech stack. Designers will pixel push, frontend engineers will add clicks to make it more difficult to drop out of a soporific Zoom call, but few companies are ever willing to rip out their database.

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Twine raises $3.3M to add networking features to virtual events Jun 18, 2021

Twine, a video chat startup that launched amid the pandemic as a sort of “Zoom for meeting new people,” shifted its focus to online events and, as a result, has now closed on $3.3 million in seed funding. To date, twine’s events customers have included names like Microsoft, Amazon, Forrester, and others.

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Construction robotics firm Dusty raises $16.5M Jun 17, 2021

It certainly follows then that some leading construction robotics companies are able to strike while the iron is hot with some healthy raises. Today, Bay Area-based Dusty Robotics announced a $16.5 million Series A.

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Messaging social network IRL hits unicorn status with SoftBank-led $170M Series C Jun 17, 2021

Social calendar app IRL has been busy building a messaging-based social network, or what founder and CEO Abraham Shafi calls a “WeChat of the West.” Following its pandemic-fueled growth and further push into the social networking space with group chat and other features, IRL is today announcing a sizable $170 million Series C growth round, […]

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Europe’s tech leaders define a strategy to create tech giants Jun 16, 2021

A group of 200 startup founders, investors, associations and government members are backing a manifesto and a set of recommendations in order to create the next wave of tech giants in Europe. Today, French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting an event in Paris with some of the members of this group called Scale-Up Europe.

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BookClub checks out a shiny new $20 million Series A Jun 16, 2021

Serial edtech entrepreneur David Blake, who co-founded Degreed and launched LearnIn, is living the dream of any book worm. He reads at least one book a week, talks to the authors behind it and unpacks his biggest questions around the subtlest of passages. And it’s all thanks to his latest startup, BookClub, which first launched […]

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Klaxoon introduces whiteboard-focused conference room for hybrid work Jun 15, 2021

French startup Klaxoon is announcing a product update for its whiteboard collaboration platform as well as a new hardware product. With Hybridity, the company is going to sell ready-to-use conference rooms that optimize hybrid meetings between people currently in the office and people on the go. Let’s start with the software update.

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Fraud protection startup nSure AI raises $6.8M in seed funding Jun 15, 2021

The round will help the company bolster the predictive AI and machine learning algorithms that power nSure AI’s “first of its kind” fraud protection platform.

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Anrok raises $4.3M to solve sales tax for SaaS companies Jun 14, 2021

It’s easier than ever to build a product and sell it around the United States, or the world. But if you want to do so without incurring the wrath of any particular state, or nation-state, you’d best have your tax matters in order.

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Lydia partners with Cashbee to add savings accounts Jun 14, 2021

French startup Lydia is better known as the dominant app for peer-to-peer payments. But the company has been adding more features, such as a debit card, account aggregation, donations, money pots and more. This week, the company is adding savings accounts thanks to a partnership with French fintech startup Cashbee.

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Money Minx aims to build a ‘Personal Finance’ OS for the everyday investor Jun 11, 2021

New regulations are making it easier to invest in alternative assets via crowdfunding, and the recent explosion of crypto and NFTs means that investors are more diversified than ever.Â Keeping up with such a variety of investments may prove difficult to those who want to handle managing their investment portfolios on their own. Money Minx, […]

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Slintel scores $20M Series A as buyer intelligence tool gains traction Jun 11, 2021

One clear outcome of the pandemic was pushing more people to do their shopping online, and that was as true for B2B as it was for B2C. Knowing which of your B2B customers are most likely to convert puts any sales team ahead of the game. Slintel, a startup providing that kind of data, announced […]

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Recorded Future launches its new $20M Intelligence Fund for early-stage startups Jun 10, 2021

Threat intelligence company Recorded Future is launching a $20 million fund for early-stage startupsÂ developing novel data intelligence tools.

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Stacey Abrams co-founded fintech company Now raises $9.5M Jun 10, 2021

After co-founding Insomnia Consulting, Stacey Abrams and Lara O’Connor Hodgson started Nourish to address a personal problem. “We were at a meeting, I think for one of my campaigns,” explains Abrams, the Georgia-based lawyer and politician whose voting rights work became a focal point for the country in 2020.

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Pennylane raises $18.3 million for its accounting service Jun 09, 2021

French startup Pennylane has raised a new $18.3 million funding round (€15 million). Interestingly, this is Sequoia Capital’s first investment in France after they announced ambitious expansion plans in Europe. If you’re not familiar with Pennylane, the startup has been developing an accounting platform that improves accounting for both clients and their accountants.

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Kafene raises $14M to offer buy now, pay later to the subprime consumer Jun 09, 2021

The buy now, pay later frenzy isn’t going anywhere as more consumers seek alternatives to credit cards to fund purchases. And those purchases aren’t exclusive to luxuries such as Pelotons (ahem, Affirm) or jewelry someone might be treating themselves to online.

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Nuggs creator Simulate raises $50M Jun 08, 2021

New York-based Simulate today announced a $50 million fundraise. Led by Alexis Ohanian’s 776, the Series B brings the meat alternative’s total funding to north of $60 million and values it at $260 million.

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Astra to acquire electric in-space propulsion company Apollo Fusion Jun 08, 2021

Astra, the space launch startup with plans to go public via a SPAC merger, will acquire electric propulsion maker Apollo Fusion, the company said Monday.

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Rebranded Toyota Ventures invests $300 million in emerging tech and carbon neutrality Jun 07, 2021

Toyota AI Ventures, Toyota’s standalone venture capital fund, has dropped the “AI” and is reborn as, simply, Toyota Ventures. The fund is commemorating its new identity by investing an additional $300 million in emerging technologies and carbon neutrality via two early-stage funds: the Toyota Ventures Frontier Fund and the Toyota Ventures Climate Fund.Â

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Indonesian healthcare startup Prixa raises $3M led by MDI and TPTF Jun 07, 2021

Indonesian healthcare startup Prixa has raised $3 million led by MDI Ventures and the Trans-Pacific Technology Fund (TPTF), with participation from returning investors including Siloam Hospitals Group. This brings Prixa’s total raised to $4.5 million since it launched in 2019. Co-founder and chief executive officer James Roring M.D., told TechCrunch in an email that the […]

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Gong going gangbusters, grabs $250M Series E on $7.25B valuation Jun 04, 2021

Gong, the revenue intelligence startup, has been raising capital at a rapid pace, and today the company announced another $250 million on a $7.25 billion valuation, a number that triples its previous valuation from last summer.

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One Concern raises $45M from SOMPO to scale its disaster resilience platform across Japan Jun 04, 2021

Climate change is intensifying across the globe, and one of the most challenging cases is Japan. In addition to lying on a major fault, the archipelago is increasingly inundated from rising sea levels that make the country more prone to disasters.

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Lightyear is a new stock trading app from early Wise employees Jun 03, 2021

Meet Lightyear, a new London-based startup coming out of stealth today. The company is building a stock trading app with a focus on creating a truly commission-free app. In addition to waving account fees and trading fees, Lightyear doesn’t charge foreign exchange fees either — up to a certain point.

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Stemma launches with $4.8M seed to build managed data catalogue Jun 03, 2021

As companies increasingly rely on data to run their businesses, having accurate sources of data becomes paramount. Stemma, a new early stage startup, has come up with a solution, a managed data catalogue that acts as an organization’s source of truth.

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Kabuto releases a larger version of its smart suitcase Jun 02, 2021

Kabuto, the French startup that designs and sells smart suitcases, is releasing a new suitcase today. Called the Kabuto Trunk, this is the company’s biggest suitcase to date. Unlike smart suitcases from other brands, this isn’t just a suitcase with a battery in it.

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Ditto raises $1.5 million to help teams collaborate on copy Jun 02, 2021

Even as remote software uptake has boomed during the pandemic, certain workflows have gotten prioritized for specialized toolsets while other team members have been left piecemealing their productivity.

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Singapore-based D2C dental brand Zenyum raises $40M Series B from L Catterton, Sequoia India and other investors Jun 01, 2021

Zenyum, a startup that wants to make cosmetic dentistry more affordable, announced today it has raised a $40 million Series B. This includes $25 million from L Catterton, a private equity firm focused on consumer brands.

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June makes product analytics more accessible Jun 01, 2021

Meet June, a new startup that wants to make it easier to create analytics dashboards and generate reports even if you’re not a product analytics expert. June is built on top of your Segment data. Like many no-code startups, it uses templates and a graphical interface so that non-technical profiles can start using it.

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By working with home entrepreneurs, Jakarta-based DishServe is creating an even more asset-light version of cloud kitchens May 31, 2021

Cloud kitchens are already meant to reduce the burden of infrastructure on food and beverage brands by providing them with centralized facilities to prepare meals for delivery.

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Anthropic is the new AI research outfit from OpenAI’s Dario Amodei, and it has $124M to burn May 31, 2021

As AI has grown from a menagerie of research projects to include a handful of titanic, industry-powering models like GPT-3, there is a need for the sector to evolve — or so thinks Dario Amodei, former VP of research at OpenAI, who struck out on his own to create a new company a few months […]

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Café helps hybrid organizations schedule in-office time May 28, 2021

Meet Café, a new French startup founded by two brothers that wants to help companies switch to a hybrid remote-and-office workplace model. Café isn’t a traditional desk-booking tool. Instead, the company helps you see when people in your team are coming to the office so that you can plan when you should go to the […]

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Engine Biosciences expands its digital drug discovery pipeline with $43M round May 28, 2021

Drug discovery is a large and growing field, encompassing both ambitious startups and billion-dollar Big Pharma incumbents. Engine Biosciences is one of the former, a Singaporean outfit with an expert founding crew and a different approach to the business of finding new therapeutics, and it just raised $43 million to keep growing. Digital drug discovery […]

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Parametrix Insurance raises $17.5 million to offer cloud downtime insurance May 27, 2021

Insurtech is picking up steam in a big way, but startup Parametrix thinks there is still plenty of room left to innovate. The company, which today announced the close of a $17.5 million funding round, offers insurance policies for companies who rely on third-party cloud providers, ecommerce services, payment gateways and CRM systems. In essence, […]

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Tractive raises $35M as it expands GPS pet tracking to the US May 27, 2021

Another sizable raise for a pet (cats and dogs) tracking company this morning. Austria-based Tractive has announced a $35 million Series A, led by Guidepost Growth Equity. The round is the company’s first since 2013, when its GPS-based tracker first hit the market. Along with the funding round, the company is also announcing its official […]

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Aurora Solar aims to power the growing solar industry with a $250M round C May 26, 2021

Aurora Solar had one of those pitches that seemed obvious in retrospect. Instead of going to a house and measuring its roof manually for a solar panel installation, why not use aerial scans and imagery of the whole region?

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Call it a comeback: Turntable.fm raises $7.5M May 26, 2021

Earlier this year, Turntable.fm’s founder Billy Chasen dusted off the old site and resurrected it for the pandemic age. I know I wasn’t the only one feeling a wistful pang of nostalgia for the service during the long, dull days of sheltering in place. And while March 2020 would have been the best time for […]

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Indoor farming company Bowery raises $300M May 25, 2021

New York City-based vertical farming startup Bowery Farming this week has announced a $300 million Series C. The round, which brings its total funding north of $472 million, values the company at $2.3 billion. Fidelity Management & Research Company led the beefy round, with participation from existing investors GV (formerly Google Ventures), General Catalyst, GGV […]

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In a YC “power” play, Gridware girds $5.3M to save humanity from weather May 25, 2021

You might have thought that with more than 300 companies joining this year’s winter batch of Y Combinator, the investor interest might have thinned. Well, it’s 2021 and investors are hopping around like crazy to invest in ideas that push the boundaries in fields far flung from enterprise SaaS. Case in point today: Gridware. It’s […]

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Fireflies.ai raises $14M for its meeting transcription and automation service May 24, 2021

The Fireflies.ai project is a good reminder that not every startup project goes from idea to unicorn-status in 48 minutes.

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Mio, a social commerce startup focused on smaller cities and rural areas in Vietnam, raises $1M seed May 24, 2021

Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in Southeast Asia, but many major platforms still focus on large cities. This means people in smaller cities or rural areas need to deal with longer wait times for deliveries.

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Ex-Square execs launch Found to help the self-employed, raise $12.75M from Sequoia May 21, 2021

If you’ve ever been self-employed you know what a pain it is to keep up with the hassles of running a business. From bookkeeping to invoicing to paying taxes — it’s one big headache.

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Don’t tweet about $ASS May 21, 2021

I am not a smart man. Earlier today I tweeted about $ASS, a cryptocurrency named after a dog. In this case, Australian Shepherds. And after doing that obviously stupid thing, my Twitter feed became chock-full of ass-related imagery, memes, and $ASS coin stans breathing on me. It’s all very annoying as I run Tweetdeck on […]

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Upstream, a Miami-based professional networking platform, raises a $2.75M seed round May 20, 2021

If you’re reading this, there’s a pretty good chance you have a LinkedIn profile with your digital resume and hundreds — if not thousands — of professional connections. But how many of those people do you actually know well, and, more importantly, do you ever connect with them and meet others from their networks?

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Startup studio eFounders reaches portfolio valuation of $2 billion May 20, 2021

European startup studio eFounders has now been around for 10 years. And because a birthday sounds like a good opportunity to share some metrics, the portfolio companies have reached a valuation of $2 billion together —Â only 18 months after reaching $1 billion. eFounders says it is focused on building the future of work.

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Beta Technologies adds $368 million in Series A funding for its electric aviation ecosystem May 19, 2021

Electric aviation startup Beta Technologies closed a $368 million Series A funding round on Tuesday, with investments from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. The new capital is the second round of funding announced by the company this year, after the company raised $143 million in private capital in March.

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Finary wants to create the wealth management dashboard for the next generation May 19, 2021

Meet Finary, a new French startup that wants to change how you manage your savings, investments, mortgage, real estate assets and cryptocurrencies. The company lets you aggregate all your accounts across various banks and financial institutions so that you can track your wealth comprehensively over time.

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Cortex snags $2.25M seed to build services catalog for development teams May 18, 2021

One thing is clear in the cloud native world. Developers use a lot of services to create applications, and while service meshes define how these services work together, just getting a grip on the services a team uses is usually tracked manually in spreadsheets. That’s where Cortex, a new startup, comes in.

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Fresh out of YC, Houm raises $8M to improve the home rental and sales market in LatAm May 18, 2021

As a longtime real estate developer based in Chile, Benjamin Labra was able to spot gaps in the buying and renting markets in Latin America. To meet demands, he started Houm, an all-in-one platform that helps homeowners rent and sell their properties in the region.

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Cisco strikes again grabbing threat assessment tool Kenna Security as third acquisition this week May 17, 2021

Cisco has been busy on the acquisition front this week, and today the company announced it was buying threat assessment platform Kenna Security, the third company it has purchased this week. The two companies did not disclose the purchase price. With Kenna, Cisco gets a startup that uses machine learning to sort through the massive […]

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SpecTrust raises millions to fight cybercrime with its no-code platform May 17, 2021

Risk defense startup SpecTrust is emerging from stealth today with a $4.3 million seed raise and a public launch. Cyber Mentor Fund led the round, which also included participation from Rally Ventures, SignalFire, Dreamit Ventures and Legion Capital. SpecTrust aims to “fix the economics of fighting fraud” with a no-code platform that it says cuts […]

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Alba Orbital’s mission to image the Earth every 15 minutes brings in $3.4M seed round May 14, 2021

Orbital imagery is in demand, and if you think having daily images of everywhere on Earth is going to be enough in a few years, you need a lesson in ambition. Alba Orbital is here to provide it with its intention to provide Earth observation at intervals of 15 minutes rather than hours or days […]

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BluBracket nabs $12M Series A to expand source code security platform May 14, 2021

BluBracket, an early stage startup that focuses on keeping source code repositories secure, even in distributed environments, announced a $12 million Series A today. Evolution Equity Partners led the round with help from existing investors Unusual Ventures, Point72 Ventures, SignalFire and Firebolt Ventures.

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Legionfarm, pairing pro gamers with amateurs, raises $6 million Series A May 13, 2021

Legionfarm, the gaming platform that lets gamers play with pro players in their favorite games, has today announced the close of a $6 million Series A round. Investors in the round include SVB, Y Combinator, Scrum VC, Kevin Lin, Altair Capital, Ankur Nagpal and more. Legionfarm launched out of Y Combinator at the beginning of […]

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Jamf snags zero trust security startup Wandera for $400M May 13, 2021

Jamf, the enterprise Apple device management company, announced that it was acquiring Wandera, a zero trust security startup, for $400 million at the market close today. Today’s purchase is the largest in the company’s history.

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Amplitude acquires Iteratively May 12, 2021

Amplitude, the well-funded product intelligence startup that helps businesses use their data to predict which features will drive the best business outcomes for them, today announced that it has acquired Iteratively, a startup that helps businesses build trustworthy data pipelines.

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DataRobot expands platform and announces Zepl acquisition May 12, 2021

DataRobot, the Boston-based automated machine learning startup, had a bushel of announcements this morning as it expanded its platform to give technical and non-technical users alike something new. It also announced it has acquired Zepl, giving it an advanced development environment where data scientists can bring their own code to DataRobot. The two companies did […]

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Indy VC firm Sixty8 Capital launches $20M fund aimed at underrepresented founders May 11, 2021

It is clear that Black, women, Latinx and LGBTQ+ startup founders face an uphill battle when it comes to getting a share of the VC investment pie in Silicon Valley. Perhaps that’s why Sixty8 Capital, a firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana, smack dab in the middle of the country, has chosen to launch a new […]

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Serial fiction app Radish acquired by Kakao Entertainment for $440M May 11, 2021

Serialized fiction app Radish has been acquired by Kakao Entertainment in a transaction valued at $440 million. Kakao Entertainment is owned by Kakao, the South Korean internet giant whose services include its eponymous messaging platform. Radish founder Seungyoon Lee will hold onto his role as its chief executive officer, while also becoming Kakao Entertainment’s global […]

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Tiger Global is betting that more schools are going to share future student earnings May 10, 2021

Income-share agreements, or ISAs, are a way to bring flexibility to the often steep financial costs of higher education. The financial model allows a student to learn at zero upfront cost, and then pay any costs through a percentage of future income over time.

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BigBrain aims to bring live mobile trivia back to glory May 10, 2021

If you ask Nik Bonaddio why he wanted to build a new mobile trivia app, his answer is simple. “In my life, I’ve got very few true passions: I love trivia and I love sports,” Bonaddio told me. “I’ve already started a sports company, so I’ve got to start a trivia company.” He isn’t kidding […]

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Metafy adds $5.5M to its seed round as the market for games coaching grows May 07, 2021

This morning Metafy, a distributed startup building a marketplace to match gamers with instructors, announced that it has closed an additional $5.5 million to its $3.15 million seed round. Call it a seed-2, seed-extension or merely a baby Series A; Forerunner Ventures, DCM and Seven Seven Six led the round as a trio. Metafy’s model […]

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How 4 New Jersey pools turned into a startup that just raised $10M May 06, 2021

As the oldest of 12 children, Bunim Laskin spent much of his teen years looking for ways to help keep his siblings entertained. Noticing that a neighbor’s pool was often empty, Laskin reached out to ask if his family could use her pool.

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Timescale grabs $40M Series B as it goes all in on cloud version of time series database May 05, 2021

Timescale, makers of the open source TimescaleDB time series database, announced a $40 million Series B financing round today. The investment comes just over two years after it got a $15 million Series A. Redpoint Ventures led today’s round with help from existing investors Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Icon Ventures and Two Sigma Ventures. The […]

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Fitness ring maker Oura raises $100M May 05, 2021

It’s been a wild couple of years for Oura. Last year, in particular, proved to be a major driver for the wearable fitness manufacturer. With the pandemic bringing professional sports to a screeching halt in 2020, a number of major leagues have adopted the ring, including the NBA, WNBA, UFC and NASCAR.

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alt.bank, Brazil’s latest fintech targeting the unbanked, raises $5.5M May 04, 2021

It looks like everyone and their mother is trying to reinvent the Brazilian banking system. Earlier this year we wrote about Nubank’s $400 million Series G, last month there was the PicPay IPO filingÂ and today, alt.bank, a Brazilian neobank, announced a $5.5 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures (USV).

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Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup with plans to become a global F&B company, closes $13M Series A May 04, 2021

Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup that wants to become a global food and beverage company, has raised a $13 million Series A. The round was led by returning investor Alpha JWC Ventures, and included participation from Atlas Pacific Capital, Salt Ventures and Heyokha Brothers.

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Y Combinator-backed Uiflow wants to accelerate no-code enterprise app creation May 03, 2021

TechCrunch recently caught up with recent Y Combinator graduate Uiflow, a startup that is building a no-code enterprise app creation service. If you are thinkingÂ wait, don’t a number of companies already do that?, the answer is yes.

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Cloud gaming service Shadow taken over by OVHcloud founder May 03, 2021

Blade, the French startup behind cloud gaming service Shadow, has been acquired by Octave Klaba’s fund following a commercial court order. Klaba is better known as the founder of OVHcloud, a French cloud hosting company.

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Firstbase raises $13M to make remote work suck less Apr 30, 2021

The chance that I am ever willing to commute on a regular basis again in the future is zero. It’s too inefficient. And while workers and employers are somewhat split on where they stand on the question of remote toil, the COVID-19 pandemic has permanently shaken up the working world; we’re not going back to […]

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Splitwise raises $20M Series A to help everyone in the world divvy expenses Apr 29, 2021

This morning Splitwise, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup announced that it has closed a $20 million Series A. The company builds consumer fintech software that helps users split expenses. But Splitwise isn’t a Venmo or Paytm clone.

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Botpress nabs $15M Series A to help developers build conversational apps Apr 29, 2021

Botpress, a Montreal-based early stage startup, wants to make it easier for developers to build conversational-based apps, meaning humans interact with the app by speaking instead of typing, clicking or tapping. Today it announced an $15 million Series A from Decibel and Inovia Capital.

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Ivorian startup Afrikrea partners with DHL and Visa to launch SaaS e-commerce platform ANKA Apr 28, 2021

In 2016, Ivorian e-commerce startup Afrikrea started as a marketplace for African-based and inspired clothing, accessories, arts, and crafts. Over the past five years, Afrikrea has served more than 7,000 sellers from 47 African countries and buyers from 170 countries.

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Canada’s newest unicorn: Clio raises $110M at a $1.6B valuation for legal tech Apr 28, 2021

Clio, a software company that helps law practices run more efficiently with its cloud-based technology, announced Tuesday it has raised a $110 million Series E round co-led by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. and OMERS Growth Equity. The round propels the Vancouver, British Columbia-based company to unicorn status, valuing it at $1.6 billion. Clio last […]

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Tellius announces $8M Series A to build ML-fueled business data query tool Apr 27, 2021

Getting actionable business information into the hands of users who need it has always been a challenge. If you have to wait for experts to help you find the answers, chances are you’re going to be too late.

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Dating app S’More bets on celebrity content with S’More TV Apr 27, 2021

Dating startup S’More has launched a new feature called S’More TV, which CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei said could give users new ways to talk to each other. It also bringing the startup closer to his goal of becoming not just a dating app, but “a lifestyle brand.” The videos on S’More TV may be familiar to […]

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Mighty Networks raises $50M to build a creator economy for the masses Apr 26, 2021

Mighty Networks, a platform designed to give creators and brands a dedicated place to start and grow communities, has closed on $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Owl Ventures.

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Introvoke raises $2.7M to power online events that can be embedded anywhere Apr 26, 2021

While there’s been plenty of attention and money lavished on virtual event platforms over the past year, Introvoke co-founder and CEO Oana Manolache predicted that we’re only at the beginning of a “third wave of digital transformation.” In her framing, the first wave came at the beginning of the pandemic, when everyone was using video […]

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Hyundai invests in teleoperations startup Ottopia as part of $9M round Apr 23, 2021

After spending much of his career in mission-critical environments, including the Israeli Air Force, Israeli Intelligence and leading development of a cybersecurity product at Microsoft, Amit Rosenzweig turned his attention to autonomous vehicles.

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Queenly raises $2.3M for its dress marketplace Apr 23, 2021

One of our favorite companies from the most recently Y Combinator batch has closed a seed round. This morning Quenly announced that it has closed a $2.262 million round, following its $800,000 pre-seed raise. TechCrunch covered the company in February, noting that the company was building something akin to the StockX for women’s formal wear. […]

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MasterClass co-founder’s Outlier.org raises $30M for affordable, virtual college courses Apr 22, 2021

Outlier.org — a startup offering intro-level college courses online and at a relatively affordable price — is announcing that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding.

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Figma introduces a whiteboard tool called FigJam Apr 22, 2021

Figma spent years in stealth before launching its web-based collaborative design tool. Since coming into the light, the company has been iterating quickly. Today, Figma launches its biggest product update to date. Meet FigJam, Figma’s new whiteboarding tool.

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Tom Brady and Salesforce Ventures pour millions into Class, a Zoom-friendly edtech startup Apr 21, 2021

Class, an edtech startup that integrates exclusively with Zoom to make remote teaching more elegant, has raised $12.25 million in new financing. The round brings Salesforce Ventures, Sound Ventures and Super Bowl champion Tom Brady onto its capital table.

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Druva raises $147M at a valuation north of $2B as the cloud rush continues Apr 21, 2021

Druva, a software company that sells cloud data backup services, announced today that it has closed a $147 million round of capital. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a group that manages Quebec’s pension fund, led the round, which also saw participation from Neuberger Berman.

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After a decade of bootstrapping, Octopus Deploy raises $172.5M from Insight Partners Apr 20, 2021

Founded almost a decade ago, Octopus Deploy has grown to serve 25,000 organizations, including Microsoft, NASA, Xero, Disney and Stack Overflow, through bootstrapping. Today the company announced its first outside investment.

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Zoom launches $100M Zoom Apps investment fund Apr 20, 2021

When Zoom launched Zoom Apps and the Marketplace as a place to sell them last year, it was a big signal that the company wanted to be more than just a popular video conferencing application. It wanted to be a platform, which developers could use to build applications on top of Zoom.

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Squarespace files for a direct listing on the NYSE Apr 19, 2021

Today Squarespace, a well-known software-and-hosting provider for SMB websites, released its S-1 filing. The company is pursuing a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE. It will trade under the ticker symbol “SQSP.”

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Level raises $27M from Khosla, Lightspeed ‘to rebuild insurance from the ground up’ Apr 19, 2021

Level, a startup that aims to give companies a more flexible way to offer benefits to employees, has raised $27 million in a Series A funding round led by Khosla Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Operator Collective and leading angels also participated in the financing, along with previous backers First Round Capital and Homebrew. The […]

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Sunday raises $24 million seed round to build a fast restaurant checkout flow Apr 16, 2021

Meet Sunday, a new startup that is going to attract some headlines as it has raised a $24 million seed round at a $140 million post-money valuation. That’s a lot of money for a company that started just a few months ago but that’s because Sunday wants to move quickly.

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Feels is a new dating app with profiles that look more personal Apr 16, 2021

Meet Feels, a new French startup that wants to change how dating apps work. According to the company, scrolling through photos and reading descriptions tend to be a boring experience. Feels want to improve profiles so that navigating the app feels more like watching TikTok videos or browsing stories.

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Challenger bank N26 to offer insurance products Apr 15, 2021

Fintech startup N26 is launching N26 Insurance as it plans to offer insurance products that you can access from the company’s mobile app and website. The first insurance product is a smartphone insurance plan for German customers. But the startup doesn’t plan to stop there.

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Zeta in talks with SoftBank to raise at over $1 billion valuation Apr 15, 2021

Banking tech startup Zeta is inching closer to the much sought-after unicorn status as it talks to investors to finalize a new round,Â sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 is in talks to lead a ~$250 million Series D round in the five-year-old startup, the sources said.

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PlexTrac raises $10M Series A round for its collaboration-centric security platform Apr 14, 2021

PlexTrac, a Boise, ID-based security service that aims to provide a unified workflow automation platform for red and blue teams, today announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A funding round led by Noro-Moseley Partners and Madrona Venture Group. StageDot0 ventures also participated in this round, which the company plans to use to […]

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Willo launches its tooth-brushing robot for kids Apr 14, 2021

Are you 100% sure that your children are brushing their teeth properly? A New York-based startup called Willo has been working for several years on a device that should transform the tooth-brushing experience for children. Willo isn’t a new toothbrush — electric or not.

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Bloomscape’s Justin Mast explains how he built a thriving garden startup in Detroit Apr 13, 2021

Justin Mast has a simple reason for starting his plant retail startup Bloomscape in Detroit. “This is home,” he told me. “This is where I have a really strong network and I knew I’d be able to find a lot of support.” =

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When wildfires rage close, Perimeter wants to tell you where to go Apr 13, 2021

Out the window, a fire is raging — and it’s moving ever closer. Confusion. Fear. A run for the car. Roads open and then suddenly closed by authorities. Traffic jams. A fire break that stalls the flames and then suddenly the flames jump, changing direction.

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Wonder Dynamics raises $2.5M seed to equip indie filmmakers with AI-powered VFX Apr 12, 2021

Practically every film production these days needs some kind of visual effects work, but independent creators often lack the cash or expertise to get that top-shelf CG.

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Elior acquires food delivery startup Nestor Apr 12, 2021

Corporate catering company Elior has acquired French startup Nestor for an undisclosed amount. Nestor originally started with a simple idea to differentiate itself from food delivery giants, such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats and others. Every day, the startup offered a single menu for lunch.

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Vybe raises $2.9 million for its challenger bank for teens Apr 09, 2021

French startup Vybe has raised a $2.9 million funding round (€2.4 million) to build a challenger bank for teens. The company is currently testing its product with a soft launch. Users get a Mastercard payment card paired with an e-wallet.

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Realworld raises $3.4M to help Gen Z navigate adulthood Apr 09, 2021

Realworld has a big vision — founder and CEO Genevieve Ryan Bellaire told me her goal is “simplifying adulthood.” And the New York startup has raised $3.4 million in seed funding to make it happen. Apparently that’s something Ballaire struggled with herself in her early twenties. Despite being a lawyer with an MBA, she said […]

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Spend management startup Ramp confirms $115M raise at a $1.6B valuation Apr 08, 2021

This morning, Ramp, which provides corporate cards and spend management software, announced that it has closed $115 million across two investments, the latter of which valued the company at $1.6 billion. The Information first reported that Ramp was raising new capital.

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Authentic Artists is building virtual, AI-powered musicians Apr 08, 2021

Chris McGarry, who previously led music integration at Facebook’s Oculus, is taking a new approach to bringing music into the virtual world with his startup Authentic Artists. McGarry pointed to virtual celebrities like Lil Miquela and virtual concerts like Travis Scott’s giant event in Fortnite as setting the stage for Authentic Artists. In a sense, […]

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Plaid raises $425M Series D from Altimeter as it charts a post-Visa future Apr 07, 2021

Plaid, a unicorn that helps connect consumers’ bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $425 million Series D, it announced this morning. TechCrunch understands that the new capital infusion, led by Altimeter Capital, values the company at around $13.4 billion.

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Aporia raises $5M for its AI observability platform Apr 07, 2021

Machine learning (ML) models are only as good as the data you feed them. That’s true during training, but also once a model is put in production.

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Hipmunk’s founders launch Flight Penguin to bring back Hipmunk-style flight search Apr 06, 2021

Hipmunk’s founders are building a successor to their now-defunct flight search service. The startup was acquired by SAP-owned travel and expense platform Concur in 2016, and its CEO Adam Goldstein departed in 2018.

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ConductorOne raises $5M in seed round led by Accel to automate your access requests Apr 06, 2021

Over the course of their careers, Alex Bovee and Paul Querna realized that while the use of SaaS apps and cloud infrastructure was exploding, the process to give employees permission to use them was not keeping up. The pair led Zero Trust strategies and products at Okta, and could see the problem firsthand. For the […]

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Want to take a road trip with Kevin Costner? Investors are betting you might Apr 05, 2021

Woody Sears has long been interested in storytelling. After spending several years in sales after nabbing an MBA from Pepperdine — and following the debut in 2007 of the first iPhone — he founded a storytelling app called Zuuka that built up a library of narrated and illustrated kids’ books for the iPhone and iPad.

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Uruguayan payments startup dLocal quadruples valuation to $5B with $150M raise Apr 05, 2021

Cross-border payments startup dLocal has raised $150 million at a $5 billion valuation, less than seven months after securing $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. This means that the five-year-old Uruguayan company has effectively quadrupled its valuation in a matter of months.

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Compass CEO hails IPO as a fundraising event amid ‘challenging’ market Apr 02, 2021

While several tech companies are opting to delay their IPOsÂ in the face of less-than-enthusiastic market demand for their shares, real estate tech company Compass forged ahead and went public today.

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mmhmm introduces usage-based enterprise accounts and a beta for Windows Apr 02, 2021

mmhmm, the software that allows folks to personalize their appearance on video chat, has today announced that its introducing usage-based enterprise accounts. In a conversation with TechCrunch, founder and CEO Phil Libin said this is a natural evolution, remarking that mmhmm has had hundreds of registrations from users all at the same company. “It was […]

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Leeway is a contract workflow service for your legal team Apr 01, 2021

Meet Leeway, a French startup that is building an end-to-end software-as-a-service solution for your contracts. Leeway lets you centralize all your contracts in a single repository, go through multiple negotiation steps and trigger a DocuSign event for the signature.

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Hex lands $5.5M seed to help data scientists share data across the company Apr 01, 2021

As companies embrace the use of data, hiring more data scientists, a roadblock persists around sharing that data. It requires too much copying and pasting and manual work. Hex, a new startup, wants to change that by providing a way to dispense data across the company in a streamlined and elegant way.

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Otrium raises $120 million for its end-of-season fashion marketplace Mar 31, 2021

Otrium has raised a $120 million round just a year after raising its $26 million Series B round. BOND and returning investor Index Ventures are leading the round. Existing investor Eight Roads Ventures is also participating. The concept behind Otrium is quite simple.

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Jeff Bezos’ investment fund is backing a startup hoping to be the AWS for SMB accounting Mar 31, 2021

One of the biggest pain points for startups and small businesses is keeping up with back office tasks such as bookkeeping and managing taxes. QuickBooks, it seems, just doesn’t always cut it.

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Knock is the latest proptech said to be eyeing the public markets Mar 30, 2021

Another proptech is considering raising capital through the public arena. Knock confirmed Monday that it is considering going public, although CEO Sean Black did not specify whether the company would do so via a traditional IPO, SPAC merger or direct listing.

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Bunch adds $1M to its seed round to flesh out its leadership learning app Mar 30, 2021

This morning Bunch announced that it has closed a total of $4.4 million in seed capital, including a new $1 million infusion this week.

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Singular is a new Paris-based VC firm with $265 million Mar 29, 2021

Meet Singular, a new VC firm based in Paris that just finished raising its initial fund. The firm was founded by two former Alven partners — Raffi Kamber and Jérémy Uzan. They have some ambitious goals and an interesting investment model that could help them remain involved even during late-stage rounds.

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Headless commerce startup Swell raises $3.4M Mar 29, 2021

While new headless commerce platforms are emerging all the time, Swell CEO Eric Ingram told me that it remains “really hard to do something new in e-commerce.” Specifically, he told me that most headless platforms (which offer back-end infrastructure separate from the front-end shopping experience) allow businesses to build a faster shopping experience.

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R/GA Ventures announces its new Coalition Venture Studios to support Black founders Mar 26, 2021

Design and marketing consultancy R/GA is expanding its Venture Studios program with the launch of a new Coalition Venture Studio focused specifically on supporting Black-led and Black-owned startups. The initiative is led by R/GA Entrepreneur in Residence Davyeon Ross, a Black entrepreneur who founded sports analytics company ShotTracker.

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CoScreen launches its screen-sharing product, announces $4.6M in fundraising Mar 26, 2021

This morning CoScreen, a startup that helps teams share screens and collaborate in real-time, formally launched its product to market. It also disclosed that it has raised $4.6 million to date. Unusual Ventures led its Seed round. Till Pieper, CoScreen’s co-founder and CEO told TechCrunch in an interview that it raised the bulk of its […]

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Pie Insurance raises $118M for data-driven workers’ comp coverage Mar 25, 2021

Pie Insurance, a startup offering workers’ compensation insurance to small businesses, announced this morning that it has closed on $118 million in a Series C round of funding. Allianz X — investment arm of German financial services giant Allianz — and Acrew Capital co-led the round.

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Bevy raises $40M Series C with 20% coming from Black investors Mar 25, 2021

You might expect that a startup that makes community building software would be thriving during a pandemic when it’s so difficult for us to be together.

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Neighbor raises $53M for self-storage marketplace after 5x YoY revenue growth Mar 24, 2021

Neighbor, which operates a self-storage marketplace, announced Wednesday that it has raised $53 million in a Series B round of funding. Fifth Wall led the financing, which notably also included participation from returning backer Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and new investors DoorDash CEO Tony Xu and StockX CEO Scott Cutler.

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Y Combinator’s new batch features its largest group of Indian startups Mar 24, 2021

Y Combinator’s latest batch — W21 — features 350 startups from 41 nations. 50% of the firms, the highest percentage to date, in the new batch are based outside of the United States. India is the second largest demographic represented in the new batch.

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Social shopping-focused Chums announces $3.5M raise ahead of YC Demo Day Mar 23, 2021

With Y Combinator Demo Day kicking off tomorrow morning, startups in the current batch are hurrying to make a little news before they show off their recent growth to investors. The list includes Runway, Mono, Pangea and Flux. Add Chums to the mix.

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Do we need so many virtual HQ platforms? Mar 23, 2021

Teamflow, founded by ex-Uber manager Flo Crivello, has raised an $11 million Series A just three months after raising a $3.9 million seed for its virtual HQ platform. The latest round in the startup was led by Battery Ventures, with Menlo Ventures leading its previous financing event.

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Camunda snares $98M Series B as process automation continues to flourish Mar 22, 2021

It’s clear that automated workflow tooling has become increasingly important for companies. Perhaps that explains why Camunda, a Berlin startup that makes open source process automation software, announced an €82 million Series B today. That translates into approximately $98 million U.S. Insight Partners led the round with help from A round investor Highland Europe.

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Vega raises $5M to give anyone the ability to launch a derivatives market Mar 22, 2021

Vega, a startup that is building a decentralized protocol for creating and trading on derivatives markets, has raised $5 million in funding. Arrington Capital and Cumberland DRW co-led the round, which also included participation from Coinbase Ventures, ParaFi Capital, Signum Capital, CMT Digital, CMS Holdings, Three Commas and a slew of others.

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Backed by YC, Vendease is building Amazon Prime for restaurants in Africa Mar 19, 2021

For small and mid-sized restaurants in Nigeria and most of Africa, food procurement can be a complex process to manage. The system is such that a business can easily run out of money or have considerable savings. Most restaurants don’t have access to deal directly with farms to get better deals because they lack the […]

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Cohere raises $3.1 million for its remote control solution for web apps Mar 19, 2021

Existing remote desktop solutions like LogMeIn and TeamViewer can be complicated to set up and use, and can feel dated. A new startup called Cohere, now backed by $3.1 million in seed funding, aims to improve on the remote desktop and screen-sharing experience.

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This new startup is weeding out the weed-out classes, instead of students Mar 18, 2021

Five years ago, entrepreneur Dan Sommer bet big on the adult learning space when he was building out Trilogy Education, an online and in-person bootcamp in collaboration with universities to train workforces on the latest tech skills.

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Oso announces $8.2M Series A to simplify authorization for developers Mar 18, 2021

When we think about getting access to an application, we tend to focus on the authentication side — granting or denying people (or devices) entry. But there is another piece to this, and that’s authorization.

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Docker nabs $23M Series B as as new developer focus takes shape Mar 17, 2021

It was easy to wonder what would become of Docker after it sold its enterprise business in 2019, but it regrouped last year as a cloud native container company focused on developers, and the new approach appears to be bearing fruit. Today, the company announced a $23 million Series B investment.

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Noogata raises $12M seed round for its no-code enterprise AI platform Mar 17, 2021

Noogata, a startup that offers a no-code AI solution for enterprises, today announced that it has raised a $12 million seed round led by Team8, with participation from Skylake Capital.

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Mexican challenger bank Fondeadora adds $14 million to its Series B Mar 16, 2021

Fondeadora, a fintech startup based in Mexico City and building a challenger bank, has extended its Series A funding round. I covered the company’s original round back in August 2020.

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Swell launches its app for asynchronous voice conversations Mar 16, 2021

You might think that Clubhouse is the final word on audio-centric social networks, but a San Francisco startup called Swell is launching its own iOS and Android app focused on voice conversations. The big difference: While conversations on Clubhouse all happen in real-time — meaning that you’ve got to listen live or miss it all […]

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Disruptel raises $1.1M to make smart TVs smarter Mar 15, 2021

St. Louis-based voice assistant startup Disruptel is announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding. The money comes from an impressive group of investors who seem well-aligned with what the startup is aiming to do — namely, build a voice assistant that can provide detailed information about what’s happening on your TV screen. […]

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Arist adds $2M to its seed round to grow its SMS-based training service Mar 15, 2021

This morning Arist, a startup that sells software allowing other organizations to offer SMS-based training to staff, announced that it has extended its seed round to $3.9 million after adding $2 million to its prior raise.

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Regenerative agriculture is the next great ally in fight against climate change Mar 12, 2021

Backed by innovations in science, big data, financing and farmer networking, investing in regenerative agriculture promises to slash farming’s carbon footprint while rewarding farmers for their stewardship.

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Tackle nabs $35M Series B to help companies navigate cloud marketplaces Mar 12, 2021

Each of the big three cloud vendors — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — has a marketplace where software vendors can sell their wares. It seems like an easy enough proposition to throw your software up there and be done with it, but it turns out that it’s not quite that simple.

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M1 Finance raises another rapid-fire round after scaling its AUM to more than $3.5B Mar 11, 2021

Months after raising a Series C worth $45 million, Chicago-based M1 Finance announced a new round of capital today. A Series D, the new $75 million investment was led by Coatue, with two prior investors — Left Lane Capital and Clocktower Technology Ventures — also taking part. The new financing comes after M1 raised twice […]

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Chatbot startup Heyday raises $5.1M Mar 11, 2021

Montreal-based Heyday announced today that it has raised $6.5 million Canadian ($5.1 million in US dollars) in additional seed funding.

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Fleex lets you allocate a monthly budget for work from home equipment Mar 10, 2021

Meet Fleex, a French startup that was formally named Flexlab. The company wants to make it easier to give some cash to your employees so that they can spend it on a desk, an external monitor, some computer peripherals, a nice chair, etc. Essentially, Fleex wants to make it easier to turn remote work into […]

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Cube raises $10M more to help companies plan their financial future Mar 10, 2021

This morning Cube, a startup that builds FP&A software for the mid-market, announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A. The company previously raised a $5 million seed round that TechCrunch covered last August. Mayfield led its Series A, which saw participation from Operator Collective and Bonfire Ventures. FP&A is probably not an […]

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Eye surgery robotics startup ForSight raises $10M Mar 09, 2021

Israel-based ForSight Robotics announced today that it has raised $10 million for what it has deemed a “mega-seed round.” Led by Eclipse Ventures and Mithril Capital, the round will go toward expanding the company’s headcount and global reach, as it looks to bring its offerings to international markets.

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Vendr raises huge $60M Series A as its SaaS-purchasing service scales Mar 09, 2021

This morning Vendr announced a $60 million Series A round, a huge funding event led by Tiger Global, with participation from Y Combinator, Sound Ventures, Craft Ventures, F-Prime Capital, and Garage Capital.

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Swiss maker of meat alternatives Planted will expand and diversify with $18M Series A Mar 08, 2021

Planted, a startup pursuing a unique method of creating a vegetarian chicken alternative, has raised an $18M (CHF 17M) Series A to expand its product offerings and international footprint. With new kebabs and pulled-style faux meats available and steak-like cuts in the (literal) pipeline, Planted has begun to set its sights outside central Europe. The […]

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Dan Siroker’s new startup Scribe automates Zoom note-taking Mar 08, 2021

Optimizely co-founder Dan Siroker said the idea for his new startup Scribe goes back to a couple of personal experiences — and although Scribe’s first product is focused on Zoom, those experiences weren’t Zoom-related at all.

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Revolut lets customers switch to Revolut Bank in 10 additional countries Mar 05, 2021

Fintech startup Revolut has its own banking license in the European Union since late 2018. It lets the company offer some additional financial services without partnering with third-party companies. And the company is going to let customers switch to Revolut Bank in 10 additional countries.

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Deliverr scores $170M to bring fast delivery to every e-commerce vendor Mar 05, 2021

At a time when e-commerce is exploding due in large part to the pandemic, a business that helps any online merchant ship goods to a consumer in one or two days is going to be in demand. Deliverr is a startup that fits that bill, and today the company announced a $170 million financing round. […]

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Hopin confirms $400M raise at $5.65B valuation Mar 04, 2021

This morning Hopin, a virtual events platform and video-focused software service, announced that it has closed a $400 million Series C. The new capital values Hopin at $5.65 billion. Both numbers match prior TechCrunch reporting that the company was targeting a $400 million raise at a valuation of between $5 billion and $6 billion. Andreessen […]

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Yugabyte announces $48M Series C as cloud native database makes enterprise push Mar 04, 2021

As demand for cloud native applications is growing, Yugabyte, makers of the cloud native, open source YugabyteDB database are seeing a corresponding rise in demand for their products, especially with large enterprise customers.

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Indonesian supply chain startup Advotics raises $2.75M led by East Ventures Mar 03, 2021

The rapid growth of e-commerce in Indonesia, especially during the pandemic, is placing increasing demands on its supply chain infrastructure. But the country’s logistics industry is highly fragmented, with companies usually relying on multiple providers for one shipment, and many warehouses are still concentrated around major cities.

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Cornea eyes in on fighting wildfires using better data Mar 03, 2021

It’s not yet fire season thankfully, which affords some breathing room for firefighters and emergency responders to begin planning out how to confront the increasingly complex and unwieldy task of preventing and responding to fires in the American West.

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Coupang may raise up to $3.6 billion in its IPO, at a potential valuation of $51 billion Mar 02, 2021

According to an amended S-1 filing, South Korean e-commerce leader Coupang expects to price its initial public offering between $27 to $30 per share, potentially raising up to $3.6 billion.

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Murmur, still in private beta, wants to help startups make private work agreements public Mar 02, 2021

As building in public continues to gain popularity with early-stage startup founders, Murmur, coming out of stealth today, wants to leverage that natural transparency to a louder frequency. Founded by Aaron Dignan, Murmur helps startups create work agreements based on the policies of other startups.

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Rocket Lab debuts plans for a new, larger, reusable rocket for launching satellite constellations Mar 01, 2021

Because news of its SPAC-fueled public market debut wasn’t enough, Rocket Lab also unveiled a new class of rocket it has in development on Monday.

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Atlassian is acquiring Chartio to bring data visualization to the platform Mar 01, 2021

The Atlassian platform is chock full of data about how a company operates and communicates. Atlassian launched a machine learning layer, which relies on data on the platform with the addition of Atlassian Smarts last fall.

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Aquarium scores $2.6M seed to refine machine learning model data Feb 26, 2021

Aquarium, a startup from two former Cruise employees, wants to help companies refine their machine learning model data more easily and move the models into production faster. Today the company announced a $2.6 million seed led by Sequoia with participation from Y Combinator and a bunch of angel investors including Cruise co-founders Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan.

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MealMe raises $900,000 for its food search engine Feb 26, 2021

This morning MealMe.ai, a food search engine, announced that it has closed a $900,000 pre-seed round. Palm Drive Capital led the round, with participation from Slow Ventures and CP Ventures. TechCrunch first became familiar with MealMe when it presented as part of the Techstars Atlanta demo day last October, mentioning it in a roundup of […]

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Maze raises another $15 million for its user testing platform Feb 25, 2021

Maze has closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Emergence Capital. The company lets you run user tests at scale so that you can get feedback before rolling out a design update or test copy. When you have a lot of users, you don’t want to roll out some changes before testing […]

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Gamified emergency prep startup Harbor inks ADT partnership Feb 25, 2021

Harbor, an app that gamifies emergency preparedness, has today announced the launch of a premium tier that includes features like an emergency button called HarborHELP that it has built in partnership with home-security company ADT. The premium subscription also includes a family plan, which lets paying users add up to 12 other users to the […]

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The current narrative explaining why tech stocks are getting hammered Feb 24, 2021

This morning the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index is off 2.34% after falling yesterday. Shares of Tesla are off more than 6% today, now mired in a bear-market correction after reaching new all-time highs earlier this year. Apple stock is worth $122.02 per share, down from over its recent highs of more than $145. After a […]

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Archer Aviation aims to launch network of urban air taxis in Los Angeles by 2024 Feb 24, 2021

Archer Aviation, the electric aircraft startup that recently announced a deal to go public via a merger with a blank-check company, plans to launch a network of its urban air taxis in Los Angeles by 2024. The announcement comes two months after the formation of the Urban Air Mobility Partnership, a one-year initiative between Los […]

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ErudiFi raises $5 million Series A to give students in Southeast Asia more education financing options Feb 23, 2021

Based in Singapore, ErudiFi wants to help more students in Southeast Asia stay in school by giving them affordable financing options. The startup announced today it has raised a $5 million Series A, co-led by Monk’s Hill Ventures and Qualgro. ErudiFi currently works with more than 50 universities and vocational schools in Indonesia and the […]

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Creatio raises $68M as the low-code space keeps attracting huge checks Feb 23, 2021

This morning Creatio, a Boston-based software company, announced that it has raised $68 million. Volition Capital, a growth-equity fund, led the round. The deal was a minority investment in the startup. The deal is notable not merely thanks to its sheer size, but because up until today Creatio had bootstrapped. That’s according to founder and […]

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Indonesian investment platform FUNDtastic lands $7.7 million Series A Feb 22, 2021

Despite the market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, retail investing is increasing in Indonesia, especially among people aged 18 to 30. Today, investment platform FUNDtastic announced it has raised a $7.7 million Series A to tap into that demand, with plans to launch new products for retail investors, reports DealStreetAsia. The round was led by […]

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AccountsIQ scores €5.8M for its financial management software for multi-entity SMEs Feb 22, 2021

AccountsIQ, a financial management software (FMS) startup founded by a team of chartered accountants (when accountants want to be entrepreneurs, you know startups are a thing), has raised €5.8 million in funding. Backing the Dublin-based company, which targets mid-sized businesses that operate multi-entities, is Finch Capital, the fintech focussed VC that recently outed its third […]

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Torii announces $10M Series A to automate SaaS management Feb 19, 2021

Today, that software is offered as a cloud service should be pretty much considered a given. Certainly any modern tooling is going to be SaaS, and as companies and employees add services, it becomes a management nightmare. Enter Torii, an early stage startup that wants to make it easier to manage SaaS bloat. Today, the […]

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Robinhood goes to Congress Feb 19, 2021

Update: There’s an entire second session of this? My lord. Today the House Financial Services Committee dragged the CEO of Reddit, a Cato wonk, social media icon DeepFuckingValue, the CEO of Citadel Kenneth Griffin, a hedgefund bro who got whomped by DeepFuckingValue, and the CEO of Robinhood Vlad Tenev, who got womped when individual investors […]

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Locus Robotics has raised a $150M Series E Feb 18, 2021

Massachusetts-based Locus Robotics today announced a $150 million Series E. The round, led by Tiger Global Management and Bond, brings the firm’s total to around $250 to date, and values the robotics company at $1 billion. Locus is notable for a more modular and flexible solution for automating warehouses than many of its competitors (see: […]

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Ally.io rasies $50M Series C as the OKR software market stays explosive Feb 18, 2021

This morning Ally.io, a software startup with a focus on the OKR (objectives and key results, in case you’ve somehow avoided being exposed) goal-setting technique, announced that it has closed $50 million in new capital. The Series C round was led by Green Oaks Capital, Madrona Capital, and its Series B lead, Tiger Global. Ally […]

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Jet co-founder Nate Faust is building a more sustainable e-commerce experience with Olive Feb 17, 2021

Nate Faust has spent years in the e-commerce business — he was a vice president at Quidsi (which ran Diapers.com and Soap.com), co-founder and COO at Jet (acquired by Walmart for $3.3 billion) and then a vice president at Walmart. Over time, he said it slowly dawned on him that it’s “crazy” that 25 years […]

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Bitcoin briefly breaks the $50,000 barrier as Coinbase’s direct listing looms Feb 17, 2021

The hodl-crew are having quite the moment as bitcoin passed the $50,000 mark earlier today for the first time. Data pegs the peak at just over $50,500. The price of bitcoin, the world’s best-known cryptocurrency, has historically proven a reasonable proxy for consumer interest in the cryptocurrency space, and for trading activity amongst blockchain-based assets. […]

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After pausing the business, Fronted finally launches to offer loans to cover rent deposits Feb 16, 2021

Fronted, the London-based fintech aiming to make life easier for renters, including lending the cash needed for a deposit, has finally launched. In March, its founders took the decision to “hibernate” the nascent business after the first lockdown and with the pandemic taking hold. But, now with regulatory approval from the FCA and rents falling […]

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Delivery company goPuff is in talks to acquire the UK’s Fancy Feb 16, 2021

GoPuff, the U.S.-based startup that operates its own “microfulfillment” network and promises to deliver items such as over-the-counter medicine, baby food and alcohol in 30 minutes or less, is in talks to acquire the U.K.’s Fancy Delivery, TechCrunch has learned. According to sources, terms of the acquisition are still being fleshed out, and the deal […]

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Online workspace startup Notion hit by outage, citing DNS issues Feb 15, 2021

Notion, the online workspace startup that was last year valued at over $2 billion, is currently offline after a DNS outage knocked the site off the internet. The collaborative online office and document service was not loading as of around 9am ET on Friday, preventing anyone who relies on the service from accessing their cloud-stored […]

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Datadog to acquire application security management platform Sqreen Feb 15, 2021

Cloud monitoring platform Datadog has announced that it plans to acquire Sqreen, a software-as-a-service security platform. Originally founded in France, Sqreen participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield in 2016. Sqreen is a cloud-based security product to protect your application directly. Once you install the sandboxed Sqreen agent, it analyzes your application in real time to find […]

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Ramp secures $150M debt line from Goldman Sachs as the corporate spend market grows Feb 12, 2021

This morning Ramp, a startup that competes in the corporate spend market, announced that it has secured a $150 million debt facility with Goldman Sachs. Ramp previously raised a $30 million Series B in late December 2020, after raising a $23 million Series A earlier in the same year. TechCrunch spoke with Ramp co-founder and […]

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2up launches ahead of Valentines Day to help gamers find one another Feb 12, 2021

People don’t often equate gaming with dating, but maybe they should. As gaming continues to grow in popularity, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, a new startup called 2up is launching to help gamers connect both on and off screen. The app was founded by sibling duo Stephanie and Lincoln Smith, who have been […]

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Monzo, the British challenger bank nearing 5 million customers, has recruited a new U.S. CEO Feb 11, 2021

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank with just shy of 5 million customers, has recruited a new U.S CEO to head up its efforts states-side, TechCrunch has learned. Carol Nelson, who previously spent ten years as CEO of Cascade Bank and prior to that was a long time senior vice president of Bank of America, will […]

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Powder raises $14 million for its social app for game clips Feb 11, 2021

Meet Powder, a French startup that helps you share video clips of your favorite games, follow people with the same interests and interact with them. The company has raised a $14 million Series A round led by Serena. Powder wants to build the video infrastructure for social gaming. While many communities of gamers already share […]

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Klarna launches bank accounts in Germany Feb 10, 2021

Fintech startup Klarna is turning its mobile app into a banking app in Germany. Customers living there can now open a consumer bank account and get a Visa debit card. For now, Klarna is launching bank accounts for a limited number of users. The company expects to roll it out more broadly in the coming […]

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Encrypted data handling startup DataFleets acquired by LiveRamp for over $68M Feb 10, 2021

LiveRamp has acquired DataFleets, a fresh young startup that made it possible to take advantage of large volumes of encrypted data without the risk or fuss of decrypting or transferring it. LiveRamp, an enterprise data connectivity platform itself, paid more than $68M for the company, a huge multiple on DataFleet’s $4.5M seed announced just last […]

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Monte Carlo raises $25M for its data observability service Feb 09, 2021

This morning Monte Carlo, a startup focused on helping other companies better monitor their data inflows, announced that it has closed a $25 million Series B. The round, which was co-led by GGV and Redpoint, comes mere months after its September Series A that was worth $15 million. Accel led the company’s Series A and […]

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InEvent raises $2M for its virtual conference platform Feb 09, 2021

InEvent, a startup powering virtual and hybrid events, is announcing that it has raised $2 million in seed funding from Storm Ventures. That’s just tiny fraction of the $125 million that online events platform Hopin raised last fall — in fact, a recent Equity episode suggested that Hopin might be the fastest growth story of […]

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Harry Stebbings is leaving Stride, the VC firm he founded with Fred Destin Feb 08, 2021

Harry Stebbings, the podcaster-turned-VC, is stepping down as a partner of Stride, the London-based venture capital firm he co-founded with Fred Destin, formerly of Accel. In a series of tweets, Destin said that Stebbings won’t be involved in Stride’s second fund (though he’ll remain a partner in fund one), and will instead be focusing on […]

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Lightspeed and Max Levchin bet on Balance to bring B2B payments into the digital world Feb 08, 2021

Consumer payments is by no means a solved problem (I’ll trigger one hundred blockchain people if I say otherwise), but it sure as heck a pretty improved one. Checkout is a breeze with modern tools ranging from Stripe and PayPal to Fast and Rapyd to Apple and Google Pay. If you happen to need financing, […]

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Health tech startup Bold raises $7 million in seed funding for senior-focused fitness programs Feb 05, 2021

Virtual health and wellness platforms have grown increasingly popular throughout the pandemic, but a new startup wants to focus that effort exclusively on senior citizens. Bold, a digital health and wellness service, plans to prevent chronic health problems in older adults through free and personalized exercise programs. Co-founded by Amanda Rees and her partner Hari […]

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HubSpot acquires media startup The Hustle Feb 05, 2021

Marketing software company HubSpot is acquiring The Hustle, the business and tech media startup behind the popular newsletter of the same name Axios broke the news of the deal and reported that it values the startup at around $27 million. HubSpot declined to comment on the deal price, and while tweeting about the acquisition, The […]

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Cajoo promises grocery deliveries in 15 minutes Feb 04, 2021

Meet Cajoo, a new French startup that has raised a $7.3 million (€6 million) funding round. The company wants to make it easier to order groceries from your phone and receive them 15 minutes later. It is launching in Paris today. “I left Bolt around mid-August and I’m launching a company with two co-founders focused […]

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Beam raises $9.5 million to build a web browser that collects ideas Feb 04, 2021

Beam has raised a $9.5 million Series A round. The company is working on a new web browser that completely rethinks the way you start a web session and browse the web. The startup is founded by Dom Leca and Sébastien Métrot. Dom Leca previously worked on Sparrow, an email app with an opinionated design. […]

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Commuting platform startup Hip lands $12 million to help companies bring employees back to the office Feb 03, 2021

Nearly a year ago, the spread of COVID-19 ended the daily commute for millions of Americans, an abrupt change that sent the ridesharing industry into a free fall. Hip, which connected commuters with third-party bus and shuttle operators via an app, was just one of the many mobility-as-a-service startups that watched its clientele and revenue […]

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Alloy raises $4M to build out its e-commerce automation service Feb 03, 2021

Alloy Automation, a startup that was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2020 cohort, announced today that it has closed $5 million across two rounds, the most recent of which brought $4 million to the company in October of 2020. The new funds were raised at a $16 million pre-money, $20 million post-money valuation, Alloy […]

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Robinhood’s long weekend brings a total of $3.4 billion to its balance sheet Feb 02, 2021

Popular, highly-scrutinized trading app Robinhood has raised $2.4 billion to its balance sheet from shareholders, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal and then confirmed by the company. The private startup raised $1 billion on Friday, meaning that it has raised $3.4 billion in a handful of days as it seeks to support a […]

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Databricks raises $1B at $28B valuation as it reaches $425M ARR Feb 02, 2021

Another hour, another billion-dollar round. That’s how February is kicking off. This time it’s Databricks, which just raised $1 billion Series G at a whopping $28 billion post-money valuation. Databricks is a data-and-AI focused company that interacts with corporate information stored in the public cloud. News of the new round began leaking last week. Franklin […]

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Chefclub raises $17 million to expand its food media brand beyond social networks Feb 01, 2021

French startup Chefclub announced earlier this week that it has raised a $17 million funding round led by First Bridge Ventures. SEB Alliance, the venture arm of kitchen appliance maker Groupe SEB, Korelya Capital and Algaé Ventures are also participating. Chefclub has been building a major media brand on social media platforms. It has attracted […]

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Stock trading app Trade Republic expands to France Feb 01, 2021

German startup Trade Republic is rolling out its app and service in France this week. This is a significant expansion move as Trade Republic has only been available in Germany and Austria so far. Trade Republic lets you buy and sell shares or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from your phone with low, transparent fees. The company […]

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Storetasker revamps its Shopify developer marketplace Jan 29, 2021

Storetasker is an online marketplace focused on connecting Shopify merchants with developers and other experts who can help grow their business. The product is now owned by the startup previously known as Lorem. Co-founder and COO Charlie Fogarty explained that while Lorem originally had a broader mission of connecting small businesses and developers, “We realized […]

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Qualtrics prices IPO at $30 per share, above its upgraded target range Jan 29, 2021

Last night, Qualtrics priced its IPO at $30 per share, selling 50.4 million shares in the process. Notably, the company’s IPO price was harder to chase down than usual, with a formal press release in scarce supply. SEC filings indicate that the company “anticipate[s]” a price of $30 per share, and reports from media and […]

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Squarespace files privately to go public Jan 28, 2021

Squarespace announced this afternoon that it is going public.Â The online website creation and hosting service is a venture-backed entity, having raised Series A and B rounds in 2010 and 2014, respectively. Those deals were worth a combined $78.5 million, according to Crunchbase data. But Squarespace is perhaps best known for its epic 2017-era $200 million […]

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SAP is buying Berlin business process automation startup Signavio Jan 28, 2021

Rumors have been flying this week that SAP was going to buy Berlin business process automation startup Signavio, and sure enough the company made it official today. The companies did not reveal the purchase price, but Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the deal could be worth $1.2 billion. With Signavio SAP gets a cloud […]

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SaaS startup studio eFounders launches a fintech startup studio Jan 27, 2021

eFounders is expanding its focus by creating a second startup studio called Logic Founders. This time, Logic Founders is going to focus on fintech startups exclusively. Camille Tyan (pictured above) is going to lead the new studio. Over the past ten years, eFounders has launched dozens of software-as-a-service companies trying to improve the way we […]

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Stacker raises $1.7M to help nocoders build apps from spreadsheets Jan 27, 2021

Stacker, a company that helps non-developers create software from spreadsheets, announced that it has raised $1.7 million in a seed round. Stacker fits inside the growing no-code, and low-code niche that TechCrunch has explored at length over the last year. But its approach to the topic is worth examining, as is its new funding round. […]

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Clubhouse announces plans for creator payments and raises new funding led by Andreessen Horowitz Jan 26, 2021

Buzzy live voice chat app Clubhouse has confirmed that it has raised new funding – without revealing how much – in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz through the firm’s partner Andrew Chen. The app was reported to be raising at a $1 billion valuation in a report from The Information that landed […]

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Taboola is going public via SPAC Jan 26, 2021

Taboola is the latest company seeking to go public via special purpose acquisition corporation — more commonly known as a SPAC. To achieve this, it will merge with ION Acquisition Corp, which went public in 2020 with the aim of funding an Israeli tech acquisition (Haaretz reported last month that Taboola was in talks with […]

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Alma raises $59.4 million for its Klarna-like payment option Jan 25, 2021

French startup Alma is raising a $59.4 million Series B funding round (€49 million). The company has been building a new payment option for expensive good. You can choose to pay over three or four installments. This product sounds familiar if you’ve used Klarna in the past. But Klarna isn’t available in France. Cathay Innovation, […]

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Sounding Board raises cash as startups wake up to executive coaching Jan 25, 2021

In an unprecedented work environment defined by distributed teams and virtual-only communication, two co-founders think their 2018 bet reigns truer than ever: mentors need mentorship, too. Christine Tao and Lori Mazan, the brains behind Sounding Board, want to train any leader within an organization to be a better leader. The San Francisco startup connects anyone […]

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Soci raises $80M for its localized marketing platform Jan 22, 2021

Soci, a startup focused on what it calls “localized marketing,” is announcing that it has raised $80 million in Series D funding. National and global companies like Ace Hardware, Anytime Fitness, The Hertz Corporation and Nekter Juice Bar use Soci (pronounced soh-shee) to coordinate individual stores as they promote themselves through search, social media, review […]

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Bodyguard is a mobile app that hides toxic content on social platforms Jan 22, 2021

If you’re somewhat famous on various social networks, chances are you are exposed to hate speech in your replies or in your comments. French startup Bodyguard recently launched its app and service in English so that it can hide toxic content from your eyes. It has been available in French for a few years and […]

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Accounting automation startup Geroges raises $42.4 million and rebrands to Indy Jan 21, 2021

French startup Georges — or Georges.tech — is raising a new round of funding of $42.4 million (€35 million). The company is also getting a new name and will be called Indy going forward. The startup has been building an accounting automation application for freelancers and small companies. Singular is leading today’s funding round. You […]

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Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the challenger bank and says he’s ‘struggled’ during the pandemic Jan 21, 2021

Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the U.K. challenger bank entirely at the end of the month, staff were informed earlier today. Blomfield held the role of CEO until May last year when he assumed the newly created title of president and resigned from the Monzo board. However, having been given the time and space […]

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Drone-focused construction startup TraceAir raises $3.5M Jan 20, 2021

Bay Area-based construction startup TraceAir today announced a $3.5 million Series A. Led by London-based XTX Ventures, this round brings the company’s total funding up to $7 million. The raise includes existing investor Metropolis VC, along with new additions Liquid 2 Ventures, GEM Capital, GPS Ventures and Andrew Filev. We first noted the company back […]

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StackPulse announces $28M investment to help developers manage outages Jan 20, 2021

When a system outage happens, chaos can ensue as the team tries to figure out what’s happening and how to fix it. StackPulse, a new startup that wants to help developers manage these crisis situations more efficiently, emerged from stealth today with a $28 million investment. The round actually breaks down to a previously unannounced […]

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Health insurance startup Alan launches free medical app Alan Baby Jan 19, 2021

French startup Alan is generating 100% of its revenue from health insurance products — and that isn’t going to change. But the company wants to start a conversation with a bigger use base. Alan is going to launch multiple mobile apps that let you learn more about health topics, contact a doctor and chat with […]

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Goama lets developers integrate a social gaming platform into their apps Jan 19, 2021

Goama (also known as Go Games) lets developers quickly integrate social games into their apps. Some of Goama’s clients have used it for promotional campaigns, while others rely on the platform, which introduces new games every week, to add a full-fledged gaming function to their app. The startup, which recently took part in SOSV’s accelerator […]

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Startups at CES showed how tech can help elderly people and their caregivers Jan 18, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic shined a harsh spotlight on the challenges many elderly people face. Older adults are among the highest-risk groups for developing cases that need hospitalization and nursing homes were especially vulnerable to outbreaks. While dealing with COVID-19, the elderly have also faced many other problems, including the difficulty of accessing medical care for […]

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GitLab raises $195M in secondary funding on $6B valuation Jan 18, 2021

GitLab has confirmed with TechCrunch that it raised a $195 million secondary round on a $6 billion valuation. CNBC broke the story earlier today. The company’s impressive valuation comes after its most recent 2019 Series E in which it raised $268 million on a 2.75 billion valuation, an increase of $3.25 billion in under 18 […]

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Medium acquires social book reading app Glose Jan 15, 2021

Medium is acquiring Paris-based startup Glose for an undisclosed amount. Glose has been building an iOS, Android and web app that lets you buy, download and read books on your devices. The company has turned reading into a multiplayer experience as you can build a bookshelf, share notes with your followers and start conversations in […]

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X1 Card raises $12 million for its credit card with limits based on your income Jan 15, 2021

X1 Card is raising a $12 million funding round. The company is building a credit card that sets limits based on your current and future income, not your credit score. Spark Capital is leading the round with Jared Leto, Aaron Levie, Jeremy Stoppelman, Max Levchin and Ali Rowghani also participating. American Express veteran Ash Gupta […]

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Gemini is launching a credit card with bitcoin rewards Jan 14, 2021

Cryptocurrency exchange company Gemini is acquiring Blockrize and announcing a new product today based on Blockrize’s work. Later this year, the company is launching a credit card that works like a regular credit card — but you earn bitcoin rewards based on your purchases. The credit card will work on the Visa network and will […]

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Iziwork raises $43 million for its temporary work platform Jan 14, 2021

French startup Iziwork has raised a $43 million funding round. Cathay Innovation and Bpifrance’s Large Venture fund are participating in this funding round. The company has been building a platform focused on improving temporary employment. While it’s a relatively large funding round, the startup is quite young. It was founded in September 2018 and it […]

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Equal access to capital and entrepreneurship is the final civil rights movement Jan 13, 2021

Joseph Heller Contributor Joseph Heller is a small businesses expert and the CEO of Supplied, a wholesale platform for small businesses and brands that makes it easier for boutique owners to access high-quality, affordable items. Context is always important. In the grand scheme of things, I have privilege: I was born a male, in the […]

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Cockroach Labs scores $160M Series E on $2B valuation Jan 13, 2021

Cockroach Labs, makers of CockroachDB, have been on a fundraising roll for the last couple of years. Today the company announced a $160 million Series E on a fat $2 billion valuation. The round comes just eight months after the startup raised an $86.6 million Series D. The latest investment was led by Altimeter Capital […]

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Zipmex, which aspires to build the Asia Pacific region’s largest digital assets exchange, raises $6 million led by Jump Capital Jan 12, 2021

Zipmex, a digital assets exchange headquartered in Singapore, announced today it has raised $6 million in funding led by Jump Capital. The startup, which plans to become a digital assets bank, says the round exceeded its initial target of $4 million. Along with earlier funding, it brings the total Zipmex has raised so far to […]

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Revolut applies for UK banking license Jan 12, 2021

It’s hard to believe that fintech startup Revolut doesn’t have a proper banking license in its home country. But this is about to change as the company has applied for a banking license in the U.K. Up next, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are going to look at the […]

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Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos have started a cyber consulting firm Jan 11, 2021

Former U.S. cybersecurity official Chris Krebs and former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos have founded a new cybersecurity consultancy firm, which already has its first client: SolarWinds . The two have been hired as consultants to help the Texas-based software maker recover from a devastating breach by suspected Russian hackers, which used the company’s […]

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Roku acquires Quibi’s content Jan 11, 2021

Quibi is dead, but its shows will live on. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Roku was in talks to acquire the short-form video service’s content. And this morning, Roku announced that it has indeed reached a deal for the exclusive distribution rights to all of Quibi’s programs. Financial terms of the acquisition […]

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Text marketing startup Voxie raises $6.7M Jan 08, 2021

Like many startups, Atlanta-basedÂ Voxie was created to solve a problem that founder and CEO Bogdan Constantin faced himself. In Constantin’s case, this was at his previous tuxedo rental startup Menguin (ultimately acquired by Generation Tux), where he said he had to market a product with a six-to-nine month sales cycle, as customers were usually weighing […]

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Lacework lands $525M investment as revenue grows 300% Jan 08, 2021

As the pandemic took hold in 2020, companies accelerated their move to cloud services. Lacework, the cloud security startup, was in the right place at the right time as customers looked for ways to secure their cloud native workloads. The company reported that revenue grew 300% year over year for the second straight year. It […]

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Too Good To Go raises $31 million to fight food waste Jan 07, 2021

Too Good To Go, the startup that lets you buy food right before it goes to waste, is raising a $31.1 million round. blisce/ is leading the round and investing $15.4 million as part of today’s round. Existing investors and employees are also participating. While the company has been around for a while, this is […]

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Virgin Orbit targets launch window opening January 10 for next orbital flight attempt Jan 07, 2021

Virgin Orbit is wasting no time in 2021 getting back to active flight testing: The company has a window for its next orbital demonstration launch attempt that opens on Sunday, January 10, and that continues throughout the rest of the month. This follows an attempt last year made in May, which ended before the LauncherOne […]

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Sources: Hinge Health has raised $310M Series D at a $3B valuation Jan 06, 2021

Hinge Health, the San Francisco-based company that offers a digital solution to treat chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions — such as back and joint pain — has closed a $310 million in Series D funding, according to sources. The round is led by Coatue and Tiger Global, and values 2015-founded Hinge at $3 billion post-money, people […]

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Kyte raises $9 million to deliver rental cars to your doorstep Jan 06, 2021

More than two years ago, Ludwig Schoenack, Nikolaus Volk and Francesco Wiedemann looked at the bevy of scooter services, ride-hailing apps, public transit and car-sharing options available in most urban centers in the United States and saw a gap in the mobility market. Consumers who didn’t want to own a car, but needed one for […]

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Divvy raises $165M as the spend management space stays red-hot Jan 05, 2021

Today Divvy, a Utah-based startup that focuses on corporate spend management, announced that it has closed a $165 million round at a $1.6 billion valuation. The company said that the new capital was raised from Hanaco, Schonfeld, PayPal Ventures, and Whale Rock, along with a cadre of prior investors. The new investment is not Divvy’s […]

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It’s not just you, Slack is struggling this morning Jan 04, 2021

Slack did its best to ease the working world back into their jobs this morning by breaking, ensuring that everyone’s return to the grind would be as chaotic and unproductive as possible. Precisely when the downtime began is not clear, though problems amongst the TechCrunch staff began a little after ten o’clock in the morning. […]

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Union Square Ventures and Learn Capital file paperwork indicating new funds Jan 01, 2021

As 2020 comes to a long-awaited end, a series of filings indicate that venture capitalists are ending the year with fresh money. According to SEC paperwork, Learn Capital and USV have filed paperwork that shows the firms have raised new, multimillion-dollar funds. If you’ve been paying attention to news this past year, it’s clear that […]

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CommonGround raises $19M to rethink online communication Dec 30, 2020

CommonGround, a startup developing technology for what its founders describe as “4D collaboration,” is announcing that it has raised $19 million in funding. This isn’t the first time Amir Bassan-Eskenazi and Ran Oz have launched a startup together — they also founded video networking company BigBand Networks, which won two technology-related Emmy Awards, went public […]

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Skyroot successfully test fires India’s first privately-made solid rocket stage Dec 30, 2020

Rocket launch startup Skyroot is closing out 2020 with a key milestone in the development program for their Vikram-I launch vehicle: A successful test firing of a solid rocket propulsion stage that serves as a demonstrator of the same tech to be used in the production Vikram. This is the first time that a private […]

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Estonian proptech Rendin raises €1.2M seed for its long-term rental platform Dec 29, 2020

Rendin, an Estonian proptech startup that wants to improve the home rental experience, including offering a no-deposit feature, has raised €1.2 million in seed funding. Backing the round is Tera Ventures, Iron Wolf Capital, Truesight Ventures, Atomico’s Angel Programme, and Startup Wise Guys. Launched in Estonia in March this year and currently expanding to Poland, […]

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Chinese online education app Zuoyebang raises $1.6 billion from investors including Alibaba Dec 28, 2020

The rivalry between China’s top online learning apps has become even more intense this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest company to score a significant funding round is Zuoyebang, which announced today (link in Chinese) that it has raised a $1.6 billion Series E+ from investors including Alibaba Group. Other participants included returning […]

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Bandit ML helps e-commerce businesses present the most effective offer to each shopper Dec 28, 2020

Bandit MLÂ aims to optimize and automate the process of presenting the right offer to the right customer. The startup was part of the summer 2020 class at accelerator Y Combinator . It also raised a $1.32 million seed round in September from YC, Haystack Fund, Webb Investment Network, Liquid 2 Ventures, Jigsaw Ventures, Basecamp Fund, […]

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Remembering the startups we lost in 2020 Dec 24, 2020

Even in a non-hell year, running a successful startup is a tremendous lift. After the events of 2020, however, no doubt many already lean businesses are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. For every company that saw increased interest in their offerings during the pandemic, there were several that simply couldn’t make it […]

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Fluent Forever raises $4.9M for its language learning system Dec 24, 2020

Fluent Forever, a startup that uses a novel learning system to help its users master a new language faster, has raised a $4.9 million funding round led by Denver-based Stout Street Capital. Other investors in this round include The Syndicate, LAUNCH, Mana Ventures, Noveus VC, Flight.VC, Insta VC, UpVentures, Firebrand Ventures, Cultivation Capital, Spero Ventures […]

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StepZen snares $8M seed to build data integration API Dec 23, 2020

StepZen, a new startup from the crew who gave you Apigee (which was sold to Google in 2016 for $625 million) had a different vision for their latest company. They are building a single API that pulls data from disparate sources to help developers deliver more complex customer experiences online. Today, the startup emerged from […]

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Bolt adds $75M to its Series C, as the battle to rule online checkout continues Dec 23, 2020

Bolt, a startup that offers online checkout technology to retailers, announced this morning that it has added $75 million to its Series C round, bringing the financing to a total of $125 million. WestCap and General Atlantic led the new tranche, which Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow told TechCrunch was raised at around twice its Series […]

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OneTrust nabs $300M Series C on $5.1B valuation to expand privacy platform Dec 22, 2020

OneTrust, the 4-year old privacy platform startup from the folks who brought you AirWatch (which was acquired by VMWare for $1.5B in 2014), announced a $300 million Series C on an impressive $5.1 billion valuation today. The company has attracted considerable attention from investors in a remarkably short time. It came out of the box […]

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Silicon Valley should reward zebras, not unicorns Dec 22, 2020

Unlike unicorn companies, zebras are lean, efficient and consistent.

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Tap Network raises $4M for its customizable rewards program Dec 21, 2020

Tap Network is providing a new approach to loyalty rewards programs that it describes as “rewards as a service.” You may recognize the Tap Network name, as well as its co-founder and CEO Lin Dai, from Hooch, a startup that offered a drink-a-day subscription service before shifting focus to a broader rewards program. Dai told […]

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BigID keeps rolling with $70M Series D on $1B valuation Dec 21, 2020

BigID has been on the investment fast track, raising $94 million over three rounds that started in January 2018. Today, that investment train kept rolling as the company announced a $70 million Series D on a valuation of $1 billion. Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global co-led the round with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture […]

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Social gaming platform Rec Room scores $20 million Series C Dec 18, 2020

Against Gravity, the startup behind the social gaming platform Rec Room, has scored some new funding as it brings its once VR-centric platform to every major gaming platform out there. The startup has closed a $20 million Series C led by Madrona Venture Group . Existing investors including First Round Capital, Index, Sequoia and DAG […]

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Ramp raises $30M as the battle to own corporate spend heats up Dec 18, 2020

Corporate spend management startup Ramp has raised $30 million more in a new round, it announced today. TechCrunch covered Ramp’s launch earlier this year, when it also detailed that it had raised around $23 million up to that point. The startup raised its latest round in August of 2020, with conversations about the deal kicking […]

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Lydia raises another $86 million to build European financial super app Dec 17, 2020

French fintech startup Lydia has extended its Series B round. Accel is leading the extension with all major existing shareholders also participating. Lydia first raised $45 million in January 2020 — Tencent led that investment. The startup is now raising another $86 million, which means that Lydia has raised $131 million in total as part […]

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The team behind Jumpcut and SnappyTV is building a new collaborative video tool Dec 17, 2020

Mike Folgner has had his share of success building video editing tools, having sold Jumpcut.com to Yahoo and SnappyTV to Twitter. But as he explained in a new Medium post, he still sees “unfinished business” in the video industry. “Today, most major productivity software categories have made the leap from desktop software to the web,” […]

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Revolut launches mid-tier subscription plan Dec 16, 2020

Fintech startup Revolut is tweaking its subscription plans with a new mid-tier offering called Revolut — it costs £2.99 per month. Like N26 Smart and Monzo Plus, the new plan is a pandemic-proof package that doesn’t focus as much on travel. For the past couple of years, challenger banks and alternatives to traditional bank accounts […]

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Social stock trading services Public raises $65M Series C Dec 16, 2020

Less than a year after it raised a $15 million Series B, Public, a social-focused free stock trading service, has raised a $65 million Series C. The startup is not the only company to raise successive rounds this year. Welcome has managed the feat, along with Skyflow and others. Public’s Series C, therefore, fits into […]

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Dott to expand beyond e-scooters with bike-sharing service Dec 15, 2020

Dott is better known for its electric scooter service that is available in a few cities across Europe. But the company is working on electric bikes and wants to launch a bike-sharing service in London and Paris in March 2021. Dott currently doesn’t operate in London. So it looks like it’ll be the company’s 16th […]

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iCIMS acquires video recruiting startup Altru for $60M Dec 15, 2020

Enterprise recruiting company iCIMS is announcing that it has acquired Altru. iCIMS declined to comment on the terms of the deal, but a source with knowledge of the companies told us that the price is a combination of cash and stock, totaling around $60 million. Founded in 2000, iCIMS offers a “talent cloud” used by […]

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Reddit acquires Dubsmash Dec 14, 2020

Reddit announced that it has acquired short video platform Dubsmash. The deal’s terms were undisclosed. Dubsmash will retain its own platform and brand, and Reddit will integrate its video creation tools. Its co-founders, Suchit Dash, Jonas Drüppel and Tim Specht, will join Reddit. According to Crunchbase data, the app has raised $20.2 million from investors […]

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In&motion raises $12 million for its wearable airbag systems Dec 14, 2020

French startup In&motion has raised a $12 million (€10 million) funding round led by Upfront Ventures with 360 Capital also participating. The company has been working on wearable airbag systems for motorbikes. Integrated in a vest, the airbag is completely autonomous and can detect crashes in 60 milliseconds. The company has worked on a device […]

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Fairmarkit lands $30M Series B to modernize procurement Dec 11, 2020

As the pandemic has raged on, it has shined a spotlight on the importance of procurement, especially in certain sectors. Fairmarkit, a Boston startup, is working to bring a modern digital procurement system to the enterprise. Today, the company announced a $30 million Series B. GGV Capital and Insight Partners led the round with help […]

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Boast.ai raises $23M to help businesses get their R&D tax credits Dec 11, 2020

Nobody likes dealing with taxes — until the system works in your favor. In many countries, startups can receive tax credits for their R&D work and related employee cost, but as with all things bureaucracy, that’s often a slow and onerous task. Boast.ai aims to make this process far easier, by using a mix of […]

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Candu raises $5M to help software companies onboard users intelligently Dec 10, 2020

This morning Candu, a software startup that provides no-code web tools for SaaS apps, announced a $5 million funding round. TechCrunch caught up with founder Jonathan Anderson and lead investor Villi Iltchev, a partner at Two Sigma Ventures, to chat about the deal. First thing: This round, a bit like Scotch, has aged. It’s from […]

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Lemonade launches its renters insurance in France Dec 10, 2020

Lemonade is launching its renters insurance in France. This is the company’s third European launch after the Netherlands and Germany. Originally from the U.S., Lemonade is now a public company with a current market capitalization close to $4 billion. Lemonade will compete directly with a local competitor called Luko. Both companies share a lot of […]

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Former Salesforce chief scientist announces new search engine to take on Google Dec 09, 2020

Richard Socher, former chief scientist at Salesforce, who helped build the Einstein artificial intelligence platform, is taking on a new challenge — and it’s a doozy. Socher wants to fix consumer search and today he announced you.com, a new search engine to take on the mighty Google. “We are building you.com. You can already go […]

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Can AI help you binge books? BingeBooks is a new service to do … exactly that Dec 09, 2020

The pandemic has been terrible for many industries, but the book industry has gotten a rare reprieve in an otherwise dismal past decade. Locked in homes and forced to socially distance from others, us humans have more time on our hands and more need to connect to characters than ever before. That surge in interest […]

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Getsafe, the European digital-first insurance startup, scores $30M Series B Dec 08, 2020

Getsafe, the digital-first insurance startup that initially launched with an app for home contents insurance, has closed $30 million in Series B funding. Swiss Re, the reinsurer giant, led the round. Existing investors, including Earlybird and CommerzVentures, also participated. Getsafe has raised a total of $53 million to date since being founded in May 2015. […]

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Jeli.io announces $4M seed to build incident analysis platform Dec 08, 2020

When one of AWS’s east coast data centers went down at the end of last month, it had an impact on countless companies relying on its services including Roku, Adobe and Shipt. When the incident was resolved, the company had to analyze what happened. For most companies, that involves manually pulling together information from various […]

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Zephr raises $8M to help news publishers grow subscription revenue Dec 07, 2020

Zephr has raised $8 million in a new funding round led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (owned by media giant Bertelsmann). The London-headquarted startup’s customers already include publishers like McClatchy, News Corp Australia, Dennis Publishing and PEI Media. CEO James Henderson told me via email that rather than creating “a monolithic product that tries to […]

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Stripe announces embedded business banking service Stripe Treasury Dec 07, 2020

Fintech startup Stripe has announced an ambitious new product today called Stripe Treasury. The company is partnering with banks to offer a banking-as-a-service API. In other words, Stripe clients will be able to provide bank accounts to their customers — the service is invite-only for now. This is part of a bigger trend called embedded […]

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Fantasy startup Esports One raises $4M more Dec 04, 2020

Esports One, a startup bringing the fantasy approach to esports, is announcing that it has raised an additional $4 million in funding. When I first wrote about Esports One in April, co-founder and COO Sharon Winter described it as the first “all-in-one fantasy platform” in the esports world, allowing you to research players, create fantasy […]

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YC-backed Heru raises $1.7M to build software services for Latin American gig workers Dec 04, 2020

Given the attention that TechCrunch pays to Y Combinator’s Demo Days, we also try to keep tabs on the same startups as they scale and raise more capital. Yesterday we covered YC Winter 2020 participant BuildBuddy, for example. Today we’re taking a look at Heru, a startup based in Mexico City that is announcing a […]

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Wellory raises $4.5M for its ‘anti-diet’ nutrition app Dec 03, 2020

Wellory, a startup that bills itself as taking an “anti-diet approach” to nutrition and wellness, is announcing that it has raised $4.2 million in funding. The round was led by Story Ventures, with participation from Harlem Capital, Tinder co-founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, Ground Up Ventures, NBA Player Wayne Ellington, Hannah Bronfman and others. […]

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Eat Just to sell lab-grown meat in Singapore after gaining “world first” regulatory approval Dec 02, 2020

Eat Just will start offering lab-grown chicken meat in Singapore after gaining regulatory approval from the Singapore Food Agency (SFA). The cell-cultured chicken will eventually be produced under Eat Just’s new GOOD Meat brand through partnerships with local manufacturers and go on sale to restaurants before it is available to consumers. No chickens were killed […]

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Loop Team wants to give remote workers an in-office feel Dec 02, 2020

As we’ve moved to work from home during the pandemic, it’s been challenging for remote workers to feel connected. Loop Team, a new entrant into the enterprise communications space, thinks the way we are communicating needs improvement. That’s why the startup is releasing Loop Team today, a tool that is trying to use software to […]

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Salut raises $1.25M for its virtual fitness service Dec 01, 2020

This morning Salut, an app-based service that allows fitness trainers to host classes virtually, announced that it has raised $1.25 million in a new financing event. The round was led by Charles Hudson, an investor at Precursor Ventures. Founder Matthew DiPietro, formerly of Twitch, told TechCrunch that Salut soft-launched in mid-September, with a wider release […]

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Vista acquires Gainsight for $1.1B, adding to its growing enterprise arsenal Dec 01, 2020

Vista Equity Partners hasn’t been shy about scooping up enterprise companies over the years, and today it added to a growing portfolio with its purchase of Gainsight.Â The company’s software helps clients with customer success, meaning it helps create a positive customer experience when they interact with your brand, making them more likely to come […]

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Materialize scores $40 million investment for SQL streaming database Nov 30, 2020

Materialize, the SQL streaming database startup built on top of the open source Timely Dataflow project, announced a $32 million Series B investment today led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Lightspeed Ventures. While it was at it, the company also announced a previously unannounced $8 million Series A from last year that had been […]

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There’s no ‘hacker house’ geared toward undergraduate women, so they created one of their own Nov 30, 2020

Hacker houses are making a comeback for entrepreneurs as remote work drags on. While founders are adapting to quarantine in style, a group of college women in their 20s aren’t waiting until they are done with undergraduate to plunge into the lifestyle themselves. Started by college juniors Coco Sack and Kendall Titus, Womxn Ignite is […]

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Cast.ai nabs $7.7M seed to remove barriers between public clouds Nov 27, 2020

When you launch an application in the public cloud, you usually put everything on one provider, but what if you could choose the components based on cost and technology and have your database one place and your storage another? That’s what Cast.ai says that it can provide, and today it announced a healthy $7.7 million […]

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WeGift, the ‘incentive marketing’ platform, collects $8M in new funding Nov 26, 2020

WeGift, the London-based startup that has built an “incentive marketing” platform that lets businesses easily issue e-gift cards and other digital rewards to customers, has raised $8 million in new funding. Dubbed a Series A extension, the round is led by AlbionVC. Existing investors including Stride.vc, SAP.iO fund and Unilever Ventures also followed on. Following […]

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Coinbase disables margin trading following guidance from Commodity Futures Trading Commission Nov 25, 2020

Just a few months after launching margin trading on Coinbase Pro, the company is disabling the feature. Margin trading lets you trade on leverage. But it works both ways — margin trading lets you multiply your gains and your losses. Starting on November 25, 2pm PT, users won’t be able to place new margin trades. […]

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Dija, a new delivery startup from former Deliveroo employees, is closing in on a $20M round led by Blossom Nov 25, 2020

Dija, a new U.K. based startup founded by senior former Deliveroo employees, is closing in on $20 million funding, TechCrunch has learned. According to multiple sources, the round, which has yet to close, is being led by Blossom Capital, the early stage venture capital firm founded by ex-Index and LocalGlobe VC Ophelia Brown. It’s not […]

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N26 launches mid-tier subscription plan for €4.90 per month Nov 24, 2020

Challenger bank N26 is adding a third subscription product called N26 Smart. N26 Smart is designed to be a mid-tier subscription plan with advanced banking features but without a travel insurance package. In Europe, in addition to the free plan, N26 already provides two subscription tiers called N26 You and N26 Metal. N26 You costs […]

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Serenade snags $2.1M seed round to turn speech into code Nov 24, 2020

Several years ago Serenade co-founder Matt Wiethoff was a developer at Quora when he was diagnosed with a severe repetitive stress injury to his hand and couldn’t code. He and co-founder Tommy MacWilliam decided to use AI to create a tool that let him speak the code instead and Serenade was born. Today, the company […]

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Onit acquires legal startup McCarthyFinch to inject AI into legal workflows Nov 23, 2020

Onit, a workflow software company based in Houston with a legal component, announced this week that it has acquired 2018 TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield alum McCarthyFinch.Â Onit intends to use the startup’s AI skills to beef up its legal workflow software offerings. The companies did not share the purchase price. After evaluating a number of companies […]

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Wish files to go public with 100M monthly actives, $1.75B in 2020 revenue thus far Nov 23, 2020

This morning Wish, a well-known mobile ecommerce startup, filed to go public. It joins Affirm, Airbnb, and Roblox in filing this week as many well-known and valuable private companies look to debut before the year ends and the holidays start. Wish’s S-1 (which is filed under its corporate name ContextLogic) is of particular interest given […]

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FireEye acquires Respond Software for $186M, announces $400M investment Nov 20, 2020

The security sector is ever frothy and acquisitive. Just last week Palo Alto Networks grabbed Expanse for $800 million. Today it was FireEye’s turn snagging Respond Software, a company that helps customers investigate and understand security incidents, while reducing the need for highly trained and scarce security analysts. The deal has closed, according to the […]

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Lime touts a 2020 turnaround and 2021 profitability Nov 20, 2020

Micromobility company Lime says it has moved beyond the financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching a milestone that seemed unthinkable earlier this year. In short, the company is now largely profitable. Lime said it was both operating cash flow positive and free cash flow positive in the third quarter — a first — […]

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ZenBusiness snags $55M Series B for its incorporation and growth platform for micro businesses Nov 19, 2020

Starting a small company used to be simple. Get some space on Main Street, put out a shingle, and begin plying your trade. Then the regulatory state came, and so did the internet. Now, entrepreneurs have to apply for licenses — sometimes multiple licenses in multiple states — and also handle all the intricacies of […]

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Bella is a new challenger bank with a text-based interface Nov 19, 2020

Meet Bella, a new challenger bank launching on November 30th. The company is trying to differentiate itself with two distinctive features. First, you can interact with the app using keywords and text commands. Second, Bella is trying to build a community that helps each other to differentiate its product from soulless monolithic banking services. Let’s […]

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Why are telehealth companies treating healthcare like the gig economy? Nov 18, 2020

If we are to realize telehealth’s full potential, we must first reckon with the fact that there are serious flaws in the predominant way it is delivered today — flaws that endanger patients themselves.

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Airbnb files to go public Nov 18, 2020

Airbnb filed to go public today, bringing the well-known unicorn one step closer to being a public company. The financial results show a company on the rebound, but smaller than it was. Its more granular financial results also make clear how hard the pandemic was on the travel-reliant unicorn. Regarding Airbnb’s worth, investors will have […]

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Cooper raises $2M to build a professional network centered on introductions Nov 17, 2020

In a period of social distancing, making new professional connections feels harder than ever. So Amsterdam-based Cooper is building a network that’s all about making and receiving introductions. “Everything that happens in the network is based on on the foundation of introductions,” CEO Robert Gaal told me. “You should never get an unwanted message, and […]

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Deep Vision announces its low-latency AI processor for the edge Nov 17, 2020

Deep Vision, a new AI startup that is building an AI inferencing chip for edge computing solutions, is coming out of stealth today. The six-year-old company’s new ARA-1 processors promise to strike the right balance between low latency, energy efficiency and compute power for use in anything from sensors to cameras and full-fledged edge servers. […]

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DoorDash files to go public Nov 16, 2020

After filing earlier this year, DoorDash dropped its public S-1 filing this morning, bringing clarity to its numbers and moving it closer to a public debut that should happen before the end of the year. The company is one of several startups that we expect to see IPOs from before the year ends, despite some […]

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Getaround tops up $25M debt financing to its $140M Series E Nov 16, 2020

Silicon Valley peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround has secured a $25 million loan from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. The financing announcement comes one month after Getaround raised $140 million from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus’ Reinvent Capital. Getaround’s raise signals that the company is looking for new ways […]

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JumpCloud raises $75M Series E as cloud directory service thrives during pandemic Nov 13, 2020

JumpCloud, the cloud directory service that debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in 2013, announced a $75 million Series E today. The round was led by BlackRock with participation from existing investor General Atlantic. The company wasn’t willing to discuss the current valuation, but has now raised over $166 million, according to Crunchbase data. Changes in […]

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Bootstrapped Clearfind wants to cut your software spend, for a small fee Nov 12, 2020

Software is eating the world, and that grub can be costly. As the market for enterprise tools and software continues to balloon, organizations are spending more and more on that software across an increasingly complicated and rapidly evolving landscape. That’s where Clearfind comes in. Clearfind was founded (and bootstrapped) by James Layfield and Jocelyn Simon. […]

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Mozart Data lands $4M seed to provide out-of-the-box data stack Nov 12, 2020

Mozart Data founders Peter Fishman and Dan Silberman have been friends for over 20 years, working at various startups, and even launching a hot sauce company together along the way. As technologists, they saw companies building a data stack over and over. They decided to provide one for them and Mozart Data was born. The […]

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Molotov launches free ad-supported streaming service Mango Nov 11, 2020

French startup Molotov provides a TV streaming service in France that replaces the traditional set-top box. You can access live TV, subscribe to premium channels, watch content after they air and record content in the cloud. Today, the company is launching a different service, its own ad-supported on-demand streaming service — or AVOD service for […]

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With $29M in funding, Isovalent launches its cloud-native networking and security platform Nov 11, 2020

Isovalent, a startup that aims to bring networking into the cloud-native era, today announced that it has raised a $29 million Series A round led by Andreesen Horowitz and Google. In addition, the company today officially launched its Cilium platform (which was in stealth until now) to help enterprises connect, observe and secure their applications. […]

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E-scooter startup Tier raises $250 million round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 Nov 10, 2020

Berlin-based micro-mobility startup Tier has raised a significant Series C round of $250 million. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 is leading the round, which proves that the Vision Fund team is still focused on high-risk, high-potential bets. As a reminder, SoftBank has invested in many late-stage funding rounds through its Vision Fund team. Portfolio companies include […]

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Indian logistics startup Xpressbees raises $110 million Nov 10, 2020

Xpressbees, an Indian logistics firm that works with several e-commerce firms in the country, said on Monday it has raised $110 million in a new financing round as online shopping booms in the world’s second largest internet market. The Pune-headquartered startup’s Series E financing round was led by private equity firms Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners […]

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Positive vaccine news punishes pandemic-boosted companies like Zoom, Peloton, Etsy Nov 09, 2020

Stock markets worldwide are soaring on news that a vaccine candidate is 90% effective at preventing COVID-19, and could start coming to market in a matter of months. This is upending the stock market, sending futures shares shooting higher in pre-market trading. But while the euphoria is helping sectors that have taken punishment during COVID-19, […]

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French startups can apply to the Next40 and French Tech 120 Nov 09, 2020

Last year, the French government and the government-backed initiative La French Tech unveiled an index of French startups so that it would be easier to identify them. The 40 top-performing startups get the label Next40, and the top 120 startups are grouped into the French Tech 120 — it’s a play on words with the […]

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Challenger bank Starling is out raising a new £200M funding round Nov 06, 2020

Starling founder Anne Boden recently told TechCrunch that the U.K. challenger bank is on track to be profitable by Christmas, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t out raising additional capital already. According to well-placed sources, Starling has hired Rothschild with the aim of raising a new £200 million round. The draw is its expected profitability, […]

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Rocket Lab will try to recover the booster of its Electron rocket for the first time on its next launch Nov 06, 2020

Rocket Lab is set to complete a crucial test for its rocket reusability program during its next mission, which is currently set to take place sometime in mid-November, with a launch widow that opens on November 16. This is a bit of a surprise, because the launch company said that it would be doing this […]

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Singapore-based digital business assistant Osome raises $3 million Nov 05, 2020

Osome, a Singapore-headquartered business assistant app that digitizes accounting and compliance tasks, has raised $3 million. An extension of Osome’s seed round, the new funding was led by XA Network and AltaIR Capital. The startup currently has about 4,500 SME clients across Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, founder and chief executive officer Victor […]

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Email creation startup Stensul raises $16M Nov 05, 2020

Stensul, a startup aiming to streamline the process of building marketing emails, has raised $16 million in Series B funding. When the companyÂ raised its $7 million Series A two years ago, founder and CEO Noah Dinkin told me about how it spun out of his previous startup, FanBridge. And while there are many products focused […]

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Leena AI nabs $8M Series as it expands from chatbots to HR service platform Nov 04, 2020

When we covered Leena AI as a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2018 cohort, the young startup was firmly focused on building HR chatbots, but in the intervening years it has expanded the vision to a broader HR policy platform. Today, the company announced an $8 million Series A led by Greycroft with help […]

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Indonesian logistics platform Logisly raises $6 million Series A to digitize truck shipments Nov 04, 2020

Indonesia’s logistics industry is very fragmented, with several large providers operating alongside thousands of smaller companies. This means shippers often have to work with a variety of carriers, driving up costs and making supply chains harder to manage. Logisly, a Jakarta-based startup that describes itself as a “B2B tech-enabled logistics platform,” announced today it has […]

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TVision raises $16M to measure viewer attention on connected TVs Nov 03, 2020

TVision is building what its team hopes will become the standard for measuring streaming viewership — and to accelerate those efforts, it’s raised $16 million in new funding. The New York City startup started out by measuring traditional TV viewing, using webcams to determine whether viewers were actually paying attention to the ads. More recently, […]

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NerdWallet acquires small business loan marketplace Fundera Nov 03, 2020

Financial guidance company NerdWallet announced at the end of last week that it has acquired Fundera. New York City-based Fundera was co-founded in 2013 by Jared Hecht, who previously co-founded GroupMe. It created a marketplace where small businesses could find loans, subsequently expanding into other areas like legal services, while also (like NerdWallet) offering free […]

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Warren gets $1.4 million to help local cloud infrastructure providers compete against the giants Nov 02, 2020

Started as a side project by its founders, Warren is now helping regional cloud infrastructure service providers compete against Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google and other tech giants. Based in Tallinn, Estonia, Warren’s self-service distributed cloud platform is gaining traction in Southeast Asia, one of the world’s fastest-growing cloud service markets, and Europe. It recently closed […]

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Daimler invests in lidar company Luminar in push to bring autonomous trucks to highways Nov 02, 2020

Daimler’s trucks division has invested in lidar developer Luminar as part of a broader partnership to produce autonomous trucks capable of navigating highways without a human driver behind the wheel. The deal, which comes just days after Daimler and Waymo announced plans to work together to build an autonomous version of the Freightliner Cascadia truck, […]

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One-click housing startup Atmos raises another $4M from Khosla, real estate strategics, and TikTok star Josh Richards Oct 30, 2020

Atmos wants to make designing a house as simple as a single click. Well, that vision is now getting a double click from VCs. The company, which we profiled back in July, announced today that it raised another $4 million, this time from Evan Moore at Khosla Ventures, real estate strategic investors like David Gerster […]

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One-click housing startup Atmos raises another $4M from Khosla, real estate strategics, and TikTok star Josh Richards Oct 30, 2020

Atmos wants to make designing a house as simple as a single click. Well, that vision is now getting a double click from VCs. The company, which we profiled back in July, announced today that it raised another $4 million, this time from Evan Moore at Khosla Ventures, real estate strategic investors like David Gerster […]

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Donut launches Watercooler, an easy way to socialize online with coworkers Oct 30, 2020

If you miss hanging out with your coworkers but don’t want to spend a single second more on Zoom, the latest product fromÂ Donut might be the answer. The startup is launching its new Watercooler product today while also announcing that it has raised $12 million in total funding, led by Accel and with participation from […]

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Upgrade adds rewards program to its credit card Oct 29, 2020

Fintech startup Upgrade has been quite successful with its two flagship products —Â a low-cost credit card and personal loans. The company is making its credit card more attractive by adding rewards. Upgrade Card consumers will earn 1.5% cash back on all purchases made with the card — there’s no specific category, no partner retailer, no […]

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Anima’s latest update draws on the popularity of design and no-code tools Oct 29, 2020

Anima, the company that turns design prototypes into code, has today announced the launch of Anima 4.0, which will allow designers to create prototypes in Figma that are translated into components in React with the click of a button. The company was founded by Or Arbel (cofounder of Yo!), Avishay Cohen (who led R&D at […]

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Rockset announces $40M Series B as data analytics solution gains momentum Oct 28, 2020

Rockset, a cloud-native analytics company, announced a $40 million Series B investment today led by Sequoia with help from Greylock, the same two firms that financed its Series A. The startup has now raised a total of $61.5 million, according to the company. As co-founder and CEO Venkat Venkataramani told me at the time of […]

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Let’s move beyond 2020 and start thinking about the 2020s Oct 28, 2020

Seasonality is critical for the media. End-of-year wrap-ups, best books for the summer, things to do this weekend — they’re all methods to note not only the passage of time, but also to begin to set the tone for what is about to come. Everyone covered the end of the 2010s with aplomb, a decade […]

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Ant Group could raise as much as $34.5B in IPO in what would be world’s largest IPO Oct 27, 2020

The long-anticipated IPO of Alibaba-affiliated Chinese fintech giant Ant Group could raise tens of billions of dollars in a dual-listing on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges. Shares for the company formerly known as Ant Financial are expected to price at around HK$80, or roughly 68 to 69 Chinese Yuan. The company is selling […]

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This startup wants to fix the broken structure of internships Oct 27, 2020

Internships are an opportunity for students to experiment with new career paths and land a full-time offer ahead of graduation. For companies, the weeks-long programs help recruit and train job-ready hires. While the stakes are high, the coronavirus-spurred office closures and market volatility made a number of tech companies slim down or cancel their internship […]

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Linktree raises $10.7M for its lightweight, link-centric user profiles Oct 26, 2020

Simple, link-centric user profiles might seem might not seem like a particularly ambitious idea, but it’s been big enough for Linktree. The Melbourne startup says that 8 million users — whether they’re celebrities like Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa or brands like HBO and Red Bull — have created profiles on the platform, with those […]

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Nordic challenger bank Lunar raises €40M Series C, plans to enter the ‘buy now, pay later’ space Oct 26, 2020

Lunar, the Nordic challenger bank that started out life as a personal finance manager app (PFM) but acquired a full banking license in 2019, has raised €40 million in Series C funding from existing investors. The injection of capital follows a €20 million Series B disclosed in April this year and comes on the back […]

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RepTrak partners with Onclusive to combine reputation and PR data Oct 23, 2020

RepTrak and Onclusive are announcing a partnership that Onclusive CEO Dan Beltramo said will combine corporate reputation tracking and PR analytics for the first time. RepTrak, founded in 2004, helps businesses measure their reputations (and their competitors’ reputations) through a database of more than 1 million company ratings collected every year. Meanwhile, Onclusive (formerly known […]

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Respect the hustle, not the stupidity Oct 23, 2020

Yes, the media f’ing gorged on the Quibi story yesterday. We did, they did, everyone did. And really, truly, how could anyone not? Nearly $2 billion came in (with $350 million heading back), a star-studded lineup of executives and production teams, an absolutely massive advertising campaign, and a PR strategy that all but begged the […]

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Freelancer banking startup Lili raises $15M Oct 22, 2020

It’s only been a few months since Lili announced its $10 million seed round, and it’s already raised more funding — namely, a $15 million Series A. The startup, founded by CEO Lilac Bar David and CTO Liran Zelkha, is creating a bank account and associated products designed for freelancers, with features like early access […]

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This serial founder is taking on Carta with cap table management software she says is better for founders Oct 22, 2020

Yin Wu has cofounded several companies since graduating from Stanford in 2011, including a computer vision company called Double Labs that sold to Microsoft, where she stayed on for a couple of years as a software engineer. In fact, it was only after that sale she she says she “actually understood all of the nuances […]

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Index nabs $2.6M seed to create BI dashboards without coding Oct 21, 2020

Index founders, Xavier Pladevall and Eduardo Portet, have been friends since they were small children in the Dominican Republic. Both came to college in the U.S., and last year the two decided to launch a startup to help non-technical users build business intelligence dashboards without coding. Today they get to keep building on that dream […]

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Beam is building a web browser that gathers knowledge from your web activity Oct 21, 2020

Remember Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer? Those applications from the 1990s used emphatic metaphors in their names to talk about a simple task — browsing the web. Today, nobody would say that Google Chrome is a web explorer. Browsing the web has become an effortless — and often mindless —Â task. You grab your phone or […]

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Trilo lets merchants offer rewards to customers choosing bank-to-bank payments Oct 20, 2020

Open banking enables bank-to-bank payments, meaning that (in theory) merchants should be able to accept payments without having to hand over fees to Visa or Mastercard or other payment providers, such as Stripe. The challenge, however, isn’t just implementing open-banking based payments as a checkout option — there are are already a host of open […]

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PearPop lets TikTok celebrities monetize by sharing shoutouts and screentime with fans Oct 20, 2020

PearPop a new Los Angeles-based company, is on its way to racking up nearly 25,000 users in less than a month, and has already landed seed funding from the firm Rocket One Capital. The company’s premise is simple. Allow fans to bid for shared screen time with their favorite TikTok celebrities, and it’s one that’s […]

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Singapore tech-based real estate agency Propseller raises $1.2 million seed round Oct 19, 2020

Propseller, a Singapore-based real estate agency that combines a tech platform with in-house agents to close transactions more quickly, announced today it has raised $1.2 million in seed funding. The round included investment from Iterative; Hustle Fund; XA Network; Rapzo Capital; Lazada co-founder Stein Jakabo; and Dot Property founder Ben Neve. Propseller also said “three […]

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Datto sets initial IPO price range, indicating a valuation of around $4B Oct 19, 2020

It was just a few weeks ago that Datto, what TechCrunch called a “backup and disaster recovery firm,” filed to go public. This week the firm set an initial range for its debut. The Vista Equity Partners -backed company was picked up by the private equity firm back in 2017. Vista is back in the […]

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Vivun announces $18M Series A to keep growing pre-sales platform Oct 16, 2020

Vivun’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Darrow used to run pre-sales at Zuora and he saw that pre-sales team members had a lot of insight into customers. He believed if he could capture that insight, it would turn into valuable data to be shared across the company. He launched Vivun to build upon that idea in […]

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Small business payments and marketing startup Fivestars raises $52.5M Oct 16, 2020

It’s a difficult time for small businesses — to put it mildly. AndÂ Fivestars CEO Victor Ho said that many of the big digital platforms aren’t really helping. Ho argued that those platforms — whether they offerÂ delivery services, user reviews or marketing tools — all have the same underlying model:Â “They seek to take over a small […]

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WizVille Local Monitor helps small shops track Google Maps ratings of competitors Oct 15, 2020

French startup WizVille is launching a new product called Local Monitor to help restaurant owners, haircut places, bakeries and all kinds of small shops track their Google Maps ratings and the ratings of their competitors. While there are plenty of ratings services to compare places around you, such as Foursquare, Yelp and Tripadvisor, Google Maps […]

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M1 Finance closes $45M Series C mere months after it raised its $33M Series B Oct 15, 2020

Just months after it announced a $33 million Series B, Chicago-based M1 Finance today disclosed a $45 Series C. The new financing event was led by Left Lane Capital, the same investor that led M1’s Series B. Bear in mind that so-called inside rounds are now aÂ bullish sign in 2020, as opposed to in prior […]

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Caliber, with $2.2 million in seed funding, launches a fitness coaching platform Oct 14, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown the fitness space for a loop. Caliber, a startup that focuses on one-to-one personal training, is today launching a brand new digital coaching platform on the heels of a $2.2 million seed round led by Trinity Ventures. Caliber launched in 2018 with a content model, offering an email newsletter and […]

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Spendesk raises another $18 million for its corporate card and expense service Oct 14, 2020

French startup Spendesk has added $18 million to its Series B round. The company already raised $38.4 million as part of its Series B last year, which means that it raised $56.4 million as part of this round. Eight Roads Ventures is investing in today’s extension round. Spendesk, as the name suggests, focuses on all […]

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Malaysian on-demand work platform GoGet lands $2 million Series A Oct 13, 2020

GoGet, a Malaysian on-demand work platform, announced today that it has raised a $2 million Series A led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The platform currently has 20,000 gig workers, who are called “GoGetters,” and has onboarded 5,000 businesses, including Lazada Malaysia, IKEA Malaysia, Foodpanda and flower delivery service BloomThis. While Malaysia has other on-demand work […]

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Quince launches out of beta with new ‘manufacturer-to-customer’ model Oct 13, 2020

The retail landscape is shifting rapidly. While D2C brands have changed the way we shop, Quince is looking to change retail even more dramatically. The brand, which raised $8.5 million in seed funding last year (and only revealed as much today), is looking to rethink the supply chain with its own line of 700 items […]

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Twilio is buying customer data startup Segment for between $3B and $4B Oct 12, 2020

Sources have told TechCrunch that Twilio intends to acquire customer data startup Segment for between $3 and $4 billion. Forbes broke the story on Friday night, reporting a price tag of $3.2 billion. We have heard from a couple of industry sources that the deal is in the works and could be announced as early […]

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YC grad DigitalBrain snags $3.4M seed to streamline customer service tasks Oct 12, 2020

Most startup founders have a tough road to their first round of funding, but the founders of Digital Brain had it a bit tougher than most. The two young founders survived by entering and winning hackathons to pay their rent and put on food on the table. One of the ideas they came up with […]

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Grid AI raises $18.6M Series A to help AI researchers and engineers bring their models to production Oct 09, 2020

Grid AI, a startup founded by the inventor of the popular open-source PyTorch Lightning project, William Falcon, that aims to help machine learning engineers more efficiently, today announced that it has raised an $18.6 million Series A funding round, which closed earlier this summer. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Bain […]

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Revolut lets you track your subscriptions, adds savings bonus in the US Oct 09, 2020

Fintech startup Revolut has rolled out a handful of additional features over the past few days. The financial app lets you track all your subscriptions that you pay with your Revolut account or your card. In the U.S., Revolut is adding a savings bonus based on your purchasing habits. Finally, business customers can now order […]

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Lydia partners with Tink to improve open banking features Oct 08, 2020

French fintech startup Lydia is going to work with financial API startup Tink for its open banking features in its app. Lydia started as a peer-to-peer payment app and now has 4 million users in Europe. Lydia’s vision has evolved to become a financial super app that lets you control your bank accounts and access […]

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Zira raises $3.1M for its shift-scheduling service that helps manage hourly workers Oct 08, 2020

This morning Zira raised $3.1 million in a seed round. The startup provides software that helps businesses schedule their hourly workforce in a more intelligent manner. Software often fails to reach non-information workers, so it’s nice to see a startup focus on a somewhat forgotten demographic. General Catalyst and Abstract Ventures led the round, which […]

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Nivelo nabs $2.5M seed to reduce risk in digital ACH payments Oct 07, 2020

As we plunge deeper into the pandemic, online transactions have become increasingly important, and ACH transactions, the ones that help us get direct deposit of our paychecks or pay our bills are growing ever more essential. Nivelo, an early stage startup from a former JP Morgan executive wants to take the risk out of ACH […]

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Why startups are going public now Oct 07, 2020

After all those years of startups not going public, 2020 is a little bit different. It feels like more companies are filing, and more companies are seeing their debuts through. We’re even seeing direct listings and SPAC-led deals, along with a trove of traditional IPOs. Data backs up how we feel about this year’s IPO […]

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Faraday Future plans to go public through a SPAC deal Oct 06, 2020

Faraday Future, the electric vehicle startup with a messy and complicated past, is planning to go public through a special-purchase acquisition company (SPAC) deal. The company’s chief executive Carsten Breitfeld told Reuters that the company is working on a reverse merger with a SPAC and “will be able to announce something hopefully quite soon.” Breitfeld, […]

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Ocean Solutions Accelerator’s third wave tackles a new set of aquatic challenges Oct 06, 2020

The Sustainable Ocean Alliance and its Ocean Solutions Accelerator take on the problems facing our planet’s waters, and the latest cohort of companies in the latter show a fresh slate of issues to address and resources to utilize. From reef rehabilitation to a “Fitbit for fishing boats,” they’re trying to fix things up in the […]

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Digging into the next wave of tech IPOs Oct 05, 2020

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment. Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.

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Coinbase lets you withdraw funds to your debit card Oct 05, 2020

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is adding a new way to withdraw funds from your Coinbase account. If you’ve added a compatible debit card to your account, you can transfer USD, EUR or GBP to your bank account nearly instantly. There are some drawbacks, and the main one is that you’ll pay a lot of fees. In […]

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With $18M in new funding, Braintrust says it’s creating a fairer model for freelancers Oct 02, 2020

Braintrust, a network for freelance technical and design talent that launched over the summer, is announcing that it has raised $18 million in new funding. Co-founder and CEO Adam Jackson has written for TechCrunch about how tech companies need to treat independent contractors with more empathy. He told me via email that the San Francisco-based […]

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eFounders unveils its next batch of enterprise SaaS startups Oct 02, 2020

Since 2011, European startup studio eFounders has launched 27 companies with a focus on software-as-a-service companies trying to improve the way we work. Some of them have been quite successful, such as Front and Aircall. And the company is working on its next batch of startups. “We're particularly inspired by the new wave of productivity […]

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Vista-owned backup and recovery company Datto files to go public Oct 01, 2020

When Vista Equity Partners acquired backup and disaster recovery firm Datto in 2017, it was easy to think that was the end of the company’s story. It would be comfortably absorbed into the private equity portfolio continuing to make money for the firm, but that’s not really the way Vista works. It tends to build […]

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Multis is a business bank account for cryptocurrencies Oct 01, 2020

Meet Multis, a French startup that is building business bank accounts, except that it lets you store, send and receive cryptocurrencies. The startup just raised a $2.2 million seed round. Investors in today’s funding round include White Star Capital, Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, eFounders, Greenfield One and Digital Currency Group. “It’s very complicated to manage […]

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Memo Bank details its offering for its business bank accounts Sep 30, 2020

French startup Memo Bank has unveiled three different plans for its new customers. The company is building a business bank for small and medium companies that generate between €2 million and €50 million in annual turnover. Earlier this year, Memo Bank obtained licenses from the French regulator (ACPR) and the European Central Bank to become […]

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Shipt shoppers are organizing a walkout in protest of new pay model Sep 30, 2020

Shipt shoppers are organizing a handful of actions in protest of Shipt’s new pay structure that began rolling out this month.Â The first action is happening from Saturday, Oct. 17 through Oct. 19, when workers are calling on their fellow Shipt shoppers to walk out and boycott the company. Organizers are asking for shoppers not […]

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Exotec raises $90 million for its warehouse robots Sep 29, 2020

French startup Exotec has raised a $90 million Series C round led by 83North, with existing investors Iris Capital and Breega also participating. Other existing investors include 360 Capital. The company has been working on semi-automated warehouses for e-commerce clients. The system is based on tiny robots called Skypods. They roam the floor and go […]

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N26 hires Adrienne Gormley as its new chief operating officer Sep 29, 2020

Fintech startup N26 is announcing some changes in the leadership team with two new C-Level hires. First, Adrienne Gormley, pictured above, is joining the company as chief operating officer, replacing Martin Schilling who left the company in March 2020. Second, Diana Styles, pictured below, will become N26’s chief people officer. Gormley has spent the last […]

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Noyo raises $12.5M Series A to keep building its health insurance API business Sep 28, 2020

This morning, Noyo, a startup that provides APIs that link players in the health insurance space, announced that it has closed a $12.5 million Series A round of funding.Â The new capital comes less than a year after the startup disclosed that it had raised around $4 million in pre-seed and seed capital, and that […]

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NUVIA raises $240M from Mithril to make climate-ready enterprise chips Sep 28, 2020

Climate change is on everyone’s minds these days, what with the outer Bay Area on fire, orange skies above San Francisco, and a hurricane season that is bearing down on the East Coast with alacrity (and that’s just the United States in the past two weeks). A major — and growing — source of those […]

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E-commerce platform Whitebox raises $18M Sep 25, 2020

Whitebox, a startup that manages e-commerce logistics and fulfillment for a variety for brands, has raised $18 million in Series B funding. While discussing the new funding, CEO Marcus Startzel repeated a point he made after Whitebox raised its $5 million Series A last year — that the startup is differentiated by combining tools for […]

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The first rule of BookClub? No boring book clubs. Sep 25, 2020

Book clubs can be magical. Bring together a group of friends, tear apart a book and all of a sudden the words have a second, paperless, life. But what if the author could join in the banter? Imagine riffing with Roxane Gay, debating with Ta-Nehisi Coates and eavesdropping on Jhumpa Lahiri. The experience would resemble […]

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Airship acquires SMS commerce company ReplyBuy Sep 24, 2020

Airship is announcing that it has acquired mobile commerce startup ReplyBuy. The startup (which was a finalist at TechCrunch’s 1st and Future startup competition in 2016) works with customers like entertainment venues and professional and college sports teams to send messages and sell tickets to fans via SMS. It raised $4 million in funding from […]

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Venture capitalists have found a new home to brag and debate: PrimeTime VC Sep 24, 2020

Last week, we talked a bit about how investors are seeking new techniques to bring humanity back to their deal flow and sourcing mechanisms, beyond the boring Zoom call. The newest strategy I’ve seen is PrimeTime VC, a game show that pits venture capitalists against each other to debate on topics like TikTok to Y […]

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Five years after creating Traefik application proxy, open source project hits 2B downloads Sep 23, 2020

Five years ago, Traefik Labs founder and CEO Emile Vauge was working on a project deploying thousands of microservices and he was lacking a cloud native application proxy that could handle this kind of scale. So like any good developer, he created one himself and Traefik was born. If you go back five years, the […]

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Mailchimp launches new AI tools as it continues its transformation to marketing platform Sep 23, 2020

Mailchimp may have started out as an easy to use newsletter tool, but that was almost 20 years ago. Today’s company still does email, but at its core, it is now a marketing automation platform for small businesses that also offers a website builder, basic online stores, digital ad support and analytics to make sense […]

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Pure Watercraft ramps up its electric outboard motors with a $23M series A Sep 22, 2020

Electric power only started making sense for land vehicles about ten years ago, but now the technology is ready to make the jump into the water. Pure Watercraft hopes that its electric outboard motor can replace a normal gas one for most boating needs under 50 HP — and it just raised $23.4M to hit […]

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Ride-hailing was hit hard by COVID-19. Grab’s Russell Cohen on how the company adapted. Sep 22, 2020

Ride-hailing services around the world have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Grab was no exception. The company is one of the most highly-valued tech startups in Southeast Asia, where it operates in eight countries. Its transport business suffered a sharp decline in March and April, as movement restriction orders were implemented. But […]

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With $100M in funding, Playco is already a mobile gaming unicorn Sep 21, 2020

Playco is a new mobile gaming startup created by Game Closure co-founder Michael Carter and Zynga co-founder Justin Waldron, as well as game producers Takeshi Otsuka and Teddy Cross. Although the Tokyo-headquartered company is only announcing its existence today, it’s already a unicorn — it says it’s raised $100 million in Series A funding, at […]

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Amid layoffs and allegations of fraud, the FBI has arrested NS8’s CEO following its $100+ million summer financing Sep 21, 2020

The tagline from today’s announcement from the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York says it all: “Adam Rogas Allegedly Raised $123 Million from Investors Using Financial Statements that Showed Tens of Millions of Dollars of Revenue and Assets that Did Not Exist”. Rogas, the co-founder and former chief executive and […]

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Ron Howard and Brian Grazer say that their accelerator can help diversify Hollywood Sep 18, 2020

Impact Creative Systems (formerly Imagine Impact) is bringing a startup accelerator-style approach to finding fresh creative talent, and it announced this morning that, with funding from venture capital firm Benchmark,Â it’s spinning out from Imagine Entertainment — the production company founded by director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer. Right after the news broke, the accelerator’s […]

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X1 Card is a credit card based on your income, not your credit score Sep 18, 2020

There are many reasons why you could have a good or a bad credit score. But if you’re just entering the job market, you may end up with reliable income and a low limit on your credit card. X1 Card wants to solve that by setting limits based on your current and future income instead […]

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The art of pivoting with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Jessica Matthews Sep 17, 2020

Building and growing a startup is hard, but pivoting said startup into something new and then achieving that same growth is even harder. But it’s not impossible. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, founder and CEO of PromisePay, and Jessica Matthews, founder and CEO of Uncharted Power, both have experiences doing this. At TechCrunch Disrupt, they shed some light […]

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Jefa is a challenger bank for women without a bank account Sep 17, 2020

Meet Jefa, a startup that is building a challenger bank specifically designed for women in Latin America. The company is building a product that focuses on solving the problems that women face when opening a bank account and managing it. It is participating in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. “There are 1.4 billion people […]

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Quantum startup CEO suggests we are only five years away from a quantum desktop computer Sep 16, 2020

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt 2020, leaders from three quantum computing startups joined TechCrunch editor Frederic Lardinois to discuss the future of the technology. IonQ CEO and president Peter Chapman suggested we could be as little as five years away from a desktop quantum computer, but not everyone agreed on that optimistic timeline. “I think within […]

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Data virtualization service Varada raises $12M Sep 16, 2020

Varada, a Tel Aviv-based startup that focuses on making it easier for businesses to query data across services, today announced that it has raised a $12 million Series A round led by Israeli early-stage fund MizMaa Ventures, with participation by Gefen Capital. “If you look at the storage aspect for big data, there’s always innovation, […]

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Bank-as-a-service startup Swan helps other companies issue cards, accounts and IBANs Sep 15, 2020

Meet Swan, a new French startup that wants to let other companies offer financial services by issuing cards, bank accounts and IBANs with just a few lines of codes. The company could be considered as a bank-as-a-service platform, like Treezor or solarisBank. Originally founded by startup studio eFounders, the startup just raised a $5.9M million […]

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DaVinci Kitchen is building a robotic pasta-making kiosk Sep 15, 2020

The robotics industry is having a major moment amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s true that category has been an exciting target for investments for a number of years now, but labor issues and concerns over transmission have led many sectors to take a good, long look at automation. Meal preparation is a […]

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Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features Sep 14, 2020

The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation. Thrive Capital led the round, with additional funding by existing investors Benchmark, Coatue, Caffeinated Capital and CRV, as well as new investor D1 Capital. With this, […]

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Toucan raises $3M to teach you new languages as you browse the web Sep 14, 2020

Toucan has developed a Chrome browser extension designed for anyone who wants to learn a new language but hasn’t found the motivation or the time. Once installed, the extension scans the text of any (English-language) website you’re visiting and will automatically translate some of the words into the language that you’re trying to learn. If […]

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Carbon Health to launch 100 pop-up COVID-19 testing clinics across the U.S. Sep 11, 2020

Primary care health tech startup Carbon Health has added a new element to its “omnichannel” healthcare approach with the launch of a new pop-up clinic model that is already live in San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Brooklyn and Manhattan, with Detroit to follow soon – and that will be rolling out over the next weeks and […]

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Diffblue launches a free community edition of its automated Java unit testing tool Sep 11, 2020

Diffblue, a spin-out from Oxford University, uses machine learning to help developers automatically create unit tests for their Java code. Since few developers enjoy writing unit tests to ensure that their code works as expected, increased automation doesn’t just help developers focus on writing the code that actually makes a difference but also lead to […]

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Sprinklr raises $200M on $2.7B valuation three years after last investment Sep 10, 2020

Sprinklr has been busy the last few years acquiring a dozen companies, then rewriting their code base and incorporating them into the company’s customer experience platform. Today, the late-stage startup went back to the fund raising well for the first time in three years, and it was a doozy, raising $200 million on a $2.7 […]

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Iron Ox raises $20 million for its robotic farms Sep 10, 2020

Bay Area-based Iron Ox today announced a $20 million Series B. The funding, led by Pathbreaker Venture and family office firms, brings the robotics company’s total funding up to $45 million to date. A number of other investors also took part in the round, including Crosslink Capital, Amplify Partners, ENIAC Ventures, R7 Partners, Tuesday Ventures, […]

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Snyk bags another $200M at $2.6B valuation 9 months after last raise Sep 09, 2020

When we last reported on Snyk in January, eons ago in COVID time, the company announced $150 million investment on a valuation of over $1 billion. Today, barely nine months later, it announced another $200 million and its valuation has expanded to $2.6 billion. The company is obviously drawing some serious investor attention and even […]

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Snowflake’s IPO could value it as high as $24B, Salesforce and Berkshire to invest Sep 09, 2020

On the heels of new filings from both Sumo Logic and JFrog, Snowflake, a venture-backed unicorn looking to go public on the strength of its data-focused cloud service, set an initial price range for its IPO. The $75 to $85 per-share IPO price target values the firm at between $20.9 billion and $23.7 billion, huge […]

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Revolut launches its financial app in Japan Sep 08, 2020

Fintech startup Revolut is expanding to Japan. After testing the service with 10,000 users, anybody can now sign up and open an account. The company originally obtained its authorization to operate from Japan’s Finance Service Agency in 2018. When you open an account, you get an electronic wallet and a Visa debit card. You can […]

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Why a startup with $10M in annual revenue took 18 months to get VC funding Sep 08, 2020

Back in 2006, Joseph Heller went to China where he spent the next decade learning about the manufacturing business. Based on that experience he eventually built a startup called The Studio. The idea was to help connect people with a small business idea to manufacturers in China in a fully digital way. By 2016 he […]

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Lokalise raises $6 million to make it easier to localize your product Sep 07, 2020

Meet Lokalise, a Latvian startup that focuses on translation and localization of apps, websites, games and more. The company provides a software-as-a-service product that helps you improve your workflow and processes when you need to update text in different languages in your product. The company just raised a $6 million funding round led by Mike […]

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Exhibitors at Disrupt 2020: Register now to meet accelerators next week Sep 07, 2020

Disrupt 2020 is all about helping startups find and create ways to drive their business forward in these most challenging times. We partnered with cela to give exhibitors in Digital Startup Alley one sweet opportunity — networking with 13 accelerators. If you’re exhibiting — or plan to — don’t miss out on your chance to […]

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Optimizely acquired by content management company Episerver Sep 04, 2020

Episerver is announcing that it has reached an agreement to acquire Optimizely for an undisclosed sum. Optimizely was founded in 2009 by Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen. It became synonymous with A/B testing, subsequently building a broader suite of tools for marketers to experiment with and personalize their websites and apps, with more than 1,000 […]

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48 hours left on early-bird prices to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 Sep 04, 2020

We’re just about a month away from launching TC Sessions: Mobility 2020, but you have only 48 hours left to save yourself $100 on the price of admission. Join the global mobility community on October 6-8 at the lowest possible price. Snag your pass before the early bird expires on September 4 at 11:59 p.m. […]

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Workplace management startup Legion raises $22 million Sep 03, 2020

Legion, an artificial intelligence driven platform for workplace management, has raised a $22 million series B round led by Stripes with participation from Workday Ventures and others. Legion is designed to help employers better manage their hourly workforces by automating certain decisions, like how much labor to deploy to meet the needs of the company […]

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Transposit scores $35M to build data-driven runbooks for faster disaster recovery Sep 03, 2020

Transposit is a company built by engineers to help engineers, and one big way to help them is to get systems up and running faster when things go wrong — as they always will at some point. Transposit has come up with a way to build runbooks for faster disaster recovery, while using data to […]

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Capchase raises $4.6M to deliver fast cash to SaaS companies Sep 02, 2020

As a business model, SaaS has expanded to epic size. A number of major SaaS companies filed to go public last week, and there are now thousands of SaaS startups growing all around the world. That scale makes it easier for banks and financial institutions to offer tailored solutions to this market around everything from […]

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Fresh off $200M Series D, Gong acquires early stage startup Vayo Sep 02, 2020

Gong announced a $200 million Series D investment just last month, and loaded with fresh cash, the company wasted no time taking advantage. Today, it announced it was buying early stage Isreali sales technology startup Vayo. The companies did not share terms of the deal, but Gong CEO Amit Bendov said the deal closed a […]

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Owl Ventures’ new pair of funds gives edtech a $585 million boost Sep 01, 2020

Edtech just keeps on booming. Today, Owl Ventures, a San Francisco-based education technology fund whose portfolio includes Byju’s, Labster, Masterclass and Quizlet, announced that it has closed a pair of investment vehicles totaling $585 million. Owl Ventures IV is a $415 million investment vehicle which will be used to invest in edtech startups Series A […]

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Steno raises $3.5 million led by First Round to become an extension of law offices Sep 01, 2020

The global legal services industry was worth $849 billion dollars in 2017 and is expected to become a trillion dollar industry by the end of next year. Little wonder that Steno, an L.A.-based startup, wants a piece. Like most legal services outfits, what it offers are ways for law practices to run more smoothly, including […]

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Banks aren’t as stupid as enterprise AI and fintech entrepreneurs think Aug 31, 2020

The right question is almost never whether to buy software or build it internally. Instead, banks have often worked to walk the difficult but smarter path right down the middle.

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Register for our last pitch-off next week on September 2 Aug 31, 2020

It’s time again to start warming up your pitching arm. Our next Pitchers & Pitches session takes place next week on September 2. Register today! Pitchers & Pitches sessions combine critique and competition with a focus on helping early-stage startup founders create an iron-clad, 60-second pitch. Here’s how it works. Everyone is welcome to attend, […]

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Fondeadora is a Mexican challenger bank that just raised $14 million Aug 28, 2020

Meet Fondeadora, a fintech startup based in Mexico City that wants to build a full-stack neobank. The company just raised a $14 million Series A round led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund. Founded in 2018, the company already manages 150,000 accounts and is adding $20 million in deposits every month. Mexico represents a […]

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Property tech startup Habi raises $10M to drive expansion in Latin America Aug 28, 2020

When Brynne McNulty Rojas moved to Bogotá, Columbia four years ago, she encountered a fragmented real estate industry that lacked a central database for consumers to find or compare homes. Rojas was struck by the magnitude of the problem; she was also inspired by the opportunity. Rojas and business partner Sebastian Noguera homed in on […]

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Narrative raises $8.5M as it launches a new data marketplace Aug 27, 2020

Narrative has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding and is launching a new product designed to further simplify the process of buying and selling data. I’ve already written about the company’s existing marketplace and software for managing data transactions. With the new Data Streams Marketplace, the process should be simpler than ever — not […]

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Course Hero, a profitable edtech unicorn, raises rare cash Aug 27, 2020

Like any successful founder, Andrew Grauer had bright, long-term ambitions for Course Hero from the moment he launched it in 2006. He started the business to create a place where students could ask questions and get answers similar to Chegg, which launched 15 months before Course Hero . But as he slowly built it, he […]

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Payments services company Finix adds $30 million to its Series B Aug 26, 2020

Finix, a startup that provides payments-related services to other companies, announced it has extended its Series B financing with a $30 million investment led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and American Express Ventures. The fintech startup has now raised over $96 million in venture capital. According to CEO and co-founder Richie Serna, $90 million of that […]

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Eden intros SaaS tools in a bid to become a more comprehensive office management platform Aug 26, 2020

Eden, the office management platform founded by Joe du Bey, is today announcing the launch of several new enterprise software features. The company, which offers a marketplace for office managers to procure services like office cleaning, repairs, etc., is looking to offer a more comprehensive platform. The software features include a COVID team safety tool […]

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Visual collaboration startup MURAL raises huge $118M Series B Aug 25, 2020

This morning MURAL announced that it has raised $118 million in an outsized Series B. The visual collaboration startup provides a whiteboard-like digital environment that allows for users to cooperate and brainstorm. MURAL announced that it had raised $23 million earlier this year, though that investment closed in 2019. The $23 million round was a […]

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Conan is coming to Disrupt 2020 Aug 25, 2020

In 2010, TV show host Conan O’Brien was abruptly asked to give up the time slot he’d been handed just six months earlier by his longtime employer NBC. Instead, he famously gave the network the figurative finger, taking his act to the basic cable network TBS later that same year and — embraced by legions […]

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SugarCRM acquires Node to gain predictive customer intelligence Aug 24, 2020

SugarCRM announced this morning it has acquired customer intelligence startup, Node. The companies did not reveal the purchase price, but the deal has closed. While Sugar gains a ton of AI expertise, it also adds a customer prediction element to the platform such as figuring out the customers most likely to convert or most likely […]

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Overlooked teams up with college newspapers to build a news-focused social network Aug 24, 2020

George Sehremelis is building what he calls a “social news network,” with the aim of combatting the spread of misinformation and fake news online. “My goal has always been make an impact on the 2020 election,” Sehremelis told me — a tall order, particularly when the big social networks are struggling to solve these same […]

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Cobalt.io grabs $29M Series B to continue building out pentesting platform Aug 21, 2020

The promise of SaaS has always been about taking tedious, expensive manual tasks and finding a way to build a platform to automate them. Cobalt.io is doing that with pentesting, the process of testing an application for security vulnerabilities before it goes out the door. Today, the startup announced a $29 million Series B led […]

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DoorDash expands with on-demand grocery delivery Aug 21, 2020

DoorDash is announcing that customers can now order groceries through the DoorDash app from partners including Smart & Final, Meijer and Fresh Thyme. Additional stores like Hy-vee and Gristedes/D’Agnostino are supposed to be added in the next few weeks. Through these partnerships, DoorDash says it has a delivery footprint covering 75 million Americans in markets […]

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Airbnb has confidentially filed to go public Aug 20, 2020

In a turn of fortune, Airbnb today announced that it has filed to go public, albeit confidentially. The move puts the home-sharing service on a path to a public offering sooner rather than later, and comes after reports that the company was prepping an IPO filing this month. Those same reports indicated that Airbnb could […]

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Finmark wants to put sophisticated financial modeling within reach of startups Aug 20, 2020

Finmark, a member of Summer 2020 Y Combinator cohort, is not your typical YC startup. In fact company co-founder Rami Essaid has already built Distil, a security startup and saw it through to exit when he sold the company to Imperva last year. As he pondered what to do next, he took a quick turn […]

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Meet the startup that helped Microsoft build the world of Flight Simulator Aug 19, 2020

Microsoft’s new Flight Simulator is a technological marvel that sets a new standard for the genre. But to recreate a world that feels real and alive and contains billions of buildings all in the right spots, Microsoft and Asobo Studios relied on the work of multiple partners. One of those is the small Austrian startup […]

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Movable Ink raises $30M as it expands its personalization technology beyond email marketing Aug 19, 2020

Movable Ink, a company that helps businesses deliver more personalized and relevant email marketing, is announcing that it has raised $30 million in Series funding. The company will be 10 years old in October, and founder and CEO Vivek Sharma told me that it’s always been “capital efficient” — even with the new round, Movable […]

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Attabotics raises a $50M Series C for its warehouse fulfillment robots Aug 18, 2020

The uptick in robotics funding continues this week with a big round for Calgary, Alberta’s Attabotics. The warehouse fulfillment startup announced a $50 million Series C, led — interestingly enough — by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Canada’s largest pension plan. It’s a pretty hot moment for robotics and automation investing, as more industries […]

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India’s OneCard credit card-maker FPL Technologies lands $10 million Aug 18, 2020

A 20-month-old startup in India founded by a group of banking veterans that has built a mobile-first credit card and is improving the experience users have with credit cards has secured $10 million in a new financing round. Pune-based FPL Technologies’ $10 million Series A financing round was funded by Matrix Partners India, Sequoia Capital […]

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AutoX launches its RoboTaxi service in Shanghai, competing with Didi’s pilot program Aug 17, 2020

Autonomous vehicle startup AutoX announced the public launch of of its self-driving taxi service in Shanghai today. Called simply RoboTaxi, AutoX’s offering already faces competition from Didi, China’s largest ride-hailing platform, which launched its own robo-taxi pilot program in Shanghai at the end of June. AutoX’s RoboTaxis will first be available in Jiading District, starting […]

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Root AI raises $7.2M seed round to deploy its harvesting robot amid COVID-19-fueled demand Aug 17, 2020

By all accounts, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of robotics and automation by months, if not years. The reasons are fairly clear — robotics don’t call in sick, nor are they disease vectors in the same manner as their human counterparts. As food production and agriculture are looking to be among the biggest […]

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Labster lands new cash to bring its virtual reality science lab software to Asia Aug 14, 2020

You could Zoom call into your science class, or you could conduct a lab experiment in virtual reality. During the coronavirus pandemic, the latter has never felt more full of potential. The global need for learning solutions beyond Zoom is precisely why Labster, a Copenhagen-based startup that helps individuals engage in STEM lab scenarios using […]

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Cube closes $5M Seed round to scale its financial planning software Aug 14, 2020

This morning Cube announced that it has closed a Seed round worth just over $5 million. The software startup, focused on financial planning and analysis (FP&A) work, raised $3.8 million of the total recently, with remaining $1.25 million having come in an earlier Pre-Seed round. Christina Ross, Cube’s CEO and founder, told TechCrunch that she […]

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Gong raises another $200M on $2.2B valuation Aug 13, 2020

For the third time since last February, Gong has raised a significant sum. In February, the company scored $40 million. In December, it grabbed another $65 million, and today it was $200 million on a $2.2 billion valuation. That’s a total of $305 million in less than 18 months. Coatue led today’s cash infusion with […]

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Dog food startup Sundays launches its air-dried kibble alternative Aug 13, 2020

Michael Waxman, co-founder and CEO of dog food startup Sundays, acknowledged that dog owners have no shortage of options when it comes to feeding their beloved pets — but he still thinks there’s room for something new. “There’s a sort of ‘Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink’ phenomenon,” Waxman said. “There are over […]

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Adaptive Shield raises $4M for its SaaS security platform Aug 12, 2020

Adaptive Shield, a Tel Aviv-based security startup, is coming out of stealth today and announcing its $4 million seed round led by Vertex Ventures Israel. The company’s platform helps businesses protect their SaaS applications by regularly scanning their various setting for security issues. The company’s co-founders met in the Israeli Defense Forces, where they were […]

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Zin Boats reinvents the electric speedboat in a bid to become the Tesla of the sea Aug 12, 2020

The automotive industry is knee deep in the vast transition to electric, but one place where gas is still going strong is out on the water. Zin Boats wants to start what you might call a sea change by proving, as Tesla did before it, that an electric boat is not just better for the planet, it's better in almost every other way as well.

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Parsable scores $60M Series D as pandemic forces faster digitization of industrial sector Aug 11, 2020

It seems the pandemic has forced the business world to digitize faster, and the industrial sector is no different. Parsable, a San Francisco startup that is helping digitize industrial front line workers, announced a $60 million Series D today. Activate Capital and Glade Brook Capital Partners co-led the round. They got help from new investors […]

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DoubleVerify says ad fraudsters are using public domain content to create fake TV apps Aug 11, 2020

The team at DoubleVerify, a company that helps advertisers eliminate fraud and ensure brand safety, said that it’s recently identified a new tactic used by ad fraudsters seeking to make money on internet-connected TVs. Senior Vice President of Product Management Roy Rosenfeld said that it’s harder for those fraudsters to create a legitimate-looking TV app […]

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Sign up for the next Pitchers & Pitches competition on 8/13 Aug 10, 2020

Here’s a shout out to all the early-stage founders attendingÂ Disrupt 2020. Don’t forget to register for our next Pitchers & Pitches — on August 13 — and get ready to hone your 60-second pitch to a razor’s edge. If you’re not in the know, our ongoing Pitchers and Pitches webinar series is a pitch-off-masterclass-mashup. It’s […]

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Clean.io raises $5M to continue its battle against malicious adtech Aug 10, 2020

Clean.io, a startup that helps digital publishers protect themselves from malicious ads, recently announced that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The Baltimore-based company isn’t the only organization promising to fight malvertising (such as ads that force visitors to redirect to another website). But as co-founder wrote Seth Demsey told me last […]

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Crossbeam announces $25M Series B to keep growing partnerships platform Aug 08, 2020

As sales teams partner with other companies, they go through a process called account mapping to find common customers and prospects. This is usually a highly manual activity tracked in spreadsheets. Crossbeam, a Philadelphia startup, has come up with a way to automate partnership data integration. Today the company announced a $25 million Series B […]

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What Q2 fundraising data tells us about the rest of 2020 Aug 07, 2020

If the current level of interest represents the new normal for VCs, we expect it to only increase as we enter the fall.

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PandaDoc announces second Series B extension worth $30M Aug 06, 2020

PandaDoc, the startup that provides a fully digital sales document workflow from proposal to electronic signature to collecting payment, announced a $30 million Series B extension today, making it the the second such extension the company has taken since taking its original $15 million Series B in 2017. The total for the three B investments […]

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Krisp snags $5M A round as demand grows for its voice-isolating algorithm Aug 06, 2020

Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech, which silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls, arrived just in time. The company got out in front of the global shift to virtual presence, turning early niche traction has into real customers and attracting a shiny new $5 million series A funding round to expand and diversify […]

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YC-backed Statiq wants to bootstrap India’s EV charging network Aug 05, 2020

Electric vehicles (EVs) are spreading throughout the world. While Tesla has drawn the most attention in the United States with its luxurious and cutting-edge cars, EVs are becoming a mainstay in markets far away from the environs of California. Take India for instance. In the local mobility market, two- and three-wheel vehicles are starting to […]

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Intercom hires a CFO as it ramps towards an IPO Aug 05, 2020

Today Intercom announced that it has hired a chief financial officer (CFO) as it ramps towards an IPO. The unicorn also promoted its COO to the CEO role earlier this year. The company’s recent CEO, Karen Peacock, told TechCrunch that her new CFO Dan Griggs was a strong candidate thanks to his experience helping take […]

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EventGeek relaunches as Circa to help marketers embrace virtual events Aug 04, 2020

EventGeek was a Y Combinator-backed startup that offered tools to help large enterprises manage the logistics of their events. So with the COVID-19 pandemic essentially eliminating large-scale conferences, at least in-person, it’s not exactly surprising that the company had to reinvent itself. Today, EventGeek relaunched as Circa, with a new focus on virtual events. founder […]

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Cisco acquires Modcam to make Meraki smart camera portfolio even smarter Aug 03, 2020

As the Internet of Things, proliferates, security cameras are getting smarter. Today, these devices have machine learning capability that help the camera automatically identify what it’s looking at — for instance an animal or a human intruder? Today, Cisco announced that it’s acquired Swedish startup Modcam and making it part of its Meraki smart camera […]

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Recruiting for diversity in VC Aug 03, 2020

Dan Miller Contributor Share on Twitter Dan is a Partner at True Search where he leads the firm's Investment Professional practice, having worked with many top VC & PE firms in their senior hiring efforts. Like many industries with a high concentration of wealth — and the careers that help professionals accumulate it — investment […]

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Are option grants promoting gender and racial inequity? Jul 31, 2020

I want to believe that companies that promise racial and gender equity in compensation make it happen, but not all do.

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Point wants to provide credit card rewards with debit cards Jul 31, 2020

Point, a new challenger bank in the U.S., is launching publicly today with an invite system. While Point is technically providing a bank account, the company focuses on rewards associated with a debit card. “I started Point as a solution about everything that is frustrating and complicated about credit cards. The incentives between credit card […]

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Singapore-based Volopay wants to be the “Brex of Southeast Asia” Jul 30, 2020

Small- to medium-sized companies that do a lot of international business have to deal with two big headaches: high foreign exchange fees and corporate expense tracking. Volopay, a Singapore-based financial tech startup with offices in Bangalore, wants to help by integrating prepaid multi-currency corporate cards, expense tracking and accounting tools into one free-to-use platform. Volopay […]

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Explorium reels in $31M Series B as data discovery platform grows Jul 30, 2020

In a world with growing amounts of data, finding the right set for a particular machine learning model can be a challenge. Explorium has created a platform to make that an easier task, and today the startup announced a $31 million Series B. The round was led by Zeev Venture with help from Dynamic Loop, […]

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Y Combinator Demo Day to remain virtual and will be streamed live Jul 29, 2020

After feedback from the investor and founder communities, Y Combinator is making a change to how it does Demo Days in a remote world. The accelerator announced today that it will keep its two-day Demo Day virtual, but instead of offering pre-recorded pitches on-demand, the entire program will be streamed live. In an e-mail, Y […]

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YC alum Paragon snags $2.5M seed for low-code app integration platform Jul 29, 2020

Low-code is a hot category these days. It helps companies build workflows or simple applications without coding skills, freeing up valuable engineering resources for more important projects. Paragon, a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2020 cohort, announced a $2.5 million seed round today for its low-code application integration platform. Investors include Y Combinator, Village […]

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ClimaCell raises $23M Series C for its weather intelligence platform Jul 28, 2020

ClimaCell, the weather forecasting and intelligence service that is using a number of interesting new techniques to gather weather data, today announced that it has raised a $23 million Series C round co-led by new investor Pitango Growth and existing investor Square Peg Captial. With this new round, the Boston- and TelAviv-based company’s total funding […]

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Investments in bioproducts surge as Geltor nabs new money Jul 28, 2020

The manufacturer of a vegan collagen, Geltor, has raised a new round of financing — $90 million, according to people familiar with the company. It’s another sign of the newfound viability of sustainability and cell-based, vegetarian replacements for animal products. Sustainable bio-products, whether plant-based, genetically modified or cell-cultured, are having a big year. In the […]

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cargo.one gets $18.6M to take its air freight booking platform over the pond Jul 27, 2020

Berlin -based cargo.one, which runs a marketplace for booking air freight, has closed an $18.6 million Series A round of funding led by Index Ventures. Next47 and prior backers Creandum, Lufthansa Cargo and Point Nine Capital also participated in the round, along with a number of angel investors — including Tom Stafford of DST Global […]

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Revolut extends Series D round to $580 million with $80 million in new funding Jul 27, 2020

Fintech startup Revolut just announced that it has raised $80 million as part of its Series D round that it had already announced in February. The new influx of funding comes from TSG Consumer Partners. In February, Revolut raised a $500 million led by TCV at a $5.5 billion valuation. Today’s new funding extends that […]

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This startup reworked its privacy-friendly sensors to help battle COVID-19 Jul 24, 2020

One little-known home and retail automation startup might seem like an unlikely candidate to help combat the ongoing pandemic. But its founder says its technology can do just that, even if it wasn’t the company’s original plan. Butlr, a spin-out of the MIT Media Lab, uses a mix of wireless, battery-powered hardware and artificial intelligence […]

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iObeya raises $17M to digitize management planning processes like Agile Jul 24, 2020

As we move deeper into the pandemic, companies are looking for ways to digitize processes that previously required in-person meetings with manual approaches. Investors appear to be rewarding companies who can achieve this. iObeya, a French company that helps digitize management planning processes like lean and agile, announced a $17 million Series A today. Red […]

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YC-backed Glimpse helps Airbnb hosts make money through product placement Jul 23, 2020

Glimpse is giving Airbnb hosts a way to make extra money while also supplying their accommodations with new products. The startup was founded by CEO Akash Raju, COO Anuj Mehta and CPO Kushal Negi, who all recently graduated from Purdue University. It’s part of the current batch of startups at accelerator Y Combinator — where, […]

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Don’t let VCs be the gatekeepers of your success Jul 23, 2020

I assumed most investors were jerks in pitch meetings, but my white colleagues told me the level of disrespect and dismissiveness I received was not typical.

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Chef Marcus Samuelsson teams up with Sage Digital to launch Project Bento fundraising platform Jul 22, 2020

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the ongoing protests for racial justice, people have been looking for different ways to contribute, which in turn has led tech companies to launch new features and campaigns. Now there’s a new fundraising platform called Project Bento, created by chef and restauranteur Marcus Samuelsson (best […]

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Rakuten will not renew its contract with WeWork, says report Jul 22, 2020

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has decided not to renew its contract with WeWork when it expires next month, according to a report in the Japan Times. Rakuten had leased about 700 desks in Tokyo, but is now planning to move employees from its fintech division into its own new offices. Both WeWork and Rakuten declined […]

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How to approach your IPO stock Jul 21, 2020

Part one of a three-part series that offers a framework for objectively considering post-IPO or concentrated stock holdings.

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Jamf ups its IPO range, now targets a valuation of up to $2.7B Jul 21, 2020

Today Jamf, a software company that helps other firms manage their Apple devices, raised its IPO price range. The company had previously targeted a $17 to $19 per-share range. A new SEC filing from the firm today details a far higher $21 to $23 per-share IPO price interval. Jamf still intends to sell up to […]

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Ready, set, network! CrunchMatch is now open for Early Stage 2020 Jul 20, 2020

Call it what you will — startup bootcamp, founders’ masterclass or the mother of all how-to events — we’re just days away from TC Early Stage 2020. But you don’t have to wait another minute to start making essential connections. CrunchMatch, our AI-powered networking platform, is now open for business. Wait up. You don’t have […]

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Federal court rules WhatsApp and Facebook’s malware exploit case against NSO Group can proceed Jul 20, 2020

A U.S. federal court judge ruled on Thursday that WhatsApp and parent company Facebook’s lawsuit against Israeli mobile surveillance software company NSO Group can go forward. Phyllis Hamilton, Chief Judge of the United Stated District Court of the Northern District of California, denied most of the arguments NSO Group made when it filed a motion […]

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Sign up next week’s Pitchers and Pitches competition on 7/23 Jul 17, 2020

Can one minute really make a difference in your startup success? If we’re talking about your 60-second pitch (and we are), then heck yeah!Â A crisp, concise and compelling pitch opens doors to opportunity, and we’re here to help you pump up your pitch. Join us online for the next Pitchers & Pitches competition on […]

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Qumulo scores $125M Series E on $1.2B valuation as storage biz accelerates Jul 17, 2020

Qumulo, a Seattle storage startup helping companies store vast amounts of data, announced a $125 million Series E investment today on a $1.2 billion valuation. BlackRock led the round with help from Highland Capital Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Kleiner Perkins and new investor Amity Ventures. The company reports it has now raised $351 million. CEO […]

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Waldo is a ‘no code’ automated mobile testing service that anyone can use Jul 16, 2020

Meet Waldo, a new product that wants to make mobile testing both faster and easier. The New York-based startup lets you record tests in your browser by interacting with your app like you’d normally do. Every time you compile a new build, Waldo runs the same tests you previously recorded on multiple software and hardware […]

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UIPath reels in another $225M as valuation soars to $10.2B Jul 16, 2020

Last year, Gartner found that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the fastest growing category in enterprise software. So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that UIPath, a leading startup in the space, announced a $225 million Series E today on an eye-popping $10.2 billion valuation. Alkeon Capital led the round with help from Accel, […]

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Mighty Health created a wellness app with older adults top of mind Jul 15, 2020

Virtual classes might make it easier to work out anywhere, anytime, but not for anyone. Mainstream fitness tech often targets the young and fit, in advertisements and cardio-heavy exercises. It effectively excludes aging adults from participating. This gap between mainstream fitness and elders is where Mighty Health, a Y Combinator graduate, comes in. Mighty Health […]

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BlueOcean uses automation to deliver affordable brand audits in seven days Jul 15, 2020

BlueOcean is a new startup offering companies a relatively fast and affordable way to see how their brands are performing and what they can do to improve. CEO Grant McDougall and COO/President Liza Nebel (the pair founded BLueOcean with Chief Data Scientist Matthew Gross) told me that they’ve been developing the technology for two years. […]

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BigCommerce files to go public Jul 14, 2020

As expected, BigCommerce has filed to go public. The Austin, Texas, based e-commerce company raised over $200 million while private. The company’s IPO filing lists a $100 million placeholder figure for its IPO raise, giving us directional indication that this IPO will be in the lower, and not upper, nine-figure range. BigCommerce, similar to public […]

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Robinhood raises $320M more, bringing its latest round to $600M at an $8.6B valuation Jul 14, 2020

The stakes keep getting higher for American discount brokerage Robinhood, which today disclosed that it has added hundreds of millions of dollars to its previously disclosed funding round. Including the $280 million that the company had already announced, Robinhood said that it was “pleased to share” that it “raised an additional $320 million in subsequent […]

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Rackspace preps IPO after going private in 2016 for $4.3B Jul 13, 2020

After going private in 2016 after accepting a $32 per share, or $4.3 billion, price from Apollo Global Management, Rackspace is looking once again to the public markets. First going public in 2008, Rackspace is taking second aim at a public offering around 12 years after its initial debut. The company describes its business as […]

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nCino sharply raises its IPO price range, boosting possible valuation to $2.6B Jul 13, 2020

As expected, fintech company nCino has raised its IPO price range. The North Carolina-based banking software firm now expects to sell its shares for between $28 and $29 per share, far more than its initial price range of $22 to $24 per share. At its $28 to $29 per-share price interval, nCino is worth $2.50 […]

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Yamo scores €10.1M Series A to offer healthier food choices for young children Jul 10, 2020

Yamo, a self-described “foodtech” startup that produces and sells healthier food for babies and young children, has raised €10.1 million in Series A funding. Backing comes from European food and agriculture tech investor Five Seasons Ventures, Swiss Entrepreneurs Fund, Ringier Digital Ventures, Müller Ventures, btov Partners, Polytech Ventures, BackBone Ventures, and Fundament. It brings total […]

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Creandum backs Amie, a new productivity app from ex-N26 product manager Dennis Müller Jul 10, 2020

Amie, a new productivity app from ex-N26 product manager Dennis Müller, has picked up $1.3 million in pre-seed funding to “kickstart” development and hiring. Backing 23 year-old Müller is Creandum — the European VC best known for being an early investor in Spotify — along with Tiny.VC and a plethora of angels. They include Laura […]

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Fintech startup nCino targets ~$2B valuation in impending IPO Jul 09, 2020

As IPO season continues, another venture-backed tech company is moving closer toward going public. This week nCino filed an updated S-1 filing, providing an initial price range for its equity of $22 to $24 per share. Indeed, nCino, a fintech startup that provides operating software to banks, intends to sell 7.625 million shares in its […]

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GoHealth eyes multibillion-dollar valuation as it sets its initial IPO price range Jul 09, 2020

GoHealth, a Chicago-based company that provides consumers with a digital portal to help them select insurance products, set an initial price range for its IPO today. The firm intends to price its equity between $18 to $20 per share in its debut. As the company expects to sell 39.5 million shares in the offering, its […]

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Nayya, bringing transparency to choosing and managing healthcare plans, raises $2.7 million Jul 08, 2020

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator -backed Nayya is on a mission to simplify choosing and managing employee benefits through machine learning and data transparency. The company has raised $2.7 million in seed funding led by Social Leverage with participation from Guardian Strategic Ventures, Cameron Ventures, Soma Capital, as well as other strategic angels. The process of choosing […]

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DocuSign acquires Liveoak Technologies for $38M for online notarization Jul 08, 2020

Even in the best of times, finding a notary can be a challenge. In the middle of a pandemic, it’s even more difficult. DocuSign announced it has acquired Liveoak Technologies today for approximately $38 million, giving the company an online notarization option. At the same time, DocuSign announced a new product called DocuSign Notary, which […]

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Replenysh raises a $2 million seed round to streamline recycling for buyers and sellers Jul 07, 2020

Replenysh has been kicking since 2016, but up til now, the Orange County, California startup hasn’t done much press. That changes today, as the company announces that it has raised a $2 million seed round with the fairly lofty goal of transforming recycling in the U.S. A press release outlining Replenysh’s plans offers up plenty […]

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OwnBackup lands $50M as backup for Salesforce ecosystem thrives Jul 07, 2020

OwnBackup has made a name for itself primarily as a backup and disaster recovery system for the Salesforce ecosystem, and today the company announced a $50 million investment. Insight Partners led the round with participation from Salesforce Ventures and Vertex Ventures. This chunk of money comes on top of a $23 million round from a […]

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Lydia expands credit offering in partnership with Younited Credit Jul 06, 2020

French startup Lydia is announcing a new partnership with Younited Credit, which lets you borrow anything between €500 and €3,000 and pay back within 6 to 36 months. The feature will be released in France at some point during the summer. This isn’t the first time Lydia is playing around with credit. The company already […]

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Location data startup Bluedot raises $9.1M Jul 06, 2020

Bluedot, a geofencing and location data startup used by companies like Dunkin’, KFC and McDonald’s, is announcing that it has raised $9.1 million in Series B funding. The San Francisco-headquartered company claims that its technology its 20 times more accurate than competing solutions — something that CEO Emil Davityan attributed to its roots in the […]

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Lemonade and Accolade open sharply higher as public markets rally Jul 03, 2020

Despite today’s bucket of plus-and-minus economic data, stocks are heading higher in regular trading. And among the shares rising the most are today’s two venture-backed IPOs: Lemonade and Accolade. TechCrunch wrote this morning that the firms’ aggressive IPO pricing arcs boded well for the IPO market itself, that investors were willing to price growth-y shares […]

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Science Inc. is getting into the music business with incubator Heavy Sound Labs Jul 03, 2020

Jason Geter, who previously co-founded Grand Hustle Records, told me that he’s looking to “redefine what a record label is today” with his new startup Heavy Sound Labs. Geter said he sees Heavy Sound — which is part of startup studio Science Inc. — as an extension of the work he’s been doing for decades: […]

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Vendia raises $5.1M for its multi-cloud serverless platform Jul 02, 2020

When the inventor of AWS Lambda, Tim Wagner, and the former head of blockchain at AWS, Shruthi Rao, co-found a startup, it’s probably worth paying attention. Vendia, as the new venture is called, combines the best of serverless and blockchain to help build a truly multi-cloud serverless platform for better data and code sharing. Today, […]

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Point launches new challenger bank with rewards on debit card purchases Jul 02, 2020

Meet Point, a new challenger bank in the U.S. that has been available as a private beta for the past year. Today, the company is launching a major new version of its service and opening its doors to everyone. But you’ll have to get an invite to get in at first. Point is a consumer […]

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Bolt launches electric bike-sharing service in Paris Jul 01, 2020

Like other ride-hailing companies, Bolt has been suffering from the coronavirus-related lockdown and economic downturn around the world. But the company is trying to find another revenue stream by launching electric bikes in Paris. Bolt plans to launch a similar service in other European capitals this year. For the past couple of weeks, the only […]

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Oculus co-founder and games industry vets form Mountaintop Studios Jul 01, 2020

Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell is heading up a new game development house called Mountaintop Studios, joined by colleagues from around the gaming industry. The company aims to leave the crunch and toxic culture pervasive in game studios behind and make one that’s “collaborative, anti-crunch, diverse, and inclusive.” The founding team includes Mitchell’s former colleague Mark […]

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Personal Capital sells to Empower Retirement in deal worth up to $1B Jun 30, 2020

Today Personal Capital, a fintech company that had attracted over $265 million in private funding, announced that it is selling itself to Empower Retirement, a company that provides retirement services to other companies. The deal is worth $825 million upon closing, with another $175 million in what are described as “planned growth” incentives, according to […]

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After losing Grubhub, Uber reportedly hails Postmates Jun 30, 2020

Uber has reportedly made an offer to buy food delivery service Postmates, according to The New York Times. According to the Times, the talks are still ongoing and the deal could fall through. For those that have been paying attention to Uber, this appetite is not new, albeit consistent. A little over a month ago, […]

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Agora starts life as a public company by more than doubling to $50 a share Jun 29, 2020

Shares of Agora, a China and U.S.-based “real-time engagement” API company, soared today after it went public. Yesterday Agora priced 17.5 million shares at $20 apiece, up from its target range of $16 to $18 per share. The firm raised $350 in its debut, or around 10 times its Q1 2020 revenue and is now […]

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TuSimple seeking $250 million in new funding to scale self-driving trucks Jun 29, 2020

TuSimple, the self-driving truck startup backed by Sina, Nvidia, UPS and Tier 1 supplier Mando Corporation, is headed back into the marketplace in search of new capital from investors. The company has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to help it raise $250 million, according to multiple sources familiar with the effort. Morgan Stanley has sent […]

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Karat launches a credit card for online creators Jun 26, 2020

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Private equity firm Great Hill Partners acquires stock media service Storyblocks Jun 26, 2020

Storyblocks, the subscription-based stock media service, today announced that it has been acquired by private equity firm Great Hill Partners. The firm previously backed companies like Wayfair (and then exited that specific investment in 2017) and Custom Ink. Great Hill also acquired Gizmodo Media Group in 2019. Storyblocks and Great Hill did not disclose the […]

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IPOs that could happen soon, cannot happen soon enough Jun 25, 2020

Earlier today we took a look at two companies that have filed to go public, nCino and GoHealth. The pair join Lemonade in a march toward the public markets. But those three firms are hardly alone. We know that DoorDash filed privately earlier this year (it also raised a pile of cash lately, so its […]

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Privacy assistant Jumbo raises $8 million and releases major update Jun 25, 2020

A year after its initial release, Jumbo has two important pieces of news to announce. First, the company has released a major update of its app that protects your privacy on online services. Second, the company has raised an $8 million Series A funding round. If you’re not familiar with Jumbo, the app wants to […]

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Zopa granted full UK bank license as it gears up to launch savings account and credit card Jun 24, 2020

Zopa, the 15-year-old peer-to-peer lending company, is announcing that it has been awarded its full U.K. bankâ€¯licence, as it gears up to launch a fixed-term savings account, followed by a credit card. Dubbed “Zopa Bank,” the new challenger bank will sit alongside its existing peer-to-peer lending business, under Zopa Group, creating what the veteran fintech […]

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Prices increase in four days for founder workshops at TC Early Stage Jun 24, 2020

The countdown clock is running, and you have just four days left to score the lowest price on passes to TC Early Stage 2020, which takes place on July 21-22. We’ve packed this two-day virtual event with more than 50 workshops covering essential topics that every early-stage founder needs to master. Take advantage of the […]

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Ampere announces latest chip with a 128 core processor Jun 23, 2020

In the chip game, more is usually better and to that end, Ampere announced the next chip on its product roadmap today, the Altra Max, a 128 core processor, the company says is designed specifically to handle cloud native, containerized workloads. What’s more, the company has designed the chip, so that it will fit in […]

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ServiceNow to acquire Belgian configuration management startup Sweagle Jun 23, 2020

With more companies moving workers home, making sure your systems are up and running has become more important than ever. ServiceNow, which includes an IT Help Desk component in its product catalogue recognizes that help desks have been bombarded during the pandemic. To help stop configuration problems before they start, the company acquired Sweagle today, […]

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HashiCorp to offer managed versions of its developer tools starting with Consul Jun 22, 2020

HashiCorp is well known in the developer community for offering a slew of open source tools to help build and manage modern applications. Today the company announced a new cloud platform and plans to eventually offer managed versions of those tools, starting with Consul a tool for connecting and securing services across platforms. HashiCorp CEO […]

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After IPO delays, DoorDash confirms $400M raise Jun 22, 2020

DoorDash has confirmed that it is raising “approximately $400 million” in a Series H round of funding. Earlier today, Axios reported that the company was looking for roughly $400 million round at a post-money valuation of $16 billion. DoorDash clarified in a statement provided to TechCrunch that the valuation is slightly under the $16 billion […]

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Who’s writing first checks into startups? Jun 19, 2020

The TechCrunch List will publish the most recommended “first check” writers across 22 different categories ranging from D2C & e-commerce brands to space, and everything in between.

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Intercom announces the promotion of Karen Peacock to CEO Jun 19, 2020

Three years ago almost to the day, Intercom announced that it was bringing former Intuit exec Karen Peacock on board as COO. Today, she got promoted to CEO, effective July 1st. Current CEO and company co-founder Eoghan McCabe will become Chairman. As it turns out, these moves aren’t a coincidence. McCabe had been actively thinking […]

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Software shares set new records as tech rallies Jun 18, 2020

In another up for technology shares, software companies saw their values reach new heights today. The days trading comes after a selloff last week eased some of technology companies’ rebounds from their COVID-19 lows; stocks in tech companies have more than made up for their early-year declines in mid-2020, with the Nasdaq reaching 10,000 points […]

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Credit-focused fintech startup Upgrade raises $40M after reaching $100M run rate Jun 18, 2020

This morning Upgrade, a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation. The Upgrade round slots neatly into a few trends TechCrunch has noted in recent quarters, including fintech startups raising at new, higher valuations, and some startups seeing […]

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Exhibit for free at Disrupt 2020: Apply to TC Top Picks Jun 17, 2020

Looking for a way to get your early-stage startup the massive attention it deserves? Of course, you are. One of the best ways to get in front of thousands of influencers is by exhibiting in Startup Alley during Disrupt 2020. An even better way is to exhibit for free. Take the first step and apply […]

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DeepSource announce $2.6M seed round to automate static code analysis Jun 17, 2020

DeepSource, a member of the Winter 2020 Y Combinator cohort, announced a $2.6 million seed investment today. The company is building a solution to help developers automate static code analysis to find certain errors before going through human code review. 645 Ventures led the round with help from Y Combinator, FundersClub, Pioneer Fund, Liquid 2 […]

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Reebelo, a Singapore-based site for refurbished electronics, raises $1.25 million seed round Jun 16, 2020

Reebelo, a Singapore-based marketplace for refurbished electronics, announced it has raised a seed round of $1.25 million led by June Fund, with participation from Antler. The new funding will be used for hiring, especially marketing and operations positions for customer service as the company scales. Reebelo currently operates in Singapore, but plans to expand across […]

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Free money for startups? It’s possible with MainStreet’s platform for economic development incentives Jun 16, 2020

Startups need money. State and local governments need startups and the employment growth they offer. It should be obvious that the two groups can work together and make each other happy. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Each year, governments spend tens of billions of dollars on economic development incentives designed to attract […]

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So you want to talk about race in tech with Ijeoma Oluo Jun 15, 2020

“A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces,” said Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, which has surged to the top of the New York Times best sellers list in paperback nonfiction, two and a half years after its initial January 2018 […]

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Uber shares tumble 5% as reports indicate it will lose the Grubhub deal to European rival Jun 15, 2020

Reports this morning indicate that Uber, the American ride-hailing giant with a global footprint, will lose out on its attempt to buy Grubhub, an American food ordering and delivery service. Uber competes with Grubhub domestically with its Uber Eats service; a tie-up between the two could have given Uber suffocating market share in the United […]

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API platform Postman delivers $150M Series B on $2B valuation Jun 12, 2020

APIs provide a way to build connections to a set of disparate applications and data sources, and can help simplify a lot of the complex integration issues companies face. Postman has built an enterprise API platform and today it got rewarded with a $150 million Series C investment on a whopping $2 billion valuation — […]

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This startup just raised $12 million from top VCs to offer financial planning as an employee perk Jun 12, 2020

Companies increasingly recognize that one of the greatest stresses for their employees is financial wellness. Even at innovative tech startups, people typically bump up against the limits of how much they know about wealth management pretty fast. But providing financial education to a workforce, which has become increasingly common, is largely useless as most employees […]

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Conversa Health raises $12M Series B for its digital health platform Jun 11, 2020

It’s no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the digital health space and so it’s also no surprise that a lot of the startups in this area are currently getting funded. Conversa Health, a Portland, Oregon-based startup that provides a virtual care and communication platform for personalized healthcare, is among these startups. The company […]

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Vendr raises $4M from David Sacks’s Craft Ventures to reduce SaaS bills Jun 11, 2020

When TechCrunch last checked in with the Y Combinator-backed Vendr in October, the company had just raised $2 million, and was crowing about its profitability. Profitable seed-stage companies aren’t super common, so the startup stood out. Today Vendr is back with more news, namely that it has raised $4 million more, this time led by […]

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Flatfile scores $7.6M seed investment to simplify data onboarding Jun 10, 2020

One of the huge challenges companies like enterprise SaaS vendors face with new customers is getting customer data into their service. It’s a problem that Flatfile founders faced first hand in their jobs, and they decided to solve it. Today, the company announced a healthy $7.6 million seed investment to expand on that vision. The […]

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Yugabyte lands $30M Series B as open source database continues to flourish Jun 10, 2020

It’s been a big period of positive change for Yugabyte, makers of the open source, cloud native YugabyteDB database. Just last month they brought on former Pivotal CEO Bill Cook as CEO, and today the company announced it has closed a $30 million Series B. 8VC and strategic investor WiPro led the round with participation […]

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Acceleprise announces 26 SaaS startups from its trio of accelerators Jun 09, 2020

The TechCrunch crew has worked to keep tabs on this year’s startup accelerator classes. Conventional wisdom in startup land states that great companies are founded during more trying economic times. Well, a recession was declared yesterday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. We should, therefore, see some breakout startups in the next few years. […]

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Portobel turns food producers into direct-to-consumer businesses Jun 09, 2020

A startup called Portobel is working to help food producers shift their businesses so that they can support direct-to-consumer deliveries. Portobel is backed by Heroic Ventures and led by Ranjith Kumaran, founder or co-founder of file-sharing company Hightail (acquired by OpenText) andÂ loyalty startup PunchTab (acquired by Walmart Labs). Kumaran told me that he and his […]

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France refines its plan to support startups Jun 08, 2020

A few days ago, the French government detailed different measures as part of its support plan for startups. France already announced a $4.3 billion (€4 billion) plan back in March. The new announcements are more about refining and adding some additional measures. The French government wanted to act quickly when it made its initial announcement […]

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Zigazoo launches to be a ‘TikTok’ for kids, surpasses 100,000 uploads and downloads Jun 08, 2020

Like many parents, Zigazoo founder Zak Ringelstein worries about his children’s screen time. His worries only grew when COVID-19 led to school shutdowns and kids came home to a world of remote learning. Now, as lockdowns extend, Ringelstein is learning to embrace screen time as a way to sneak education and entertainment into his kids’ […]

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Searchable.ai nabs additional $4M seed to continue building AI-driven search Jun 05, 2020

Searchable.ai is an early-stage startup in the alpha phase of testing its initial product, but it has an idea compelling enough to attract investment, even during a pandemic. Today the company announced an additional $4 million in seed capital to continue building its AI-driven search solution. Susquehanna International Group and Omicron Media co-led the round […]

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Cowboy releases updated e-bike with new carbon belt Jun 05, 2020

Electric-bike maker Cowboy has released a new iteration of its bike, the Cowboy 3. It’s a relatively small update that should make the experience better for newcomers. The first orders will be delivered at the end of July and the Cowboy 3 is now slightly more expensive at €2,290 or £1,990 ($2,500). The bike still […]

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NetApp to acquire Spot (formerly Spotinst) to gain cloud infrastructure management tools Jun 04, 2020

When Spotinst rebranded to Spot in March, it seemed big changes were afoot for the startup, which originally helped companies find and manage cheap infrastructure known as spot instances (hence its original name). We had no idea how big at the time. Today, NetApp announced plans to acquire the startup. The companies did not share […]

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What the last 2 months of fundraising tells us about the future Jun 04, 2020

There is just as much capital ready to deploy, and just as much investor interest, as there was earlier this year, but founders are still adjusting to new market conditions.

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Lili raises $10M for its freelancer banking app Jun 03, 2020

Lili, a startup building banking products to meet the needs of freelance workers, is announcing that it has raised $10 million in seed funding. The startup takes its name from its founders, CEO Lilac Bar David and CTO Liran Zelkha, who previously foundedÂ Israeli challenger bank Pepper. Bar David told me that while many neobanks have […]

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Overjet raises $7.85M for its dental-focused AI tech Jun 03, 2020

Overjet, a startup focused on using AI to help dentists and insurance companies understand dental scans, today announced that it has raised $7.85 million in what it describes as a seed round. According to Overjet’s CEO Wardah Inam (an MIT PhD in electrical engineering and computer science), the company raised the funds from Crosslink Capital, […]

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Cisco to acquire internet monitoring solution ThousandEyes Jun 02, 2020

When Cisco bought AppDynamics in 2017 for $3.7 billion just before the IPO, the company sent a clear signal it wanted to move beyond its pure network hardware roots into the software monitoring side of the equation. Yesterday afternoon the company announced it intends to buy another monitoring company, this time snagging internet monitoring solution […]

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Jeremy Conrad left his own VC firm to start a company, and investors like what he’s building Jun 01, 2020

When this editor first met Jeremy Conrad, it was in 2014, at the 8,000-square-foot former fish factory that was home to Lemnos, a hardware-focused venture firm that Conrad had cofounded three years earlier. Conrad —Â who as a mechanical engineering undergrad at MIT worked on self driving cars, drones and satellites — was still excited […]

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Stackin’ raises $12.6M Series B to help millennials navigate the crowded fintech space Jun 01, 2020

Fintech’s funding boom for the past decade has led to a flurry of new consumer startups tackling a wide range of money-related issues, from saving apps to investing platforms. Should you download Robinhood, Stash, Public, Acorns, or Truebill? The fintech craze creates confusion for consumers when it comes to figuring out which startup is the […]

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BeeHero smartens up hives to provide ‘pollination as a service’ with $4M seed round May 29, 2020

Vast monoculture farms outstripped the ability of bee populations to pollinate them naturally long ago, but the techniques that have arisen to fill that gap are neither precise nor modern. Israeli startup BeeHero aims to change that by treating hives both as living things and IoT devices, tracking health and pollination progress practically in real […]

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Wasabi announces $30M in debt financing as cloud storage business continues to grow May 29, 2020

We may be in the thick of a pandemic with all of the economic fallout that comes from that, but certain aspects of technology don’t change no matter the external factors. Storage is one of them. In fact, we are generating more digital stuff than ever, and Wasabi, a Boston-based startup that has figured out […]

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Gogoro unveils Eeyo, its new ebike brand May 28, 2020

Gogoro, the mobility company best known for its SmartScooters, revealed details about its new ebike brand Eeyo today. Eeyo will launch with two lightweight models, both powered by the SmartWheel, a self-contained hub designed by the company that integrates motors, batteries, sensors and smart connectivity technology. Eeyo is the first product that Gogoro will introduce […]

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Angling to be eyewear’s next big thing, Futuremood launches with mood-altering sunglasses May 28, 2020

Austin Soldner and Michael Schaecher, the co-founders of the new sunglasses brand Futuremood, met at the newly formed San Francisco research and development lab created by the high end audio tech developer Bose. The two were tasked with working on Bose’s sunglasses wearable and bonded over a shared interest in sneakers and fashion. Over many […]

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LeverEdge wants to get you and your friends a volume discount on student loans May 27, 2020

Student loans are both a trillion-dollar debt category and also one of the most popular mini-verticals out there in fintech startup investing right now. There are dozens if not hundreds of companies in the space, and they all mostly do one of two things: either they help students think through their student loan options before […]

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AI is more data-hungry than ever, and DefinedCrowd raises $50M B round to feed it May 27, 2020

As AI has grown from niche to mission-critical technology, the companies that enable it have multiplied and in many cases prospered. A good example of that success is DefinedCrowd, which has gone from the Disrupt stage to globe-spanning AI toolkit to the Fortune 500 in just a couple years. The company just raised a new […]

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Benepass raises $2.4 million to help employees get the most out of their tax-advantaged benefits May 26, 2020

Tax-advantaged benefits, like flexible spending accounts, can save employees in the United States thousands of dollars annually, and reduce the amount of payroll taxes companies pay. But those benefits are often underutilized, simply because they can be confusing to navigate. Benepass wants to make the process easier with a mobile app that centralizes all of […]

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Work collaboration unicorn Notion is blocked in China May 25, 2020

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PathSpot sells a scanner that fact checks your handwashing efficacy May 25, 2020

The novel coronavirus disease has reminded millions that handwashing is a great way to avoid preventable diseases. Christine Schindler, the CEO and co-founder of PathSpot, has been preparing for the past three months for the past three years. “I’ve been obsessed with handwashing,” Schindler said, who has a background in biomedical engineering and public health. […]

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Statespace, the platform that trains gamers, raises $15 million May 22, 2020

Statespace has today raised a $15 million Series A financing round led by Khosla, with partner Samir Kaul joining the board. Existing investors, such as FirstMark Capital, Lux and Expa, also participated in the round, as well as newcomer June Fund. Statespace launched out of stealth in 2017 with a product called Aim Lab, which […]

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Algolia gets a new CEO as founder steps down May 22, 2020

Search-as-a-service startup Algolia is announcing some changes at the helm of the startup. Co-founder and CEO Nicolas Dessaigne is transitioning to a non-operational role at the company. He’ll still be a board member, but Bernadette Nixon is joining the company to take on the CEO position. Algolia is building a search engine API. The company […]

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The future of flight can be energy-efficient May 21, 2020

Can eVTOL vehicles be green? Specifically, can eVTOL vehicles be more energy-efficient than cars?

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FireHydrant lands $8M Series A for disaster management tool May 20, 2020

When I spoke to Robert Ross, CEO and co-founder at FireHydrant last week, we had a technology adventure. First the audio wasn’t working correctly on Zoom, then Google Meet. Finally we used cell phones to complete the interview. It was like a case study in what FireHydrant is designed to do — help companies manage […]

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Buzzy Ethereum wallet app Argent comes out of stealth May 20, 2020

Argent is launching the first public version of its Ethereum wallet for iOS and Android. The company has been available as a limited beta for a few months with a few thousand users. But it has already raised a seed and a Series A round with notable investors, such as Paradigm, Index Ventures, Creandum and […]

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Notion drops usage limit on its personal free tier May 19, 2020

Notion, a popular note-taking and wiki-creation app, revamped their personal pricing plans today stripping many of the user limitations from the free tier, bringing it on par with the functionality offered by the $5 per month paid plan of yore. The company’s previous free tier had a fairly low usage limit (1,000 “blocks,” which are […]

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Electric gets another $7 million in funding from 01 Advisors and the Slack Fund May 19, 2020

Electric, the platform that puts the IT department in the cloud, has today announced new funding following a continuation of its Series B earlier this year. Dick Costolo and Adam Bain (01 Advisors) and the Slack Fund participated in the $7 million capital infusion. 01 Advisors put up the majority of the financing ($6 million) […]

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Users complain of Robinhood, Etrade outages as stocks soar May 18, 2020

Users are reporting that stock trading platforms Robinhood and Etrade are not working on a day that’s seemÂ stock markets soar. Neither company acknowledged immediate outages with their platforms. Robinhood’s status page says all systems are “operational,” but its website crashed on loading, stating: “An internal error occured! [sic].” After weeks of turbulent markets largely driven […]

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E-bike startup Angell partners with SEB for manufacturing and investment May 18, 2020

French startup Angell has signed a wide-ranging partnership with SEB, the French industrial company behind All-Clad, Krups, Moulinex, Rowenta, Tefal and others. As part of the deal, SEB will manufacture Angell’s electric bikes in a factory in Is-sur-Tille near Dijon, France. SEB’s investment arm, SEB Alliance, is also investing in Angell . The terms of […]

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Atlassian acquires Halp to bring Slack integration to the forefront May 15, 2020

Atlassian announced today that it was acquiring Halp, an early stage startup that enables companies to build integrated help desk ticketing and automated answers inside Slack. The companies did not disclose the purchase price. It was a big day for Halp, which also announced its second product today called Halp Answers. The new tool will […]

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FortressIQ snags $30M Series B to streamline processes with AI-fueled data May 15, 2020

As we move through life in the pandemic, companies are being forced to review and understand how workflows happen. How do you distribute laptops to your workforce? How do you make sure everyone has the correct tool set? FortressIQ, a startup that wants to help companies use data to understand and improve internal processes, announced […]

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Quizlet valued at $1 billion as it raises millions during a global pandemic May 14, 2020

As millions of students and teachers shift to learn from home in response to the novel coronavirus disease, modern-day flashcard business Quizlet has raised $30 million in a Series C round led by General Atlantic. Quizlet’s chief executive officer Matthew Glotzbach said that the new funding values the business at $1 billion, up five times […]

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LeoLabs launches its global satellite monitoring and collision avoidance service May 14, 2020

LeoLabs has been building out its global network of space-scanning radars for the last couple years, leading up to today’s launch of its Collision Avoidance system, essentially satellite-monitoring-as-a-service. It should prove an indispensable asset to startups that don’t happen to have their own state of the art radar setup. Space is full of junk, and […]

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Target Global has a €1M “super seed” fund incoming to switch on laid off tech talent in Spain during COVID-19 May 13, 2020

Target Global is backing a €1 million support fund for tech talent in Spain laid off or furloughed as a result of the coronavirus crisis. The aim is to provide pre-seed financing to help crisis-hit tech workers switch gears and build out a startup concept over the next four to six months, covering living expenses […]

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RenovAI helps retailers offer automated interior design advice to their customers May 13, 2020

Alon Gilady, CEO of RenovAI, told me his startup is trying to solve the problem that many of us face when we’re moving into a new home — we aren’t interior designers, but we can’t afford to hire real designers, either. Apparently Gilady’s co-founder and vice president of products Alon Chelben had this issue himself […]

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Trillions are at stake in the retirement wars, and Vise nets $14.5M from Sequoia to manage it May 12, 2020

The retirement wars are heating up. As millions of baby boomers leave their jobs in the coming years and transition into retirement, there is a huge competition for who will manage their savings. On one hand are traditional wealth managers, firms like Edward Jones, who either employ full-time human financial advisors or empower independent contractors […]

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Banjo’s CEO resigns after report details KKK ties in his past May 12, 2020

After investigative reporting revealed his undisclosed involvement in shooting at a synagogue with KKK members at age 17, the CEO of Banjo will leave the company he founded. In a short blog post, the company announced a “change in leadership” and the resignation of its founder and CEO Damien Patton. The Utah-based company will transition […]

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Your startup can still be seen and heard: Exhibit in Digital Startup Alley May 11, 2020

We’re not letting this pandemic disrupt Disrupt SF 2020. Like any determined early-stage startup founder, we’re adapting and moving forward. Can’t join us in person on September 14 – 16? No problem. Take advantage of Digital Startup Alley, a completely new way to disrupt. Place your startup in front of influential movers and shakers and […]

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Owkin raises $25 million as it builds a secure network for healthcare analysis and research May 11, 2020

Imagine a model of collaborative research and development among hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, universities and other research institutions where no one shared any actual data. That’s the dream of the new New York-based startup Owkin, which has raised $25 million in fresh financing from investors, including Bpifrance Large Venture, Cathay Innovation and MACSF (the French Pension […]

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Sleuth raises $3M Seed to bring order to continuous deployment May 08, 2020

Sleuth, an early stage startup from three former Atlassian employees, wants to bring some much-needed order to the continuous delivery process. Today, the company announced it has raised a $3 million seed round. â€‹CRV led the round with participation from angel investors from New Relic, Atlassian and LaunchDarkly. “Sleuth is a deployment tracker built to […]

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As investing apps boom, Public doubles down on its social focus May 08, 2020

Savings and investing apps are having a moment. While many startups are struggling in the wake of COVID-19 and its economic impacts, services that help regular folks save a bit more or invest their funds are seeing a demand boom. Coming into 2020 on the back of a huge fundraising year for the fintech cohort, […]

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Invisible AI uses computer vision to help (but hopefully not nag) assembly line workers May 07, 2020

“Assembly” may sound like one of the simpler tests in the manufacturing process, but as anyone who’s ever put together a piece of flat-pack furniture knows, it can be surprisingly (and frustratingly) complex. Invisible AI is a startup that aims to monitor people doing assembly tasks using computer vision, helping maintain safety and efficiency — […]

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As Wunderlist shuts down, its founder announces a new productivity app called Superlist May 07, 2020

Wunderlist is going away, but fans of the productivity app may find some consolation in founder Christian Reber’s announcement that he is launching a new startup called Superlist. “Superlist will be more than just a todo app, but never as bloated as the project management software you loathe to use,” he tweeted. “Slick, fast, and […]

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Goldman Sachs backs electric toothbrush startup Burst Oral Care May 06, 2020

Burst Oral Care, a startup that sells an electric toothbrush boasting charcoal bristles and 33,000 sonic vibrations per minute, has raised a Series C of undisclosed size. Although we don’t know the amount of the round, the Series C was led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, and Burst says it more than doubled the valuation […]

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Treasury Prime raises $9M to bring its banking APIs to market May 06, 2020

Treasury Prime, a startup that built software tooling to help banks automate and accelerate routine tasks, announced today that it has closed a $9 million Series A. The new capital was sourced from Amias Gerety of QED, Jason Lemkin of SaaStr, and Hans Morris of NYCA Partners. The capital event is yet another funding round […]

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Cockroach Labs scores $86.6M Series D as scalable database resonates May 05, 2020

Cockroach Labs, the NYC enterprise database company, announced an $86.6 million Series D funding round today. The company was in no mood to talk valuations, but was happy to have a big chunk of money to help build on its recent success and ride out the current economic malaise. Altimeter Capital and Bond co-led the […]

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Robinhood raises $280M, pushing its valuation to $8.3B May 05, 2020

As expected, Robinhood has closed a new round of capital. The late-stage, consumer investing app announced today that it has closed a $280 million Series F funding at an $8.3 billion valuation. This closely tracks prior coverage that the firm was hunting for a nine-figure round at a valuation of around $8 billion. Robinhood raised […]

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Tech stocks open lower ahead of another busy earnings week May 04, 2020

The optimism that confounded many in April may be slipping in May, as stocks fell during Friday’s trading session and are down again this morning. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is off 0.55% this morning, putting it 13% off its record highs set this year, but also up 29% from its 52-week lows it set directly […]

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Index and Credo lead a $2.75M seed in anti-fraud tech, Resistant AI May 04, 2020

Prague based Resistant AI has nabbed a $2.75M seed round. The security startup’s machine learning technology is designed to be deployed on top of AI systems used for financial decision making to protect customers in markets such as financial services and ecommerce from attacks such as targeted manipulation, adversarial machine learning and advanced fraud. The […]

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Determined AI makes its machine learning infrastructure free and open source May 01, 2020

Machine learning has quickly gone from niche field to crucial component of innumerable software stacks, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The tools needed to create and manage it are enterprise-grade and often enterprise-only — but Determined AI aims to make them more accessible than ever by open-sourcing its entire AI infrastructure product. The company […]

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Early stage investor The Fund expands beyond NYC with new partners in LA and London May 01, 2020

The Fund, an early-stage investment firm with a memorably straightforward name, is looking beyond New York City as it starts investing its second fund. Founders Jenny Fielding (who’s also managing director at Techstars New York) and Scott Hartley (also co-founder and partner at Two Culture Capital) told me that in the past two years, they’ve […]

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Biloba lets you chat with a doctor if you have questions about your children Apr 30, 2020

Meet Biloba, a French startup that wants to leverage tech to make it easier to keep your children healthy. The company recently launched a new mobile app that lets you chat with a doctor whenever you want between 8 AM and 8 PM. This way, if you have questions about your kids, you can get […]

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Utah-based seed fund Kickstart closes fifth fund worth $110M Apr 30, 2020

Continuing our week’s coverage of new venture funds, this morning let’s dig into Kickstart’s latest capital pool. Kickstart Seed Fund, based in Utah’s Salt Lake City, has raised a $110 million Fund V it announced this morning, its largest to date. The firm’sÂ rise to investing prominence has largely coincided with Utah’s own emergence as a […]

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Smart contact lens startup Mojo Vision raises $51M Apr 29, 2020

Mojo Vision’s technology still felt early-stage when we met with them back at CES. But the demos we did see were enough to convince us that there really could be something to the California startup’s smart content lens technology. Clearly we weren’t alone in that. The company just announced that it has raised more than […]

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Investors, startup founders in India pool $13M to fund projects that fight coronavirus Apr 29, 2020

More than 150 investors and entrepreneurs in India are funding dozens of projects in a bid to help millions better combat the COVID-19 epidemic and help the nation’s booming startup ecosystem withstand the economic devastation it has caused. The investors said they have contributed 1 billion Indian rupees — or $13 million — of their […]

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OMERS Ventures announces a new $750M fund for investing in North America, Europe Apr 28, 2020

OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), has put together a new, $750 million fund to invest in both Europe and North America. The capital vehicle is larger than the group’s preceding European and North American funds combined. In 2019 OMERS Ventures announced a €300 million fund Europe-focused […]

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Smart ring maker Motiv acquired by ‘digital identity’ company Apr 28, 2020

We weren’t alone in being impressed by Motiv. The startup helped flip the script on wearables by essentially cramming a fitness tracker’s worth of technology into a ring. This week, San Francisco ‘digital identity’ startup Proxy that it’s acquiring the company. The company’s site is littered in buzzwords, but Proxy specializes in digital key cards […]

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Manufacturing startup Divergent 3D reduces staff by one-third Apr 27, 2020

Divergent, the Los Angeles-based startup aiming to revolutionize vehicle manufacturing, has cut about one-third of its staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended startups and major corporations alike. The company, which employed about 160 people, laid off 57 workers, according to documents filed with the California Employment Development Department. Founder and CEO Kevin Czinger […]

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If we let the US Postal Service die, we’ll be killing small businesses with it Apr 27, 2020

If we continue to view the USPS as simply a balance sheet and optimize for profitability in a vacuum, we ultimately stand to lose far more than we gain.

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Opera Event closes $5M Series A for its esports-focused influencer platform Apr 24, 2020

Today Opera Event, an influencer software service, announced that it closed a $5 million Series A. The Oakland-based startup raised the capital from new lead investor Antera, with prior investors Atlas Ventures, Everblue, and Konvoy Ventures coming along. According to Crunchbase data, Opera Event had raised at least $1.2 million before this new round. Opera […]

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Atlanta’s SingleOps raises $6M for its outdoor-care focused software business Apr 24, 2020

Today SingleOps, an Atlanta-based software startup, announced that it has raised $6 million in new capital. The startup’s service is built to support companies that deal with outdoor work like landscaping, tree care and lawn maintenance. It’s an example of the vertical SaaS trend that has come to the fore in recent years, with startups […]

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Lambda School cuts staff and exec pay amid market uncertainty Apr 23, 2020

Online coding bootcamp Lambda School is the latest startup to announce layoffs, writing in a blog post that it’s made the “difficult decision” to cut 19 staff from roles across the company. The eight members of its executive team, including CEO and founder Austen Allred, are also taking a 15% pay cut, it said. Today […]

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Human Capital is an engineering talent agency and a VC fund all in one Apr 23, 2020

Michael Ovitz didn’t invent the idea of a talent agency, but one might argue that he perfected it. He founded the CAA in 1975, and grew it into the world’s leading talent agency, serving as chairman for 20 years. Now, Ovitz is investing in a brand new type of talent agency called Human Capital. Human […]

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Disruptor Beam relaunches as gaming infrastructure-maker Beamable Apr 22, 2020

Disruptor Beam, the mobile gaming startup behind Star Trek Timelines, has a new name and a new business. It’s now calling itself Beamable, and it’s selling a set of tools to help game developers add commerce and social functionality to their titles. The company’s direction became clear earlier this year when it sold Timelines to […]

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Confluent lands another big round with $250M Series E on $4.2B valuation Apr 22, 2020

The pandemic may feel all-encompassing at the moment, but Confluent announced a $250 million Series E today, showing that major investment continues in spite of the dire economic situation at the moment. Today’s round follows last year’s $125 million Series D. At that point the company was valued a mere $2.5 billion. Investors obviously see […]

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NextView Ventures is launching a remote accelerator for startups Apr 21, 2020

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UK gov announces ‘Future Fund’, pledging £250M match funding for startups impacted by coronavirus Apr 21, 2020

After mounting pressure from the U.K. tech startup ecosystem, and much debate, the British government today unveiled plans for a new “Future Fund” designed to ensure high-growth companies — namely, startups — across the U.K. receive enough investment to remain viable during the coronavirus crisis. Initially, the U.K. government is pledging a total of £250 […]

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Healthcare co-op Savvy snags venture funding from Indie.vc Apr 20, 2020

Savvy, a healthcare cooperative, has just raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indie.vc. Established as a cooperative that shares profits with its users, Savvy connects patients with healthcare companies and other providers looking to better serve people through products and services. Patients can take paid gigs that include tasks like interviews, focus groups and […]

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Impossible Foods rolls out to nearly 1,000 new grocery stores and supermarkets Apr 17, 2020

Starting tomorrow, 777 supermarkets in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Nevada will begin stocking the Impossible Foods plant-based meat substitute. Fueling the increased distribution and a push to expand its product suite and geographic footprint domestically and internationally is a $500 million round of funding the company closed in March. Some of that money is […]

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Everee raises a $10M Series A to scale its worker-friendly payroll software service Apr 17, 2020

This morning Everee, a Utah-based software as a service (SaaS) startup focused on payroll, announced that it has closed a $10 million Series A. The funding event was led by Origin Ventures and Signal Peak Ventures. Previously, Everee had raised a $3.7 million Seed round in mid-2019. The company is therefore as well capitalized as […]

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Unicorn layoffs keep piling up as the economy gets worse Apr 16, 2020

Earlier today a grip of new data presented a sharply negative picture of the American economy. And this afternoon, news broke that a trio of well-known, heavily-backed unicorns were cutting staff. With stocks down as well, we’ve received negative signals from the private market, the public market and the economy as a whole in the […]

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Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF 2020 Apr 16, 2020

Disrupt San Francisco 2020, the OG of startup tech conferences, takes place at Moscone West on Sept. 14 – 16. It’s an event you don’t want to miss, and we’re here to tell early-stage founders one of the best ways to get the most out of the Disrupt experience. Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield […]

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Rocket Lab inks deal to carry Japanese startup Synspective’s first satellite into orbit Apr 15, 2020

The well-funded Japanese space startup Synspective has tapped launch provider Rocket Lab to take its first Earth observation satellite to orbit. Launch is planned for late 2020, and the company’s StriX–Î± craft will be the sole payload. Synspective was founded in 2018 and by mid-2019 had raised about $100 million, making it one of the […]

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UK tech job vacancies fall 31% in less than 4 weeks, according to job site data – so who is still hiring? Apr 15, 2020

As the coronavirus crisis continues, hiring data is emerging that paints a mixed picture for U.K. tech, which, in the preceding months and years has been stuck on a growth trajectory of up and to the right. That appears to have changed almost over night. According to numbers shared exclusively with TechCrunch from job sites […]

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Layoffs are disproportionately impacting startup satellite offices Apr 14, 2020

Layoffs have struck the startup world swiftly, hurting hospitality and travel startups, as well as recruitment and scooter companies. New data shows that some of those layoffs, brought on by COVID-19, might be disproportionately impacting satellite campuses. By nature, satellite offices are secondary to a startup’s headquarters. Opening smaller offices is a strategic move when […]

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Frank raises $5M more in its quest to get students max financial aid Apr 14, 2020

Frank, a New York-based student-facing startup, has raised $5 million in what the company described as an “interim strategic round” led by Chegg, a public edtech company. According to Frank founder and CEO Charlie Javice, previous investors Aleph and Marc Rowan took part in the round alongside new investor GingerBread Capital. The education funding-focused startup […]

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Pangea.app raises $400K pre-seed round to help connect student workers with businesses Apr 13, 2020

Pangea.app, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup has raised a $400,000 pre-seed round, it told TechCrunch this week. The company’s new capital, raised as a post-money SAFE, comes from PJC, a Boston-based venture capital firm and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea.app raised money from angel investors. The company links “remote college freelancers,” per its website, to businesses […]

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Instacart’s hiring spree continues as it faces unprecedented demand Apr 13, 2020

Instacart is adding more support roles to help its shoppers, customers, and retail partners, as the company faces unprecedented demand for its grocery delivery services due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders. Today Instacart announced that it has doubled its Care team, from 1,200 agents to 3,000 agents. Care team employees will work on answering […]

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Apply today to be a TC Top Pick at Disrupt SF 2020 Apr 10, 2020

Opportunity’s a hot currency, and every early-stage startup founder’s on the lookout for it. Anything and everything that can help bring the dream to fruition, right? You’ll find three days packed with opportunity at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2020Â on September 14-16. Care to know how you can super-size your Disrupt opportunity? We’ll get to that […]

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Stocks gain despite 6.6M new US unemployment claims Apr 10, 2020

Domestic stocks rose today in the United States, with all major indices opening higher. TechCrunch has slowed its daily coverage of the US stock market as volatility has receded. We try to avoid covering the stock market too much, but there are days when doing so would be derelict. The value of public companies impacts […]

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Esports One launches its fantasy esports platform Apr 09, 2020

Esports One is a startup betting that there’s a big opportunity in bringing a fantasy sports approach to the world of esports — particularly at a time when traditional pro sports are on pause. Co-founder and COO Sharon Winter told me that the company’s platform, which is leaving beta testing today, is the first “all-in-one […]

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Mom-focused content startup Motherly raises $5.4M as it expands into commerce Apr 09, 2020

Motherly CEO Jill Koziol admits that it was a tough pitch when she and her co-founder Liz Tenety first tried to get investors on-board in 2015. “We wanted to create a brand first and foremost,” Koziol told me. “We did not want to go and build a media company or a [direct-to-consumer] company or Facebook […]

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Move fast, make things – UK fintech’s response to the coronavirus crisis continues Apr 08, 2020

The U.K.’s fintech’s response to the coronavirus pandemic so far might best be described as “move fast, [and] make things,” as multiple and sometimes impromptu teams roll out financial technology solutions to help combat the crisis.

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Utah’s Podium raises $125M Series C led by YC after reaching $100M ARR Apr 08, 2020

This morning, Utah-based SaaS startup Podium announced that it has closed a $125 million Series C led by Y Combinator’s Continuity fund, with participation from Sapphire Ventures. Prior investors Alkeon, IVP, GV, Summit, Accel and Recruit Co. also took part in the funding event. The new capital values Podium at around $1.5 billion, and brings […]

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Blossom Capital’s ‘Cultivate’ is an angel program seeking to back European unicorn alumnus Apr 07, 2020

Just a few months after closing a new $185 million fund to continue backing early-stage European startups, Blossom Capital, the VC firm founded by Ophelia Brown, is announcing a new angel investment program seeking to back European unicorn alumnus. Dubbed “Cultivate,” the new program looks to create a 30-strong angel network made up of founders […]

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BounceX cuts staff, reduces salaries in wake of COVID-19 economic disruptions Apr 07, 2020

TechCrunch confirmed today that BounceX (the firm is rebranding this year) has executed layoffs and salary cuts in the wake of recent COVID-19-led economic disruptions. Many startups are undergoing staff cuts as the domestic and global economies slow, making individual reductions less newsworthy as the layoff tally rises. However, as BounceX is a company we’ve […]

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Cultivating adaptability is a pandemic coping skill Apr 06, 2020

It’s clear that the people who can let go of their past plans and embrace the new environment ahead will thrive.

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Bustle Digital Group shuts down The Outline as part of broader layoffs Apr 06, 2020

Bustle Digital Group, owner of a portfolio of digital media properties including Bustle itself, says it laid off two dozen staffers today. That includes eliminating the entire staff ofÂ The Outline, a culture site that it acquired a year ago. In a statement, a BDG spokesperson said the company will continue to host The Outline’s archives, […]

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IRL pivots into virtual event calendar In Remote Life Apr 03, 2020

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Activity-monitoring startup Zensors repurposes its tech to help coronavirus response Apr 03, 2020

Computer vision techniques used for commercial purposes are turning out to be valuable tools for monitoring people's behavior during the present pandemic. Zensors, a startup that uses machine learning to track things like restaurant occupancy, lines, and so on, is making its platform available for free to airports and other places desperate to take systematic measures against infection.

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Hio wants to put networking events back on your remote-only calendars Apr 02, 2020

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and the COVID-19 pandemic has surged event cancellations across the country. Tech workforces have found ways to stay productive: back-to-back Zoom calls, work-from-home happy hours and more Twitter threads than anyone asked for. But Jason Craparo, the founder of events platform Hio, wants to put organic, face-to-face networking […]

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Take your shot: Apply to TC Top Picks at Disrupt SF 2020 Apr 02, 2020

TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco is known around the world as the place where the early-stage startup community gathers to learn and launch, connect and collaborate. We know COVID-19 has created challenges, but Disrupt SF is still on schedule (keep tabs on our updates here). Like startup founders everywhere, we quickly learn where, when and how […]

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Dining and takeout startup Allset raises $8.25M as it adapts to life under lockdown Apr 01, 2020

Even though this might seem to be the absolute worst time to try to round up funding for a restaurant-related startup, Allset is announcing that it’s raised an $8.25 million Series B. It was not, to be clear, an easy process. CEO Stas Matviyenko (who founded the company with COO Anna Polishchuk) admitted that when […]

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Substack offers $100K in grants for independent writers Apr 01, 2020

Substack is taking several steps to support the writers and publications using its newsletter platform. After all, just as writers and newsrooms are starting to build real businesses on Substack, the COVID-19 pandemic is dealing a huge financial blow to the media industry. In response, the startup says it will donate $100,000 in grants — […]

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Not all entrepreneurs are 30-year-old guys Mar 30, 2020

There is a serious flaw in how businesses are funded, and it's the same discussion we had twenty and thirty years ago about who was at the table in managing businesses.

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Jupe is a new startup aiming to address hospital room shortfalls with modular, mobile space Mar 30, 2020

We’re already entering into a healthcare crisis due to the global coronavirus pandemic, and creative solutions to address shortfalls in supplies, protective equipment and more are being developed to help where possible. A new startup, with a founding team including an emergency room doctor, a crisis response expert and a public health researcher is hoping […]

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Tech giants should let startups defer cloud payments Mar 27, 2020

Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are the landlords. Amidst the Coronavirus economic crisis, startups need a break from paying rent. They’re in a cash crunch. Revenue has stopped flowing in, capital markets like venture debt are hesitant, and startups and small-to-medium sized businessesf are at risk of either having to lay off huge numbers of employees […]

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Stripe leads $20M Series A into Fast, which is building a universal checkout service for e-commerce Mar 26, 2020

Early this morning, Fast, a startup building platform-agnostic login and checkout services, announced that Stripe has led a $20 million investment into its business. Prior investors Index Ventures and Susa Ventures took part in the round. Susa previously participated in the company’s late-2019 round that Index led. Coming in late March, the new capital is […]

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Mammoth Media launches CatchUp, an app that summarizes the latest news and trending content Mar 26, 2020

A new app called CatchUp might be useful for anyone who’s struggling to keep up with the latest headlines, podcasts and Netflix shows. CatchUp is the latest offering from Mammoth Media, the startup behind chat fiction app Yarn and social polling app Wishbone. Founder and CEO Benoit Vatere told me that the product started out […]

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Swiss startup Creal is building display tech for the next generation of AR/VR headsets Mar 25, 2020

After years of hype, the AR/VR space has certainly grown quieter as of late, but some investors are still coalescing behind a vision that the technologies could one day replace mobile if the technical kinks can be worked out. Creal is a Swiss startup that’s working on some fundamental display technologies that could make VR […]

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Backed by Harry’s Labs, Cat Person launches its lineup of cat care products Mar 25, 2020

Cat Person is a new startup trying to change the way you think of cat people — and hoping to sell that new type of cat owner a whole range of cat products. “We know what the stereotypes are, we just don’t think they’re true,” said CEO Jimmy Wu. “They’re incredibly outdated. We want to […]

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Ceros launches MarkUp, a design collaboration tool for live websites Mar 24, 2020

When designers need to collaborate with other teams, they can currently turn to products like InVision and Zeplin. But Ceros creative director Jack Dixon said there’s a “pretty interesting gap in the market” — once you move beyond prototypes and start working with websites that are either live or in staging, the process starts to […]

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Streaming service fuboTV to merge with virtual entertainment technology company, FaceBank Mar 24, 2020

Over-the-top live TV streaming service fuboTV announced today it plans to merge with the virtual entertainment technology company, FaceBank Group. The proposed merger would retain the name fuboTV for the combined company, consisting of fuboTV’s direct-to-consumer live TV streaming platform and FaceBank’s technology IP in sports, movies, and live performances. FaceBank is not a household […]

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YC startup Felix wants to replace antibiotics with programmable viruses Mar 23, 2020

Right now the world is at war. But this is no ordinary war. It’s a fight with an organism so small we can only detect it through use of a microscope — and if we don’t stop it, it could kill millions of us in the next several decades. No, I’m not talking about COVID-19, […]

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Hospital droid Diligent Robotics raises $10M to assist nurses Mar 23, 2020

28% of a nurse’s time is wasted on low-skilled tasks like fetching medical tools. We need them focused on the complex and compassionate work of treating patients, especially amid the coronavirus outbreak. Diligent Robotics wants to give them a helper droid that can run errands for them around the hospital. The startup’s bot Moxi is […]

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Startups rethink what it means to be high-touch during a pandemic Mar 20, 2020

Glossier NYC, in normal times, is typically visited by more than 2,000 people every day, with lines of people from all over the world curling out the door. And when you enter, it’s tempting to touch, well, everything. The walls are adorned with flowers, mirrors and giant versions of the makeup company’s flagship product: Boy […]

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ReMarkable’s redesigned e-paper tablet is more powerful and more papery Mar 19, 2020

It's no secret I'm a fan of the reMarkable, a tablet with a paper-like display that's focused on text and sketching rather than rich media and games. The sequel to the original, announced today, looks to make a good thing even better.

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Why is Blue Apron’s stock skyrocketing? Mar 19, 2020

Back in 2017, a formerly hot, formerly profitable company called Blue Apron went public. It didn’t go well. Today as the global stock market continues to fall, shares in the former venture darling are soaring, up more than 140% in midday trading. Before its IPO, the company had to reduce its price range from $15 […]

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Deepgram raises $12M for enterprise speech recognition Mar 18, 2020

Deepgram, a startup focused on high-quality, real-time speech recognition, announced a $12 million Series A this morning. The startup, founded a half decade ago, according to Crunchbase data, with just a few million in raised capital, is interesting, as its success to date was founded on two consecutive experiments. The first dealing with its technology, […]

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Addapptation snares $1.3M seed to build a better UX for Salesforce Mar 18, 2020

Addapptation, a startup that wants to build a practical design layer on top of Salesforce and other enterprise tools, announced a $1.3 million seed investment today. 2048 Ventures led the round with participation from East Coast Angles, The Millworks II Fund and additional angel investors from New Hampshire, where the firm is located Co-founder Sumner […]

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Monzo launches free and paid-for business bank accounts Mar 17, 2020

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank, is officially launching business bank accounts today, after an extensive trial period over the last 12 months that saw early access given to 2,500 business customers. Perhaps surprisingly, right out of the gate Monzo is offering two versions of its business bank account — which is aimed at sold traders […]

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Riot automatically educates your team about phishing Mar 17, 2020

Meet Riot, a company participating in Y Combinator’s current batch that wants to help you fight phishing attempts. Riot runs fake phishing campaigns on your employees. For instance, your team members could receive an email saying that their Google account has been deactivated to see if they can spot real email notifications from fake ones. […]

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This startup got a meeting with Mark Suster by getting clever with Google ads Mar 16, 2020

Startups have done some wild things to get the attention of VCs. In fact, Instacart founder Apoorva Mehta sent YC partner (at the time) Garry Tan a six-pack of beer through the service after missing the deadline for Y Combinator by two months. Yesterday, the ingenuity of startups struck again. Tadabase.io, an enterprise startup that […]

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Startups developing tech to combat COVID-19 urged to apply for fast-track EU funding Mar 16, 2020

The European Commission put out a call Friday for startups and small businesses which are developing technologies that could help combat the COVID-19 outbreak to apply for fast-track EU funding. The push is related to a €164M pot of money that’s being made available for R&D via the European Innovation Council (EIC) — a European […]

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Handle.com helps independent construction workers get paid on time Mar 13, 2020

From long payment cycles to antiquated processes on how to bill workers, the hefty inefficiencies of the construction industry are long overdue for innovation. Enter startups such as the large venture-backed Katerra and recently public companies such as Procore. Still, independent contractors or workers from small family businesses often can’t afford hefty fees from SaaS platforms promising better management. Or, they don’t have a parent company behind them to foot the bill.

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Heartbeat Health raises $8.2M to improve cardiovascular care Mar 13, 2020

While you’ve probably spent a lot of today thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s worth remembering that other health issues aren’t going away — and that heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States. Heartbeat Health is a startup working to improve the way that cardiovascular care is delivered, and it announced today that it has raised $8.2 million in Series A funding. Dr.

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Cloud gaming platform Shadow brings its new plans to the US Mar 12, 2020

Blade, the French startup behind Shadow, announced plans to overhaul its subscription tiers back in October. The company is now bringing the new plans to the U.S. with a new entry tier at $11.99 per month as well as more powerful options in the coming months. Shadow is a cloud computing service for gamers. For a monthly subscription fee, you can access a gaming PC in a data center near you. Compared to other cloud gaming services, Shadow provides a full Windows 10 instance.

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Alma is a Klarna-like payment startup that lets you buy now and pay later Mar 12, 2020

Alma is a Klarna-like payment startup that lets you buy now and pay later Meet Alma, a French startup that helps you offer a new payment option for your expensive goods. Like Klarna, clients can choose to pay over 3 or 4 installments. But the comparison stops here as Klarna isn’t available in France. Alma just raised a $14.1 million (€12.5 million) funding round. Idinvest, ISAI and Picus Capital are investing in today’s funding round. Additionally, Alma has opened a $19.

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Everlaw announces $62M Series C to continue modernizing legal discovery Mar 11, 2020

Everlaw is bringing modern data management, visualization and machine learning to eDiscovery, the process in which legal entities review large amounts of evidence to build a case. Today, the company announced a $62 million Series C investment. CapitalG (Alphabet’s growth equity investment fund) and Menlo Ventures led the round. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and K9 Ventures also participated. The startup has now raised $96 million, according to the company.

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Immutouch wristband buzzes to stop you touching your face Mar 10, 2020

In the age of coronavirus, we all have to resist the urge to touch our faces. It’s how the virus can travel from doorknobs or other objects to your mucus membranes and get you sick. Luckily, a startup called Slightly Robot had already developed a wristband to stop another type of harmful touching — trichotillomania, a disorder that compels people to pull out their hair.

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SaaS stocks drop over 8%, reaching bear-market territory Mar 10, 2020

Today was an awful day for the stock market, with global and domestic equities falling sharply as the world digested a collapse in oil prices, and yet another weekend of the spread of COVID-19. All major U.S. indices were down, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq falling the least of the three, slipping a comparatively modest 7.29%, to 7,950.68 on the day.

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Crypto wallet app ZenGo launches savings mode Mar 09, 2020

ZenGo is expanding beyond the basic features of a cryptocurrency wallet —letting you hold, send and receive crypto assets. You can now set aside some of your crypto assets to earn interests. In other words, ZenGo now also acts like a savings account. The company has partnered with two DeFi projects for the new feature. DeFi means “decentralized finance”, and it has been a hot trend in the cryptocurrency space.

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New funding round values catering marketplace Hungry at $100M+ Mar 09, 2020

Hungry, a catering marketplace that connects businesses with independent chefs, announced this week that it has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Hungrytells me that the funding valued the company at more than $100 million (pre-money). The investors were also pretty impressive: The round was led by Evolution VC Partners and former Whole Foods co-CEO Walter Robb, who’s joining the startup’s board.

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Spindrift, maker of fizzy drinks, has raised $29.8 million Mar 06, 2020

Spindrift, maker of fizzy soda and sparkling water, has raised $29.8 million in a funding round, per an SEC filing. The Charlestown, Mass. company was founded by Bill Creelman and has raised $70 million in known venture capital funding to date, per Crunchbase data. The company did not immediately respond to request for comment. Previous investors in the fizzy drink company include Almanac Insights, KarpReilly, Prolong Ventures, VMG Partners and more.

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Nvidia acquires data storage and management platform SwiftStack Mar 06, 2020

Nvidia today announced that it has acquired SwiftStack, a software-centric data storage and management platform that supports public cloud, on-premises and edge deployments. The company’s recent launches focused on improving its support for AI, high-performance computing and accelerated computing workloads, which is surely what Nvidia is most interested in here.

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This bathroom cleaning robot is trained in VR to clean up after you Mar 05, 2020

This bathroom cleaning robot is trained in VR to clean up after you You’ve no doubt heard about the three Ds of automation. Somatic’s robot handily qualifies for two. I’d say “dangerous” is probably a bit of a stretch here, but the robot is well-focused on replacing a job that’s generally regarded as both “dirty” and “dull.

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DocSend’s new pre-seed data shows how many founders you should have and how many investors you should meet Mar 05, 2020

DocSend has become one of the most popular tools for sharing venture fundraise decks, not only because of the control it offers, but also because of the analytics it can provide founders on how VCs read decks and where they might get stuck as they are perusing from slide to slide. The company has been generous sharing its data with us on what times are best to fundraise and how to structure a slide deck for best performance.

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WellSet is doing a limited launch in Los Angeles of its alternative medicine booking platform Mar 04, 2020

WellSet is doing a limited launch in Los Angeles of its alternative medicine booking platform Alternative and holistic healthcare seekers in the Los Angeles area have a new service they can turn to in WellSet, the listing platform that launched on Tuesday.

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Podium rolls out payments for its customer-focused local business SaaS service Mar 04, 2020

Podium, a Utah-based SaaS company focused on small business customer interactions, added payments technology to its product suite today. The move accretes a new income stream to the company’s quickly growing annual recurring revenue (ARR).

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Le Wagon raises $19 million to build a global coding bootcamp Mar 03, 2020

French startup Le Wagon has raised its first round of funding after many years of bootstrapping. The company closed a $19 million funding round (€17 million) a few months ago. Cathay Capital is leading the round with AfricInvest also participating. “We’ve always bootstrapped since 2013 and we’ve always been profitable since day one,” Le Wagon co-founder and COO Romain Paillard told me.

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mParticle raises $45M to help marketers unify customer data Mar 03, 2020

mParticle, which helps companies like Spotify, Paypal and Starbucks umanage their customer data, is announcing that it has raised $45 million in Series D funding.

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End Game, the startup behind Zombs Royale, raises $3M Mar 02, 2020

End Game Interactive CEO Yang C. Liu has a refreshingly straightforward description of what he and his co-founder Luke Zbihlyj are up to: “We’re just building games. And to be honest, we don’t know what we’re doing.

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Notivize makes it easier for non-technical teams to optimize app notifications Mar 02, 2020

A new startup called Notivize aims to give product teams direct access to one of their most important tools for increasing user engagement — notifications. The company has been testing the product with select customers since last year and says it has already sent hundreds of thousands of notifications. And this week, it announced that it has raised $500,000 in seed funding led by Heroic Ventures.

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Indian research firm Convergence Catalyst is ready for its second act Feb 28, 2020

A 9-year-old is smashing the shuttle far and wide, and frantically pacing back and forth on the court in Bangalore, India, as her competition refuses to back down. Her rival is not a human. She is playing against a machine that is mimicking the game of badminton legend P.V. Sindhu, toned down a few notches to adjust for the age difference. By the court, her father, Jayanth Kolla, is watching the game and taking notes. Kolla is a familiar name in the tech startup and business ecosystem in India.

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Salesforce grabs Vlocity for $1.33B, a startup with $1B valuation Feb 28, 2020

It’s been a big news day for Salesforce . It announced that Co-CEO Keith Block would be stepping down, and that it had acquired Vlocity for $1.33 billion in an all-cash deal. It’s no coincidence that Salesforce targeted this startup.

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Chicago’s M1 Finance, a consumer-focused fintech platform, reaches $1B under management Feb 27, 2020

Eagle-eyed readers will recall that we mentioned M1 Finance earlier today in our look at a few trends in the fintech industry. We’re back with the firm this afternoon as it has a bit of news that’s worth discussing. Chicago-based M1 Finance announced today that it has reached the $1 billion assets under management mark, or AUM. Reaching AUM thresholds provides useful milestones that we can use to track the progress of various players in the fintech and finservices worlds.

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Vice President Mike Pence will lead the US response to the COVID-19 outbreak Feb 27, 2020

In an early-evening press conference, President Donald Trump tapped Vice President Mike Pence to lead the U.S. response to the COVID-19 outbreak that has spread through Europe, Asia and Latin America. The new coronavirus strain, which has infected about 81,000 people around the world and killed 3,000, has already wrought havoc on the global economy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned yesterday that the U.S. will likely not be able to escape the spread of the virus.

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New York’s BounceX reaches $100M ARR, rebrands Feb 26, 2020

Welcome to the $100 million ARR club, BounceX. This morning (evening, timezone depending), BounceX, a New York-based marketing technology startup, announced that it has reached the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) threshold, adding its name to our running list of companies that have crossed over into nine-figure revenue while remaining private.

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Startup malaise, startup ambition Feb 26, 2020

Recapped. Layoffs. Slowdown. CEO transition. Budget cuts. Downsizing. In spite of a spate of massive startup exits the last few months, culminating in fintech’s shining moment yesterday with Intuit’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Credit Karma, it’s been a tough period for the startup world. Layoffs abound, centered perhaps on SoftBank’s Vision Fund portfolio but hardly exclusive to it. Startups, both infamous and unheard of, are shutting their doors.

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Revolut raises $500 million at $5.5 billion valuation Feb 25, 2020

Fintech startup Revolut is raising a large Series D round of funding. TCV is leading the $500 million round, valuing the company at $5.5 billion. Over the past few years, Revolut has raised $836 million in total. Some existing investors are also participating in today’s funding round, but Revolut isn’t sharing names. Previous investors include DST Global, Index Ventures, Balderton Capital and many others.

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With cinnamon, fruit and mint-flavored nicotine gum, is LA’s Lucy Goods the next Juul? Feb 25, 2020

With cinnamon, fruit and mint-flavored nicotine gum, is LA’s Lucy Goods the next Juul? David Renteln, the Los Angeles-based co-founder of Soylent and the co-founder and chief executive of new nicotine gum manufacturer Lucy Goods, thinks there should be a better-tasting, less-medicinal offering for people looking to quit smoking.

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Fintech startups raised $34B in 2019 Feb 24, 2020

Financial services startups raised less money in 2019 than they did in 2018 as VC firms looked to back late stage firms and focused on developing markets, a new report has revealed. According to research firm CB Insights’ annual report published this week, fintech startups across the world raised $33.9 billion* in total last year across 1,912 deals*, down from $40.8 billion they picked up by participating in 2,049 deals the year before.

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Tier Mobility, the European e-scooter rentals startup, adds another ~$40M to its Series B Feb 24, 2020

Tier, the European e-scooter rentals startup that operates in 55 cities across 11 countries, has topped up its funding for the second time in four months. The Berlin-based company has extended its Series B round to over $100 million, up from $60 million disclosed in October. The additional capital is a mix of equity and debt financing provided by Moscow’s RTP Global, London’s Novator, and an unnamed U.S. debt fund.

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A group of ex-NSA and Amazon engineers are building a ‘GitHub for data’ Feb 21, 2020

Six months ago or thereabouts, a group of engineers and developers with backgrounds from the National Security Agency, Google and Amazon Web Services had an idea. Data is valuable for helping developers and engineers to build new features and better innovate. But that data is often highly sensitive and out of reach, kept under lock and key by red tape and compliance, which can take weeks to get approval.

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As Morgan Stanley buys ETrade, Robinhood preps social trading Feb 21, 2020

Before it was worth $7.6 billion, the original idea for Robinhood was a stock trading social network. At my kitchen table in San Francisco in 2013, the founders envisioned an app for sharing hot tips to a feed complete with a leaderboard of whose predictions were most accurate. Once they had SEC approval, they pivoted towards the real money maker: letting people buy and sell stocks in the app, and pay to borrow cash to do so.

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Liquid Death raises $9M to make canned water cool Feb 20, 2020

It sounds like Liquid Death has won over investors with its promise to “murder your thirst” — the startup is announcing that it’s raised $9 million in Series A funding. Liquid Death sells water in a tallboy aluminum can, and it’s expanding the lineup with a sparkling water can that it plans to start shipping in March. A 12-pack of either regular or sparkling mountain water currently costs $18.99 on the Liquid Death website.

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BluBracket scores $6.5M seed to help secure code in distributed environments Feb 20, 2020

BluBracket, a new security startup from the folks who brought you Vera, came out of stealth today and announced a $6.5 million seed investment. Unusual Ventures led the round with participation by Point72 Ventures, SignalFire and Firebolt Ventures. The company was launched by Ajay Aurora and Prakash Linga, who until last year were CEO and CTO respectively at Auroa, a security company that helps companies secure documents by having the security profile follow the document wherever it goes.

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Twitter acquires Stories template maker Chroma Labs Feb 19, 2020

Is “Twitter Stories” on the way? Or will we just get tools to send prettier tweets? Well now Twitter has the talent for both as it’s just acquihired Chroma Labs. Co-founded by Instagram Boomerang inventor John Barnett, Chroma Labs’ Chroma Stories app let you fill in stylish layout templates and frames for posting collages and more to Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and more.

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Oyo’s revenue surged in FY19, but loss widened, too Feb 19, 2020

Budget-lodging startup Oyo reported a loss of $335 million on $951 million revenue globally for the financial year ending March 31, 2019, and pledged to cut down on its spending as the India-headquartered startup grows more cautious about its aggressive expansion.

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PullRequest snags remote developer hiring platform Moonlight in case of startup buying startup Feb 18, 2020

PullRequest, a startup that provides code review as a service, announced today that it was buying Moonlight, an early stage startup that has built an online platform for hiring remote developers. The companies did not share the terms. Lyal Avery, founder and CEO at PullRequest, says that he bought this company to expand his range of services. “Our platform is at a place where we’re very confident about our ability to identify issues.

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Rippling starts billboard battle with Gusto Feb 18, 2020

Remember when Zenefits imploded, and kicked out CEO Parker Conrad. Well, Conrad launched a new employee onboarding startup called Rippling, and now he’s going after another HR company called Gusto with a new billboard, “Outgrowing Gusto? Presto change-o.” The problem is, Gusto got it taken down by issuing a cease & desist order to Rippling and the billboard operator Clear Channel Outdoor.

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The drunken HQ Trivia finale before it shut down was insane Feb 17, 2020

“Not gonna lie. This f*cking sucks. This is the last HQ ever” yelled host Matt Richards . And it just got crazier from there.The farewell game of HQ Trivia before it shut down last night was a beautiful disaster. The hosts cursed, sprayed champagne, threatened to defecate on the homes of trolls in the chat window, and begged for new jobs. Imagine Jeopardy but Trebek is blacked-out. Yesterday HQ Trivia ran out of money, laid off its 25 employees, and shut down.

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HQ Trivia shuts down after acquisition falls through Feb 17, 2020

HQ Trivia is dead. Today the company laid off its full staff of 25 and will cease operation of its trivia, sports, and word guessing games, a source close to the company confirmed. HQ Trivia had a deal in the works to be acquired, but they buyer pulled out yesterday and investors aren’t willing to fund it any longer, CEO and co-founder Rus Yusupov said in a statement attained by CNN Business’ Kerry Flynn.

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Intuition Robotics raises $36M for its empathetic digital companion Feb 14, 2020

Intuition Robotics, the company best known for its ElliQ robot, a digital home companion for the elderly, today announced that it has raised a $36 million Series B round co-led by SPARX Group and OurCrowd. Toyota AI Ventures, Sompo Holdings, iRobot, Union Tech Ventures, Happiness Capital, Samsung Next, Capital Point and Bloomberg Beta also participated in this round. This brings the total funding for the company, which was founded in 2016, to $58 million.

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Google closes $2.6B Looker acquisition Feb 14, 2020

When Google announced that it was acquiring data analytics startup Looker for $2.6 billion, it was a big deal on a couple of levels. It was a lot of money and it represented the first large deal under the leadership of Thomas Kurian. Today, the company announced that deal has officially closed and Looker is part of the Google Cloud Platform.

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Reset Button is approaching student debt from a new angle Feb 13, 2020

Student loan debt in the U.S. totals $1.5 trillion, and more than 44 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt. According to research by Jason Iuliano, Villanova law professor, a million student loan debtors have filed for bankruptcy in the past five years. However, 99.9 percent of them did not include their student loan debt in their bankruptcy filing.

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Ever Loved’s funeral marketplace undercuts undertakers Feb 13, 2020

Fifty percent of families are scared they can’t cover the cost of a funeral. They end up overpaying because no one wants to comparison shop amidst a tragedy. That’s why ex-Googler Alison Johnston’s startup Ever Loved built a free funeral crowdfunding tool. Now it’s addressing one of the most expensive parts of saying goodbye: burial. Today Ever Loved launches its online marketplace for caskets, urns, headstones and memorial jewelry.

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Impala raises $20 million to build the API of the hotel industry Feb 12, 2020

Impala has raised another round of funding just a few months after raising an $11 million Series A round. This time, the startup is raising a $20 million Series B round led by Lakestar. Latitude Ventures is also participating in the round. The company is building a service that works pretty much like Plaid, but for hotel rooms. The hotel industry relies on old school “property management systems” to manage rooms, room types, pricing, extras, taxes, etc.

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Carta debuts fund to invest in startups that tap into its platform Feb 11, 2020

This morning Carta, a startup that helps private companies manage equity, announced it has created an investing vehicle called Carta Ventures. The well-funded unicorn wants to invest in young startups that it sees building off of its data-driven perspective into the world of private companies, helping to foster an ecosystem around its core products and services.

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After $479M round on $12.4B valuation, Snowflake CEO says IPO is next step Feb 10, 2020

Snowflake, the cloud-based data warehouse company, doesn’t tend to do small rounds. On Friday night word leaked out about its latest mega round. This one was for $479 million on a $12.4 billion valuation. That’s triple the company’s previous $3.9 billion valuation from October 2018, and CEO Frank Slootman suggested that the company’s next finance event is likely an IPO. Dragoneer Investment led the round along with new investor Salesforce Ventures.

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Our.News fights misinformation with a ‘nutrition label’ for news stories Feb 10, 2020

A startup called Our.News is working to make its users smarter consumers of the news. In other words, it’s confronting some big, seemingly intractable problems. For one thing, there’s a tremendous amount of disinformation online — as Our.News founder and CEO Richard Zack put it, “Unfortunately, you have thousands of people all over the world who intentionally make it hard for people to know what’s true.

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Datree announces $8M Series A as it joins Y Combinator Feb 07, 2020

Datree, the early stage startup building a DevOps policy engine on GitHub, announced an $8 million Series A today. It also announced it has joined the Y Combinator Winter 20 cohort. Blumberg and TLV Partners led the round with participation from Y Combinator . The company has now raised $11 million with the $3 million seed round announced in 2018.

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Deliverr lands $40M Series C to bring two-day shipping to any merchant Feb 06, 2020

Deliverr doesn’t own a warehouse or a delivery truck, but the startup is helping e-commerce companies not named Amazon achieve Amazon-like two-day shipping. The startup does it with intelligent algorithms, and today it announced a $40 million Series C investment. Activant Capital led the round. Other investors in the company include 8VC, GLP and Flexport founder and CEO Ryan Peterson. The company reports it has raised a total of $70 million.

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How Hoop hit #2 with its Tinder for Snapchat Feb 06, 2020

Snapchat’s developer platform is blowing up as a gateway to teen social app users. Hoop is the latest Snap Kit blockbuster, rocketing to #2 on the overall App Store charts this month with its Tinder -esque swiping interface for discovering people and asking to message with them over Snapchat. Within a week of going viral, unfunded French startup Dazz saw Hoop score 2.5 million downloads.

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Construction startup Scaled Robotics raises a €2M seed round Feb 05, 2020

Industrial robots are expensive. But, then, so are construction mistakes. Being off by an inch here or there adds up quickly, and too often crews need to correctly costly errors. There’s a reason construction has become the next great target of the robotics and automation industries, with a number of startups vying to create solutions that can constantly monitor sites to detect mistakes before it’s too late.

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The Meta, a training platform for gamers, builds on Kovaak’s FPS Aim Trainer Feb 05, 2020

As esports grows and creates opportunities for gamers to level up to the pro or streamer level, there is still a huge barrier in the way. There is not a wealth of training options for gamers. If you can’t get better within the environment of the game itself, then you’ve peaked.

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Payments infra startup Finix closes $35M Series B led by Sequoia Feb 04, 2020

This morning Finix, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup selling payments tech to other businesses, announced that it has raised a $35 million Series B. Sequoia led the round, which also saw participation from new investors Activant Capital and Inspired Capital. Finix did not disclose a new valuation as part of its round, and declined to share any growth metrics regarding its business. Instead, it offered a TAM figure and noted the number of countries in which it currently operates.

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Utah tech magnates create new Silicon Slopes Venture Fund to boost startups in the state Feb 04, 2020

Those looking outside of Silicon Valley as a potential hub for their startup might want to take a gander at Utah — at least that’s the kind of trend the new Silicon Slopes Venture Fund hopes to create. The newly formed fund, put together by Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith, Omniture and Domo founder Josh James and Stance co-founder turned Pelion Venture Partners’ Jeff Kearl, pledges to invest solely in Utah-based startups.

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OpsRamp raises $37.5M for its hybrid IT operations platform Feb 03, 2020

OpsRamp, a service that helps IT teams discover, monitor, manage and — maybe most importantly — automate their hybrid environments, today announced that it has closed a $37.5 million funding round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, with participation from existing investor Sapphire Ventures and new investor Hewlett Packard Enterprise. OpsRamp last raised funding in 2017, when Sapphire led its $20 million Series A round.

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SoftBank wants its on-demand portfolio to stop losing so much money Jan 31, 2020

SoftBank wants its competing portfolio companies to stop losing so much money and, in some cases, to merge. That’s the news out from the Financial Times today, which reported that Uber and DoorDash discussed merging last year. The talks didn’t wind up in a deal. The two companies, each heavily backed by SoftBank and its formerly active Vision Fund, compete in the food delivery space at great expense.

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Publisher engagement startup Insticator bets on commenting with Squawk-It acquisition Jan 31, 2020

Insticator, a startup helping publishers add elements like polls, quizzes and suggested story widgets to their content, has made its first acquisition — a commenting platform called Squawk-It. Insticator CEO Zack Dugow said his platform benefits online publishers by keeping audiences engaged and bringing in new ad revenue (which is split between Insticator and the publisher).

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Just released: Last round of tickets to 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Jan 30, 2020

If parties came with an alert system, this post would qualify as Def Con 4. Now hear this — we just released the final batch of tickets to our3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize, which heats up on February 7 in San Francisco. If you want to be there with more than 1,000 of Silicon Valley’s finest, act now with all due haste. Buy your ticket right here. Hang out with your crowd and enjoy cocktails, craft beer and tempting appetizers.

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Perdoo adds free tier to its OKR service, adding a fresh wrinkle to an accelerating market Jan 30, 2020

Perdoo, a Berlin-based OKR-focused software startup, has decided to make its basic service free, potentially shaking up its growing, and somewhat crowded, market. “Objectives and Key Results,” a planning and management technique usually shortened to “OKRs,” is a hot space for software startups, with several raising in recent months. WorkBoard and Gtmhub, for example, each raised capital for their OKR products in the last two months.

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Teller raises $4M to take on Plaid in the U.S. by providing API access to bank accounts Jan 29, 2020

Teller raises $4M to take on Plaid in the U.S. by providing API access to bank accounts “They’re idiots, they’re really naive,” is how Stevie Graham, the co-founder of fintech Teller, once described Open Banking Limited, the body charged with delivering open banking in the U.K. His view back in 2017 — which now looks somewhat prophetic — was that open banking wouldn’t be the competition driver it was hyped up to be.

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Cooks Venture raises $4 million from Golden West Food Group to ramp up distribution Jan 29, 2020

Cooks Venture, the agtech company looking to revolutionize the chicken industry, has today announced the close of a $4 million funding round led by Golden West Food Group. Cooks Venture has been working in stealth for many years, but launched onto the scene in 2018 with a plan to reshape agriculture from the ground up. And the key to that strategy? Chickens.

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N26 reaches 5 million customers including 250,000 in the US Jan 28, 2020

Challenger bank N26 has reached 5 million customers. In 2019 alone, N26 managed to add over 2.5 million customers. And the company’s growth rate seems to be accelerating as N26 reached 3.5 million customers in June 2019. That represents an addition of 1 million customers during the first half of 2019 and an addition of 1.5 million customers during the second half of 2019. One reason why N26 is growing at a faster pace is that the company is still expanding to new market.

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Bird confirms acquisition of Berlin scooter competitor Circ Jan 28, 2020

If you didn’t see this coming, then clearly you didn’t have your eyes on the road. Bird, the LA-founded e-scooter giant, has confirmed that it is acquiring European competitor Circ, the micromobilty company founded by Lukasz Gadowski of Delivery Hero fame. The deal, for which terms remain undisclosed, was first reported by the FT late last week.

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Memphis Meats raised $161 million from SoftBank Group, Norwest and Temasek Jan 27, 2020

Memphis Meats, a developer of technologies to manufacture meat, seafood and poultry from animal cells, has raised $161 million in financing from investors including Softbank Group, Norwest and Temasek, the investment fund backed by the government of Singapore. The investment brings the company’s total financing to $180 million.

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Layoffs reach 23andMe after hitting Mozilla and the Vision Fund portfolio Jan 24, 2020

Layoffs in the technology and venture-backed worlds continued today, as 23andMe confirmed to CNBC that it laid off around 100 people, or about 14% of its formerly 700-person staff. The cuts would be notable by themselves, but given how many other reductions have recently been announced, they indicate that a rolling round of belt-tightening amongst well-funded private companies continues. Mozilla, for example, cut 70 staffers earlier this year.

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Substack builds multi-author support into its hybrid publishing, newsletter service Jan 23, 2020

Substack announced today that it has built support for multiple authors into its service. The company provides a publishing tool that blends blogs and email newsletters into a single entity, with a focus on subscription monetization. The day’s updates also include a number of publisher-friendly tools, like shared access and homepage features closer to those of traditional websites than the linear timeline style that Substack has focused on so far.

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Corporate relocation startup Shyft raises $15M Jan 22, 2020

Shyft is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series A funding to make the moving process less painful — specifically in the situations where your employer is paying for the move. There other startups are looking to offer concierge-type services for regular moving — I used a service called Moved last year and liked it.

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Baraja’s unique and ingenious take on lidar shines in a crowded industry Jan 21, 2020

It seems like every company making lidar has a new and clever approach, but Baraja takes the cake. Its method is not only elegant and powerful, but fundamentally avoids many issues that nag other lidar technologies. But it’ll need more than smart tech to make headway in this complex and evolving industry. To understand how lidar works in general, consult my handy introduction to the topic.

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As Alphabet crests the $1T mark, SaaS stocks reach all-time highs of their own Jan 20, 2020

Continuing our irregular surveys of the public markets, two things happened this week that are worth our time. First, a third domestic technology company — Alphabet — passed the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold. And, second, software as a service (SaaS) stocks reached record highs on the public markets after retreating over last summer.

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VCs are just tired Jan 17, 2020

I was in SF last week and met with more than a dozen VCs over the course of two days. This was post the holidays, post their visits to the ski chalets in Tahoe and the island beaches, and in the smack dab of one of the most important fundraise periods of the year — the mid-to-late January to April stretch when all the backlog of startups from Q4 initiate their fundraises for the new year.

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Sophie Alcorn, Rebecca Lynn, MG Siegler and Garry Tan are joining us for Early Stage SF Jan 16, 2020

One of the most valuable resources in the tech startup community is mentorship. Founders, tackling brand new challenges and adapting to a rapidly changing world, can sometimes feel like no one understands what they’re going through. But alas, the Early Stage SF event in April will most certainly prove them wrong. Early Stage will bring together seasoned operators and experts across a wide variety of topics that fall under the broad umbrellas of funding, marketing and operations.

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Equinix is acquiring bare metal cloud provider Packet Jan 15, 2020

Equinix announced today that is acquiring bare metal cloud provider Packet. The New York City startup that had raised over $36 million on a $100 million valuation, according to Pitchbook data. Equinix has a set of data centers and co-locations facilities around the world. Companies that may want to have more control over their hardware could use their services including space, power and cooling systems, instead of running their own data centers.

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Meet MarsCat, a robot cat with lots of love to give and room to grow Jan 14, 2020

At CES 2020, one of the more well-represented gadget categories was definitely consumer robots – but none was more adorable than MarsCat, a new robo-pet from industrial robot startup Elephant Robotics. This robot pet is a fully autonomous companion that can respond to touch, voice and even play with toys, and it’s hard not to love the thing after spending even just a brief amount of time with it.

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Casper files to go public, shows you can lose money selling mattresses Jan 13, 2020

E-commerce phenom and D2C bright light Casper has filed to go public. The New York-based company that raised nearly $340 million while private, according to Crunchbase data, expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CSPR.” Its S-1 filing includes a $100 million placeholder figure for its possible capital raise. The company will need the money, as it loses money and burns cash. Let’s explore just how a mattress company does that.

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Lime is laying off about 100 people and ceasing operations in 12 markets Jan 10, 2020

Lime is hoping to achieve profitability this year by laying off about 14% of its workforce and ceasing operations in 12 markets, Axios first reported. “Financial independence is our goal for 2020, and we are confident that Lime will be the first next-generation mobility company to reach profitability,” Lime CEO Brad Bao said in a statement to TechCrunch.

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Cloudflare acquires stealthy startup S2 Systems, announces Cloudflare for Teams Jan 09, 2020

Cloudflare announced that it has acquired S2 Systems, a browser isolation startup started by former Microsoft execs. The two companies did not reveal the acquisition price. Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO at Cloudflare, says that this acquisition is part of a new suite of products called Cloudflare for Teams, which has been designed to protect an organization from threats on the internet. S2 developed a solution specifically to help prevent browser-based code attacks.

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Ben Horowitz will explain how to create and sustain culture at TC Early Stage SF Jan 08, 2020

The hardest challenges to tackle are usually the most nebulous. Culture, for example, is hard to define, implement, cultivate and evolve… How do you structure culture within a business or organization? Are there steps to follow? Is there a manual? Interestingly enough, there is. What You Do Is Who You Are is the latest book from legendary investor, entrepreneur and founding partner at Andreesen Horowitz Ben Horowitz.

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As NIO and Tesla rally, Chinese EV company Lixiang said to file for US IPO Jan 07, 2020

The recovery in value of several high-profile electric car companies could help move yet-private EV manufacturers out of the pit lane and onto the IPO track. On the heels of NIO’s shocking value appreciation after its recent earnings report, and Tesla’s own public market run, China-based Lixiang Automotive is reported to have filed privately for an IPO in the United States. Lixiang Automotive is a Beijing-based company that was founded in 2015, according to Crunchbase data.

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Exhibit your startup at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 Jan 06, 2020

Mobility mavericks get ready to strut your stuff at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on May 14. Don’t miss our second annual day-long conference devoted to technologies that move people and parcels around the world in new, exciting ways. More than 1,000 of the industry’s mightiest minds, makers, innovators and investors will converge in San Jose for a mobile mind meld. That spells opportunity for early-stage mobility startup founders.

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In the shadow of Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle startups are having a moment Dec 31, 2019

Venture capital investment exploded across a number of geographies in 2019 despite the constant threat of an economic downturn. San Francisco, of course, remains the startup epicenter of the world, shutting out all other geographies when it comes to capital invested. Still, other regions continue to grow, raking in more capital this year than ever. In Utah, a new hotbed for startups, companies like Weave, Divvy and MX Technology raised a collective $370 million from private market investors.

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TikTok’s national security scrutiny tightens as U.S. Navy reportedly bans popular social app Dec 26, 2019

TikTok may be the fastest-growing social network in the history of the internet, but it is also quickly becoming the fastest-growing security threat and thorn in the side of U.S. China hawks. The latest, according to a notice published by the U.S. Navy this past week and reported on by Reuters and the South China Morning Post, is that TikTok will no longer be allowed to be installed on service members’ devices, or they may face expulsion from the military service’s intranet.

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MasterCard acquires security assessment startup, RiskRecon Dec 25, 2019

MasterCard announced today that it is acquiring RiskRecon, a Salt Lake City startup that uses publicly available data to build security assessments of organizations. The companies did not share the purchase price. It’s become increasingly important for financial services companies like MasterCard to help customers navigate cyber security and RiskRecon will give customers an objective score of a company’s risk profile.

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Should you pay $50K for your pitch deck? Yes, why the hell not? Dec 23, 2019

Every once in a while on VC Twitter, a comment or statement seems so outlandish, so completely outrageous, that it must be — certainly has to be — false.

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F5 acquires Shape Security for $1B Dec 23, 2019

F5 got an expensive holiday present today, snagging startup Shape Security for approximately $1 billion. What the networking company gets with a shiny red ribbon is a security product that helps stop automated attacks like credential stuffing. In an article earlier this year, Shape CTO Shuman Ghosemajumder explained what the company does: “We’re an enterprise-focused company that protects the majority of large U.S.

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Leapfin raises $4.5M to help companies track revenue while keeping its own profitability in view Dec 20, 2019

Leapfin, a startup selling corporate finance tooling, announced a $4.5 million round this morning. The funding event was led by Bowrey Capital, and included dollars from a number of former technology executives. Before its newly announced investment, the company had raised just a small seed round. The small capital amounts may seem inconsequential, but they’re more strategic than anything. According to Leapfin CEO Raymond Lau, the company is running lean and keeping an eye on profitability.

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Blindlee is Chatroulette for dating with a safety screen Dec 19, 2019

Make space for another dating app in your single life: Blindlee is Chatroulette for dating but with female-friendly guardrails in the form of a user-controlled video blur effect. The idea is pretty simple: Singles are matched randomly with another user who meets some basic criteria (age, location) for a three minute ‘ice breaker’ video call. The app suggests chat topics — like ‘pineapple on pizza, yay or nay’ — to get the conversation flowing.

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#ANGELS founding partner raises $25M for debut fund Moxxie Ventures Dec 19, 2019

Katie Jacobs Stanton, a former Twitter executive and co-founder of the #ANGELS investment collective, has raised $25 million for her debut venture capital fund Moxxie Ventures. As the sole general partner, she plans to invest between $250,000 and $500,000 in underrepresented and underestimated founders, Stanton tells TechCrunch, with a focus on “products that make life and work better.

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Why is WeWork 2.0 trying to go public? Dec 18, 2019

In the wake of WeWork’sembarrassing IPO rout, you might imagine that startups working in similar markets would cool it for a bit. Perhaps they could work on cutting spending, improving their gross margins, and, say, shooting for profitability. Not so, at least in one case. Instead of doing those things, China-based Ucommune filed to go public in America this month. The WeWork competitor is mostly a co-working business. It’s also a marketing company.

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With $4B food delivery acquisition, Korea poised to enter upper tier of startup hubs Dec 17, 2019

Seoul and South Korea may well be the secret startup hub that (still) no one talks about. While often dwarfed by the scale and scope of the Chinese startup market next door, South Korea has proven over the last few years that it can — and will — enter the top-tier of startup hubs.

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Sleek raises $5M to help companies incorporate and operate in Singapore and Hong Kong Dec 17, 2019

Sleek, a startup that is making it easier for other startups and companies to incorporate and operate in Singapore and Hong Kong, said today it has extended its seed financing round to raise $5 million. The extended seed round for the two-year-old startup was led by private investors Pierre Lorinet and Fabio Blom, and MI8, an Asia-focused European backed private investment company.

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Startups Weekly: This year in startups Dec 16, 2019

Welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about U.S. VC activity in Europe. Before that, I noted Chinese investor activity in Africa. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter@KateClarkTweets. If you’re new, you can subscribe to Startups Weekly here.

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Chicago’s Sprout Social prices IPO mid-range at $17 per share, raising $150M Dec 16, 2019

On the heels of Bill.com’s debut, Chicago-based social media software company Sprout Social priced its IPO last night at $17 per share, in the middle of its proposed $16 to $18 per-share range. Selling 8.8 million shares, Sprout raised just under $150 million in its debut. Underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 1.3 million shares if they so choose.

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And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019 is… Scaled Robotics Dec 13, 2019

At the very beginning, there were 14 startups. After two days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner. Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.

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Glovo’s Sacha Michaud: “I think there will be consolidation” Dec 13, 2019

Many companies realized that there was a huge opportunity when it comes to on-demand delivery of food and groceries. And apparently, too many companies as Glovo co-founder Sacha Michaud expects some consolidation in the space in the near future.

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Gtmhub raises $9M from CRV after posting 400% ARR growth in the last year Dec 12, 2019

This week Gtmhub announced a $9 million Series A led by CRV. The investment was not a large round, even for an A. But the capital found its way into one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies that we’ve spoken with recently, which made it interesting all the same. And, the firm was willing to talk about its financial performance in some detail. The combination made its Series A impossible to ignore. TechCrunch caught up with Gtmhub’s CMO Seth Elliott this morning to learn more.

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Airbnb invests as Zeus corporate housing raises $55M at $205M Dec 12, 2019

As Airbnb absorbs more and more of the demand for housing, it’s exploring how to monetize opportunities beyond vacation rentals. A marketplace for longer term corporate housing could be a huge business, but rather than build that itself, Airbnb is making a strategic investment in one of the market leaders called Zeus Living and will list its homes on the Airbnb site.

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Nodle crowdsources IoT connectivity Dec 11, 2019

Nodle, which is competing in the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin Startup Battlefield this week, is based on a simple premise: What if you could crowdsource the connectivity of smart sensors by offloading it to smartphones? For most sensors, built-in cell connectivity is simply not a realistic option, given how much power it would take. A few years of battery life is quite realistic for a sensor that uses Bluetooth Low Energy.

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xs:code launches subscription platform to monetize open source projects Dec 11, 2019

Open source is a great source of free tools for developers, but as these projects proliferate, and some gain in popularity, the creators sometimes look for ways to monetize successful ones. The problem is that it’s hard to run a subscription-based, dual-license approach and most developers don’t even know where to start. Enter Israeli startup xs:code, which has created a platform to help developers solve this problem. “xs:code is a monetization platform for open source projects.

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Soci raises $12M to help big brands manage local marketing Dec 10, 2019

According to CEO Afif Khoury, we’re in the middle of “the third wave of social” — a shift back to local interactions. And Khoury’s startup Soci (pronounced soh-shee) has raised $12 million in Series C funding to help companies navigate that shift. Soci works with customers like Ace Hardware and Sport Clips to help them manage the online presence of hundreds or thousands of stores.

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Startups Weekly: U.S. VCs eye European startups Dec 10, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about Chinese investor activity in Africa. Before that, I noted Airbnb’s issues. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter@KateClarkTweets. If you’re new, you can subscribe to Startups Weekly here.

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Raising VC in Silicon Valley as a female POC Dec 09, 2019

Nathan Beckord Contributor Share on Twitter Nathan Beckord is CEO of Foundersuite.com, a software platform for raising capital and managing investors that has helped entrepreneurs raise over $2 billion since 2016. He is also the host of Foundersuite’s How I Raised It podcast.

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New tweet generator mocks venture capitalists Dec 09, 2019

“Airbnb’s unit economics are quite legendary — the S-1 is going to be MOST disrupted FASTEST in the next 3 YEARS? Caps for effect.” Who Tweeted that? Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan? Homebrew’s Hunter Walk? Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham? Or perhaps one of the dozens of other venture capitalists active on Twitter . No, it was Parrot.VC, a new Twitter account and website dedicated to making light of VC Twitter.

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Uberflip acquires SnapApp for smarter content targeting Dec 06, 2019

Uberflip is acquiring SnapApp, bringing together two startups that promise help marketers use their content more effectively. President and Chief Marketing Officer Randy Frisch argued that Uberflip focuses on content experience, not content marketing. In other words, it’s not selling productivity and workflow tools for marketers to write blog posts and and create videos. Instead, it helps them present their existing content in a smarter and more personalized way.

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Uniform Teeth raises $10 million for its teeth-straightening operations Dec 06, 2019

Uniform Teeth, the teeth straightening startup that helped me figure out I needed a root canal, has just raised a $10 million round of funding led by Canaan Ventures. This brings Uniform Teeth’s total funding to $14 million. With the new funding, Uniform Teeth plans to open up two more locations, one in Seattle and one in Chicago early next year. Uniform Teeth currently operates two locations in San Francisco.

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Delphia wants to turn your data into investment capital through collective action Dec 05, 2019

A lot of companies talk about the value of your data, and about helping you get more control over the information you share, but Toronto-based Delphia is unique in aiming to build a viable, sustainable and scalable way to take a person’s data and turn that into real monetary gain.

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Accel closes new $550M fund for India Dec 04, 2019

Accel, one of the world’s most influential venture capitalist firms, is becoming more bullish on India. The Silicon Valley-headquartered firm, which largely focuses on early stage investments, said today it has closed $550 million for its sixth venture fund in India. This is a significant amount of capital for Accel’s efforts in India, where it began investing 15 years ago and has infused roughly $1 billion through all of its previous funds combined.

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Postscript raises $4.5M to help Shopify shops stay connected with customers over SMS Dec 04, 2019

Back in February, we wrote that Postscript “wants to be the Mailchimp for SMS.” Now they’ve raised $4.5 million to help get it done. This round was led by Accomplice, and backed by Kayak co-founder Paul English, Wufoo co-founder Kevin Hale, Klaviyo co-founder Andrew Bialecki, Drift co-founder Elias Torres, Front co-founder Mathilde Collin and Podium co-founders Eric Rea and Dennis Steele. The Postscript team is currently made up of 14 people.

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Score Cyber Monday savings on TechCrunch Sessions 2020 passes Dec 03, 2019

Have we got a Cyber Monday deal for you. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI (March 3) and TC Sessions: Mobility (May 14) are coming back to California in 2020 with early bird tickets starting at $275 and $250 respectively. But if you buy your pass today, you’ll save an extra 15 percent on each event. How sweet is that? Don’t delay, startuppers. Buy your pass to TC Sessions: Robotics & AI and/or TC Sessions: Mobility before this one-day deal expires promptly tonight at 11:59 pm PT.

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Startups Weekly: Chinese investors double down on African startups Dec 02, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about Airbnb’s issues. Before that, I noted Uber’s new “money” team. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter@KateClarkTweets.

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NYSE proposes big change to direct listings Dec 02, 2019

The New York Stock Exchange filed paperwork this morning with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to allow companies to raise capital as part of a direct listing. Direct listings are a way for companies to go public by selling existing shares held by insiders, employees and investors directly to the market, rather than the traditional method of issuing new shares.

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Zebra Fuel, the startup that brought fuel directly to your vehicle, is ‘no longer’ delivering in London Nov 29, 2019

Zebra Fuel, the startup that brought fuel directly to your vehicle, is ‘no longer’ delivering in London Zebra Fuel, the London-based startup that delivered fuel directly to your vehicle — backed by Robin and Saul Klein’s LocalGlobe, Brent Hoberman’s Firstminute Capital and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman — has told customers it is “no longer” delivering fuel in London.

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Here’s what happens when you decide to sell your startup Nov 28, 2019

Joe Procopio Contributor Share on Twitter Joe is a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur. Joe is currently building Spiffy, and previously sold Automated Insights, sold ExitEvent, and built Intrepid Media. Find more about Joe at joeprocopio.com or @jproco on Twitter.

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Vivun snags $3M seed round to bring order to pre-sales Nov 27, 2019

Vivun, a startup that wants to help companies keep better track of pre-sales data announced a $3 million seed round today led by Unusual Ventures, the venture firm run by Harness CEO Jyoti Bansal. Vivun founder and CEO Matt Darrow says that pre-sales team works more closely with the customer than anyone else, delivering demos and proof of concepts, and generally helping sales get over the finish line.

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Cocoon’s social app for close friends gets VC backing to chase Path’s dream Nov 27, 2019

You may have heard the pitch before, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram aren’t homes for your real friends anymore because they’re too big, too commercial and too influencer-y, the result is that your most important relationships have been relegated to the lowest common denominator tool on your phones: your texting app.

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Weekend Fund raises $10M for second early-stage fund Nov 26, 2019

Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover has raised another $10 million to invest in nascent upstarts viaWeekend Fund. The news represents the firm’s second fundraise after a $3 million debut angel fund that closed in 2017.

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Artiphon launches a Kickstarter campaign for its new musical device Orba Nov 26, 2019

Artiphon, the startup that previously raised more than $1 million on Kickstarter for a device called the Instrument 1, has launched a new campaign for its latest invention, Orba. Co-founder and CEO Mike Butera said the Instrument 1 and Orba share “the same DNA,” namely his vision to help music-making become more accessible to everyone, regardless of training or experience. “I want beginners to feel like pros, but also for pros to feel like beginners again,” Butera told me.

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Max Q: NASA signs up new Moon delivery companies Nov 25, 2019

Sign up here to receive Max Q weekly in your inbox, starting December 15. There were lot of highlights in the space industry this past week (even though a rocket launch that was supposed to happened is now pushed to Monday). The biggest news for commercial space might just be that NASA signed on five new companies to its list of approved vendors for lunar payload delivery services, bringing the total group to 14.

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Here’s the first look inside Orbex’s Scotland rocket factory Nov 25, 2019

European private launch startup Orbex is getting ready to start actually launching payloads aboard its own rockets, and it’s pulling back the curtains to give a look at the factory it’s using to build its launch vehicles. The UK-based company is building its rockets from a facility in Scotland, and this virtual tour gives an idea of what they’re doing to make the first rocket field by renewable, clean-burning fuel a reality. Orbex Prime’s Stage 2 vehicle.

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Give InKind’s smarter giving platform brings in surprise $1.5 million in pre-seed funding Nov 22, 2019

Helping out a friend in need online can be surprisingly difficult. While giving cash is easy enough, that’s often not what people need most — so Give InKind aims to be the platform where you can do a lot more than write a check. The idea is such a natural one that the company tripled its goal for a pre-seed round, raising $1.5 million from Seattle investors.

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Splice teaches AI to sell Similar Sounds as users double Nov 22, 2019

Splice is blowing up like a hit song. The audio sample marketplace has doubled revenue and user count in a year, and now reaches 3 million musicians. 70% of those visit weekly to hunt down the freshest and trendiest sounds that give their tracks that special something, and many pay $7.99 for unlimited access. But words can’t always describe music. Searching by genre and subjective tags can take forever and leave artists frustrated when the sounds they find they don’t resonate right.

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Bandit opens a ‘mobile-only’ coffee shop in New York Nov 21, 2019

If you wander into the Bandit coffee shop in Midtown New York, you won’t be able to just walk up to the counter and order something. Instead, you’ll need to download a mobile app. I experienced it for myself yesterday afternoon, when I — along with several other customers — pulled my phone out, downloaded the Bandit app, then used the app to create a profile, order and pay. A couple minutes later, a barista called me up to the counter and handed me my (pretty good) coffee.

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Brava, a smart oven maker with big names attached, just sold to an industrial equipment company Nov 21, 2019

Brava had a lot of things working in its favor as startups go. It was founded in 2015 by serial executive John Pleasants, whose past stints have included as co-president of Disney Interactive Media Group, COO of Electronic Arts, and CEO of Ticketmaster.

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Bunch, the Discord for mobile games, raises $3.85M from Supercell, Tencent, Riot Games Nov 20, 2019

Growing up, Selcuk Atli spent a good deal of his free time playing video games with his friends. And when I say with his friends, I mean actually with them. They’re called LAN parties, where everyone brings over their consoles and the group gets to play together virtually and in real life, all at the same time. Atli, a grown man now, still loves games, but misses the memories made during LAN parties. That’s how Bunch was born. Bunch is a lot like Discord, but for mobile games.

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Ohi raises $2.75M to power same-day delivery for brands that aren’t Amazon Nov 20, 2019

The world has gotten so much faster. Amazon has made two-day shipping the standard and same- or next-day shipping commonplace. And that doesn’t even include the collection of on-demand players that can get us everything from groceries to alcohol to services like concierge storage and in-home cleaning with the press of a button.

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Playbuzz becomes Ex.co and expands its content marketing platform – TechCrunch Nov 19, 2019

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SmartNews raises $92M at a $1.2B valuation – TechCrunch Nov 18, 2019

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Nigeria’s Interswitch confirms $1B valuation after Visa investment Nov 18, 2019

Nigerian digital payments firm Interswitch confirmed today it has reached unicorn status after Visa acquired a minority equity stake in the firm. “The investment makes Interswitch one of the most valuable African fintech businesses with a valuation of $1 billion,” Interswitch said in a release to TechCrunch. The Visa investment could create the first of two market distinctions for Interswitch — as it shouldn’t change the Lagos-based company’s plans to go public.

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Less than 72 hours left to buy early-bird passes to Disrupt Berlin Nov 15, 2019

Pull your heads out of the trenches, startup fans. You have just 72 hours to save up to €500 with early-bird pricing on passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019. When the clock strikes11:59 p.m. (CEST) on Friday, 15 November, the early bird is no more. Three days will fly by in a flash, so don’t wait. Take 10 minutes now, buy your early-bird passand save today. Disrupt Berlin offers two programming-packed days of opportunity and education.

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Freshworks raises $150M Series H on $3.5B valuation Nov 15, 2019

Freshworks, a company that makes a variety of business software tools, from CRM to help-desk software, announced a $150 million Series H investment today from Sequoia Capital, CapitalG (formerly Google Capital) and Accel on a hefty $3.5 billion valuation. The late-stage startup has raised almost $400 million, according to Crunchbase data.

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Yodel.io is a digital receptionist for SMBs taking calls Nov 14, 2019

Yodel.io, an Austria-founded startup that’s developed a “digital receptionist” to help SMBs and other small teams handle in and outbound phone-calls, has picked up $1 million in “pre-seed” funding. It brings total funding to just over $1.8 million. Backing this round is EXF Alpha, the fund of the European Super Angels Club, and various other unnamed European angel investors.

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These sneakers vibrate Nov 14, 2019

Sometimes it seems like you can hear a song all the way in your toes. With these new sneakers, you actually can. Meet the new EP 01 sneakers out of DropLabs. Yes, you read that right. We’re talking about sneakers. Invented by a man named Ross Seiler, and led by former Beats by Dre CEO Susan Paley, DropLabs aims to take audio to a whole new level by syncing music, movies and other audio to shoes that vibrate the soles of your feet.

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The Garage is a new blockchain-focused incubator based in Paris Nov 13, 2019

Meet The Garage, a new incubator in Paris that is all about blockchain projects. Co-founded by Cyril Paglino from Starchain Capital, Fabrice Le Fessant from Dune Network and Oussama Ammar from The Family, the company will support blockchain startups, help big companies launch blockchain projects and educate engineers about blockchain development. The Garage is a sort of puzzle made out of multiple pieces.

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Lawyers hate timekeeping — Ping raises $13M to fix it with AI Nov 13, 2019

Counting billable time in six-minute increments is the most annoying part of being a lawyer. It’s a distracting waste. It leads law firms to conservatively under-bill. And it leaves lawyers stuck manually filling out timesheets after a long day when they want to go home to their families. Life is already short, as Ping CEO and co-founder Ryan Alshak knows too well. The former lawyer spent years caring for his mother as she battled a brain tumor before her passing.

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African logistics startup Lori Systems raises Series A led by Chinese investors Nov 12, 2019

African on-demand trucking logistics company Lori Systems has raised a Series A round led by Chinese investors Hillhouse Capital and Crystal Stream Capital. Other participating investors included Nigeria and U.S.-based EchoVC, Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen and Nigerian founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. Lori Systems is not disclosing the amount of the Series A. DealStreet Asia reported the round amount at $30 million earlier Friday, but Lori Systems’ CEO Josh Sandler would not confirm that.

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Andreessen Horowitz launches free crypto startup school Nov 12, 2019

Last month, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) general partner Chris Dixon announced at TechCrunch Disrupt that the VC firm would run a free crypto startup school. And the company is officially launching its school today. Applications are now open and you have four weeks to apply. With this initiative, a16z wants to democratize cryptocurrencies. Dixon and the a16z has been involved in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space for 7 years, and the firm now wants to share some of its learnings with entrepreneurs.

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Coda Biotherapeutics is developing a cure for pain Nov 11, 2019

If the researchers, executives and investors behind Coda Biotherapeutics have their way, one day soon there really could be a cure for pain. Co-founded by researchers Joseph Glorioso, from the University of Pittsburgh’s microbiology and molecular genetics department; and Dr. Nicholas Boulis, the founder of Emory’s Gene and Cell Therapy for Neurorestoration Laboratory; Coda uses gene therapies to treat neurological diseases starting with severe pain and epilepsy.

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Uber’s losses top $1 billion, trumping better than expected revenues Nov 08, 2019

Better than expected revenues couldn’t divert investor attention from the fact that Uber still managed to lose more than $1 billion in the most recent quarter as the company’s stock fell in after-hours trading. There are bright spots in the latest earnings report, not least that the company managed to stanch the bleeding that had cost the company over $5 billion in the previous quarter. Revenue grew to $3.8 billion, up from $2.9 billion in the year-ago period, representing a 30% boost.

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Robocorp announces $5.6M seed to bring open source option to RPA Nov 08, 2019

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has been a hot commodity in recent years as it helps automate tedious manual workflows inside large organizations. Robocorp, a San Francisco startup, wants to bring open source and RPA together. Today it announced a $5.6 million seed investment. Benchmark led the round with participation from Slow Ventures, firstminute Capital, Bret Taylor, president and chief product officer at Salesforce and Docker CEO Rob Bearden.

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Wardrobe picks up $1.5 million for a new fashion rental marketplace Nov 07, 2019

Wardrobe, a new peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace, has today announced the close of a $1.5 million seed round and its public launch out of beta. The funding was led by angel investor Cyan Banister and Ludlow Ventures, with participation from GroupUp Ventures, Airbnb cofounder Nate Blecharczyk and HQ Trivia founder Rus Yusupov, among others. Wardrobe was founded by Adarsh Alphons after he had an epiphany about just how many items of clothes in his own house went mostly unused.

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Arweave’s Permaweb blockchain can host sites & apps forever Nov 06, 2019

What if you could pay now to store something online permanently? You could preserve a website against censorship, save legal contracts, or offer an app even after your company fails. That’s the promise of Arweave‘s Permaweb. The startup has built a new type of blockchain that relies on Moore’s Law-style declining data storage costs.

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Gradeup raises $7M to expand its online exam preparation platform to smaller Indian cities and towns Nov 05, 2019

Gradeup, an edtech startup in India that operates an exam preparation platform for undergraduate and postgraduate level courses, has raised $7 million from Times Internet as it looks to expand its business in the country. Times Internet, a conglomerate in India, invested $7 million in Series A and $3 million in Seed financing rounds of the four-year-old Noida-based startup, it said. Times Internet is the only external investor in Gradeup, they said.

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CTO.ai’s developer shortcuts eliminate coding busywork Nov 05, 2019

There’s too much hype about mythical “10X developers”. Everyone’s desperate to hire these ‘ninja rockstars’. In reality, it’s smarter to find ways of deleting annoying chores for the coders you already have. That’s where CTO.ai comes in. Emerging from stealth today, CTO.ai lets developers build and borrow DevOps shortcuts. These automate long series of steps they usually have to do manually thanks to integrations with GitHub, AWS, Slack, and more. CTO.

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Max Q: SpaceX and Boeing gear up for commercial crew mission tests Nov 04, 2019

Welcome back to Max Q, our weekly look at what’s happening in space and space startup news. This week was a bit more quiet than usual coming off of the amazingly over-packed International Astronautical Congress, but there were still some big moves that promise a lot more action to come before they year’s over – particularly in the race to fly American astronauts to space on a rocket launched from American soil once again.

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Let’s have a word about what3words with Clare Jones at Disrupt Berlin Nov 01, 2019

Addresses are ambiguous, not precise enough or don’t even exist in some places. what3words wants to map the entire world and overhaul addresses three words at a time. That’s why I’m excited to announce that what3words Chief Commercial Officer Clare Jones is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. The startup has divided the world in 3 meter squares. Each square has been assigned three words. This way, it’s easy to read, easy to write and even easy to say.

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Muy raises $15M to grow its new cloud kitchen concept Nov 01, 2019

The cloud kitchen craze has reached Latin America. Food tech startup called Muy landed a fresh $15 million Series B to expand into Mexico and soon Brazil. The service is currently operative in Colombia. Muy is a “cloud kitchen meets Chipotle,” says one investor. The company describes itself as a virtual kitchen and smart chef system that uses AI to produce food based on forecasts of demand, which can help to reduce food waste.

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Video news startup Brut raises $40M, officially launches in the U.S. Oct 31, 2019

Digital media startup Brut is announcing that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding. The money will be used, in part, to finance its launch in the United States. CEO Guillaume Lacroix said that that he and his co-founders all come from the French TV industry, where they were all “frustrated not to be able to follow up the conversation on social.

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Webiny announces $347K seed to build open source serverless CMS Oct 31, 2019

Webiny, a London startup developing a serverless content management system, announced a $347,000 (£247,000) seed round today led by EU investment firm Episode 1. Webiny founder Sven Al Hamad says that Webiny is the first full-feature content management built for a serverless environment. “That means that we built Webiny from the ground up, and architected it so it works only inside serverless functions,” he said.

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Quip wants to help you floss Oct 30, 2019

Quip, the dental care startup that first went to market with electric toothbrushes, has launched its first product outside of brushes:a floss applicator with a refillable canister. The floss costs $20 for the metallic applicator and refills cost $5. Each string is pre-marked every 18 inches to help guide people to use that amount for each session. The floss has been in the works since before Quip officially launched its toothbrush, Quip CEO Simon Enever told TechCrunch.

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Shadow announces new plans for its cloud gaming platform Oct 29, 2019

Blade, the French startup behind Shadow, held a press conference this morning to announce some product news as well as some corporate changes. Shadow is a cloud computing service for gamers. For a monthly subscription fee, you can access a gaming PC in a data center near you. Compared to other cloud gaming services, Shadow provides a full Windows 10 instance. You can install anything you want, Steam, Photoshop or Word.

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Less than 2 weeks left for early bird savings to Disrupt Berlin 2019 Oct 29, 2019

Entrepreneurs, founders, investors and all startup fans in between — take heed. The days for saving serious dough on tickets to Disrupt Berlin 2019areseriously numbered. Right now, early bird pricing starts at €445 + VAT and, depending on the type of pass you purchase, you can save up to €500. But this bird takes flight for parts unknown on 8 November at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Get serious, beat the deadline and save. Buy your early bird pass to Disrupt Berlin.

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Welcome to the Jungle raises $22.3 million to make recruitment easier Oct 28, 2019

French startup Welcome to the Jungle has raised a new $22.3 million funding round (€20 million). The startup is both a media company and a tech startup that wants to empower tech companies when it comes to recruitment. It doesn’t find the right candidate for you, it helps you get exposure, track application and facilitate onboarding. Gaia Capital Partners is leading the round with existing investors Bpifance, XAnge and Jean-Paul Guisset also participating.

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Medium says it will compensate writers based on reading time, not claps Oct 25, 2019

Medium is announcing significant changes to its Partner Program, where subscribers pay for access to exclusive content, and the revenue gets split with writers. The biggest change is that writers will now be compensated based “primarily” on reading time, rather than claps. In a post, Medium’s Emma Smith describes reading time as “a closer measure of quality and resonance with readers.

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Swiftmile will become the ‘gas station’ for electric bikes and scooters in Austin Oct 25, 2019

Anyone who has tried to ride an electric scooter knows the likelihood of finding one with a charged battery is quite low. Swiftmile, which just landed a contract with the city of Austin, supplies cities and private operators with docks equipped to park and charge both scooters and e-bikes. What Swiftmile offers serves as a win for operators, riders and cities alike.

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A bike lover’s take on the Cowboy e-bike Oct 24, 2019

Electric-bike maker Cowboy recently let me spend a couple of weeks with one of their e-bikes. It’s a well-designed e-bike that makes biking effortless, even if you’re going uphill. Cowboy is a Brussels-based startup. The company raised a $3 million seed round a couple of years ago and an $11.1 million (€10 million) Series A round last year. The company designs e-bikes from scratch. Components feel more integrated than in a normal e-bike.

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Databricks announces $400M round on $6.2B valuation as analytics platform continues to grow Oct 23, 2019

Databricks is a SaaS business built on top of a bunch of open source tools, and apparently it’s been going pretty well on the business side of things. In fact, the company claims to be one of the fastest growing enterprise cloud companies ever. Today the company announced a massive $400 million Series F funding round on a hefty $6.2 billion valuation. Today’s funding brings the total raised to almost a $900 million.

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YellowHeart allows musicians and concert organizers to take more control of resold tickets Oct 22, 2019

YellowHeart is trying to solve a problem that should be familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to buy a ticket to a popular concert: Those tickets will often get snatched up by scalpers, who then resell them at a much higher price. In fact, the startup’s CEO, Josh Katz, said he founded the company because he’s a music “megafan” himself, and he was “just tired of getting ripped off by scalpers.

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Tilting Point acquires game monetization startup Gondola Oct 21, 2019

Tilting Point announced yesterday that it has acquired Gondola, a company that aims to increase to improve game monetization by optimizing in-game offers and video ads. Tilting Point CEO Kevin Segalla described his company’s model as “progressive publishing” — usually, mobile game developers starting working with Tilting Point because they need help with user acquisition, and then develop a deeper publishing relationship over time.

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The Information will launch Ticker, a tech news app that costs $29 per year Oct 18, 2019

Since it was founded by journalist Jessica Lessin in 2013, The Information has stood out in the tech news landscape for its focus on an ad-free, subscription-driven business model (a focus that seems increasingly prescient). Now, the upcoming launch of an app called Ticker suggests that the company is looking to expand its audience while maintaining that subscription model. The Information describes Ticker as its first consumer app.

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&Open helps businesses distribute gifts to reward customer loyalty Oct 17, 2019

&Open is a startup with an unusual name, and one that fills an unusual niche in the business world. It has built a gift giving platform, so that businesses can reward loyalty with a small token of appreciation. The gift depends on the business and the circumstances, but it could be something like a book or a tea towel and a recipe.

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Interior design startup Havenly raises $32 million Oct 16, 2019

Interior design platform Havenly is raising $32 million in new funding to create its first private label brand as the startup aims to integrate its own products into its design recommendation engine. The Denver-based startup is an online interior design consultancy of sorts that pairs with expert designers users looking to redesign their homes or apartments. For Havenly, there have been two sides of the business, commercial partnerships with vendors and the paid design services for users.

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Opendoor appoints CFO, CPO Oct 15, 2019

Opendoor has named Gautam Gupta its chief financial officer and chief business offer, critical roles as the business continues to alter the way in which homes are bought and sold. Uber’s former head of finance, Gupta joined the $3.8 billion home-selling platform as its chief operating officer in 2017. The company, which has raised more than $4 billion in debt and equity funding to date, is announcing several new hires this morning.

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The budding industry of cannabis tech Oct 14, 2019

Brian Kateman Contributor Share on Twitter Brian Kateman is president and co-founder of the Reducetarian Foundation. More posts by this contributor Fish replacement may be the next big wave in alternative protein development From food and drink to health and wellness and beyond, there’s one plant we can’t seem to get enough of: cannabis. It seems like every consumer product nowadays is taking part in reefer madness. Home cooks are taking edibles to new heights.

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To beat Amazon Go, Standard Cognition buys cashierless DeepMagic Oct 11, 2019

Valued at $535 million, autonomous retail startup Standard Cognition has emerged as a soon-to-be tech giant and the best hope for merchants to compete with Amazon Go. Cashierless checkout is poised to transform brick-and-mortar commerce, and shop owners fear having to battle Amazon’s technology alone or partner with it, exposing data it could use against them.

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Get guaranteed rent for your home from new startup Doorstead Oct 10, 2019

Missing out on a month’s rent because you can’t find a tenant is a huge loss. Searching for someone to fill a home takes work, while property managers are incentivized to price your place too high leading to costly vacancies. But new startup Doorstead wants to take on the risk and the work for you. It acts as a property manager for single-family homes but guarantees you rent at a specific rate starting in a certain number of days, even if it can’t fill the house or apartment.

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Why we’re still waiting on the Postmates S-1 Oct 09, 2019

In a wide-ranging conversation at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco last week, Postmates co-founder and chief executive officer Bastian Lehmann made light of the company’s lack of IPO documents. The San Francisco-based on-demand delivery business was expected to publicly file its IPO prospectus in September in preparation for a fall exit, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch this summer.

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Sequoia shares wisdom with Disrupt SF Battlefield competitors and Startup Alley Top Picks Oct 08, 2019

Editor’s note: James Buckhouse is design partner at Sequoia. Last Tuesday, the teams competing in Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF, as well as founders chosen as Top Picks in Startup Alley, visited Sequoia Capital’s office in San Francisco for a discussion with partners Jess Lee, Roelof Botha, Mike Vernal, Alfred Lin and James Buckhouse. The following is a partial transcript of the session, which was moderated by Buckhouse.

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Greyparrot uses computer vision to improve waste management Oct 07, 2019

Meet Greyparrot, a London-based startup that wants to improve waste management. The company uses computer vision to make sorting more efficient at different stages of the waste chain. And Greyparrot has been selected as a wildcard for the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. The company has been using machine learning with images of different types of waste to train a model that detects glass, paper, cardboard, newspapers, cans and different types of plastics (black trays, PET, HDPE).

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First mover advantage: Does it matter in startup fundraising? Oct 04, 2019

Russ Heddleston Contributor Share on Twitter Russ is the cofounder and CEO of DocSend. He was previously a product manager at Facebook, where he arrived via the acquisition of his startup Pursuit.com, and has held roles at Dropbox, Greystripe, and Trulia.

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A startup factory? $1.2B-exit team launches $65M super{set} Oct 03, 2019

Think Jack Dorsey’s jobs are tough? Well, Tom Chavez is running six startups. He thinks building businesses can be boiled down to science, so today he’s unveiling his laboratory for founding, funding and operating companies. He and his team have already proven they can do it themselves after selling their startups Rapt to Microsoft and Krux to Salesforce for a combined $1.2 billion.

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Upstart banking company Dave is now worth $1 billion, as Norwest puts in $50 million Oct 02, 2019

Two years after the Los Angeles-based fintech startup Dave launched with a suite of money management tools to save consumers from overdraft fees, the company is now worth $1 billion thanks to a nascent banking practice that had investors lining up.

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Kickstarter darling EcoFlow Delta battery generator is not what it seems Oct 01, 2019

The EcoFlow Delta is a new battery generator available on Kickstarter with incredible features claimed. Most are true, some are not. Devices like the Delta offer incredible battery storage capacity. Designed for more than just recharging phones and tablets, these can run refrigerators, pumps, power tools and medical equipment. They’re great for emergencies, camping and general use where power is not available.

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Startups Weekly: Alpha Medical wants to rebuild women’s healthcare Sep 30, 2019

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy news pertaining to startups and venture capital. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. I’ve been on a bit of startup profile kick as of late. Last week, I wrote a little bit about Landline, a bus network backed by Upfront Ventures. Before that, I profiled an e-commerce startup called Part & Parcel.

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Battlefield vets StrongSalt (formerly OverNest) announces $3M seed round Sep 30, 2019

StrongSalt, then known as OverNest, appeared at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC Battlefield in 2016, and announced product for searching encrypted code, which remains unusual to this day. Today, the company announced a $3 million seed round led by Valley Capital Partners. StrongSalt founder and CEO Ed Yu, says encryption remains a difficult proposition, and that when you look at the majority of breaches, encryption wasn’t used.

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Package Free picks up $4.5 million to scale sustainable CPG products Sep 27, 2019

The climate crisis continues to be just that… a crisis. And it’s spurring people across the country (and globe) to take action, particularly when it comes to their own lifestyle. Lauren Singer is one such person. After studying Environmental Science and Politics at NYU, she started a blog called Trash Is For Tossers to make a zero-waste lifestyle more accessible and comprehensible to everyone. But there’s still an issue.

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Summer wants to vanquish student loans for borrowers, and now has $10M to do it Sep 26, 2019

$1.5 trillion. That’s the amount of outstanding student loan debt held by American citizens according to the New York Fed. It is an astronomical sum, and has led to much hand-wringing about whether there is a coming bubble in U.S. higher education. What’s even worse than the scale of the debt load though is the fact that for millions of borrowers, they literally don’t have to pay some of those dollars. Thanks to the complexity of the loan system in the U.S.

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Fivetran hauls in $44M Series B as data pipeline business booms Sep 25, 2019

Fivetran, a startup that helps companies move data from disparate repositories to data warehouses, announced $44 million Series B financing today, less than a year after collecting a $15 million Series A round. Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z) led the round with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners and CEAS Investments. As part of the deal, Martin Casado from A16Z will join the Fivetran board.

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TechCrunch Disrupt offers plenty of options for attendees with an eye on the enterprise Sep 24, 2019

We might have just completed a full-day program devoted completely to enterprise at TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise last week, but it doesn’t mean we plan to sell that subject short at TechCrunch Disrupt next month in San Francisco. In fact, we have something for everyone from startups to established public companies and everything in between along with investors and industry luminaries to discuss all-things enterprise.

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Quilt Data launches from stealth with free portal to access petabytes of public data Sep 23, 2019

Quilt Data‘s founders, Kevin Moore and Aneesh Karve, have been hard at work for the last four years building a platform to search for data quickly across vast repositories on AWS S3 storage. The idea is to give data scientists a way to find data in S3 buckets, and then package that data in forms that a business can use. Today, the company launched out of stealth with a free data search portal that not only proves what they can do, but also provides valuable access to 3.

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Stephen Curry Brings SC30 Inc. to Disrupt SF Sep 20, 2019

Startup founders are hard-pressed to find the right investors — not only to fund their businesses but to help their businesses grow. These days, investors represent a variety of backgrounds and industries — traditional venture capital, Hollywood even the NBA. When Golden State Warriors point guard and two-time MVP Stephen Curry isn’t playing basketball, he’s working with his business partner and former college basketball teammate Bryant Barr.

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Fieldwire just raised $33.5 million more to give PlanGrid and its new owner Autodesk a run for their money Sep 19, 2019

Fieldwire just raised $33.5 million more to give PlanGrid and its new owner Autodesk a run for their money Fieldwire, which makes task management software for construction teams on commercial projects so things don’t fall through the figurative (or literal) cracks, has raised $33.5 million in Series C funding. Menlo Ventures led the round, joined by Brick & Mortar Ventures, Hilti Group and Formation 8. It isn’t a huge amount of money.

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GitLab hauls in $268M Series E on 2.768B valuation Sep 18, 2019

GitLab is a company that doesn’t pull any punches or try to be coy. It actually has had a page on its website for sometime stating it intends to go public on November 18, 2020. You don’t see that level of transparency from late-stage startups all that often. Today, the company announced a huge $268 million Series E on a tidy $2.768 billion valuation. Investors included Adage Capital Management, L.P, Alkeon Capital, Altimeter Capital, Blackrock, Inc.

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FOSSA scores $8.5 million Series A to help enterprise manage open source licenses Sep 17, 2019

As more enterprise developers make use of open source, it becomes increasingly important for companies to make sure that they are complying with licensing requirements. They also need to ensure the open sources bits are being updated over time for security purposes. That’s where FOSSA comes in, and today the company announced an $8.5 million Series A. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures with help from Costanoa Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners.

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Another high-flying, heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down Sep 16, 2019

While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major computing platform, many of the startups aiming to beat them to the punch are crashing and burning. Daqri, which built enterprise-grade AR headsets, has shuttered its HQ, laid off many of its employees and is selling off assets ahead of a shutdown, former employees and sources close to the company tell TechCrunch.

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Hatebase catalogues the world’s hate speech in real time so you don’t have to Sep 12, 2019

Policing hate speech is something nearly every online communication platform struggles with. Because to police it, you must detect it; and to detect it, you must understand it. Hatebase is a company that has made understanding hate speech its primary mission, and it provides that understanding as a service — an increasingly valuable one.

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Smart grocery cart startup Caper bags $10 million Sep 11, 2019

Caper wants to deliver a major update to the self checkout aisle without keeping its dreaded catchphrases, i.e. “Unknown item in the bagging area,” “Please place the item in the bag.” The New York startup is tapping some of Silicon Valley’s more recognizable VC firms to fund their dreams for a shopping cart of the future that uses computer vision and other sensors to let shoppers quickly scan items as they drop them into their carts.

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Workout app Fitplan adds Alex Rodriguez as a trainer… and an investor Sep 10, 2019

Former New York Yankees all star Alex Rodriguez is racking up quite an impressive batting average in his new career as an investor and has added Fitplan to his roster of portfolio companies. The Los Angeles-based workout app launched by Landon Hamilton and Cam Speck has closed on $4.5 million led by A-Rod and Corazon Capital, and has added new celebrity athlete trainers — including Rodriguez — to cover the needs of would-be sports stars and interested amateurs alike.

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Pagerduty’s Jennifer Tejada and Box’s Aaron Levie will talk IPOs at TC Disrupt SF Sep 09, 2019

Pagerduty‘s CEO Jennifer Tejada and Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie both guided their companies to successful IPOs, with Box going public in 2015 and Pagerduty listing its stocks only a few months ago. Both of them will join us on the first day of TechCrunch Disrupt SF on October 2 to talk about their experiences in getting their companies to this point and managing the changes that come with being a public company. It took both companies about ten years to get to their IPOs.

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Newly renamed Superside raises $3.5M for its outsourced design platform Sep 06, 2019

Superside, a startup aiming to create a premium alternative to the existing crowdsourced design platforms, is announcing that it has raised $3.5 million in new funding. It’s also adding new features like the ability to work on user interfaces, interaction design and motion graphics. Co-founder and CEO Fredrik Thomassen said this allows the company to offer “a full-service design solution.” You may have heard about Superside under its old name Konsus .

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Just 3 days left: buy super early bird passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019 Sep 05, 2019

Hey European startup fans, Disrupt Berlin 2019 takes place on 11-12 December, but our super early-bird ticket pricing won’t last nearly that long. You have just three days left to save up to €600. Pay close attention to the deadline and buy your Disrupt passes by 11:59 p.m. (CEST) on 6 September. You’ll save even more money if you act quickly enough and combine the super early bird price with our group discounts.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt is coming to Disrupt SF 2019 Sep 04, 2019

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perhaps best known for his acting across films like 10 Things I Hate About You, 500 Days of Summer, and Snowden. But times weren’t always peachy for Gordon-Levitt as a creative. After leaving the movie business to go to college, he realized the limits of the industry on his potential as a creative. He decided he wanted to take his creativity into his own hands and launched a message board where he’d post films, songs, etc.

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India’s Oyo acquires Copenhagen-based data science firm Danamica for $10M Sep 03, 2019

India’s Oyo said on Monday it has acquired Copenhagen-based data science firm Danamica as the fast-growing lodging startup works to expand its business in Europe. Neither of the parties disclosed financial terms of the deal, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that Oyo paid about $10 million to acquire the Danish firm.

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Juul introduces new POS standards to restrict sales to minors Sep 02, 2019

Juul Labs, the e-cigarette behemoth partially owned by Altria, has today announced a new POS age-verification system that it will require all Juul retailers to comply with by May 2021. The Retail Access Control Standards program, or RACS for short, raises the standard for age-restricted POS systems, automatically locking the POS each time a Juul product is scanned until a valid, adult ID is scanned.

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Female founders: All Raise AMA applications @ Disrupt SF 2019 close tomorrow Aug 30, 2019

The future is female and all you fierce female founders have one last shot at receiving 30 minutes of face time with some of the industry’s leading female funders. Say what now? We’re talking the All Raise “ask me anything” (AMA) sessions at Disrupt SF 2019 — and applications close tomorrow, August 30. All Raise, a startup nonprofit focused on accelerating female founder success, will host a day-long AMA event on October 3 at Disrupt SF 2019.

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VoiceOps raises $9M to help companies coach their call center reps Aug 29, 2019

At a time when the industry appears to bet that AI will replace most human jobs, starting with the tens of millions currently residing in call centers, one startup is working to use the same technology to empower the jobs it is pegged to displace. VoiceOps, a San Francisco-based startup, today announced it has raised $9 million in a Series A financing round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Existing investors Accel and Y Combinator also participated in the round.

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Only 24 hours left to apply to Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen Aug 28, 2019

This post goes out to a special group of early-stage hardware startup founders — the procrastinators, the vacillators and the last-minute decision-makers. You have just 24 hours left to submit your application to compete in the Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhenon November 11-12. The application window closes at precisely 11:59 p.m. (PT) on August 28. Apply right here, right now.

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Style recommendation startup Stylitics raises $15M Aug 27, 2019

Stylitics, a startup powering outfit-based shopping recommendations for online retailers, is announcing that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding. The company was initially known for ClosetSpace, a mobile app that provided consumers with outfit recommendations and inspiration.

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DoorDash reveals details of its new tipping model Aug 26, 2019

DoorDash announced last month that it would be changing its controversial tipping model. Today it’s revealing the basics of how the new system will work.

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Compete in Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019 Aug 23, 2019

Lasst die Spiele beginnen, startup founders — let the games begin! In case you haven’t heard, the application window for the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019 is wide open and waiting for you. Don’t miss the chance to launch your early-stage startup on an international stage in front of some of tech’s most influential movers and shakers. Grab this opportunity and apply to compete today.

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Andrew Ng’s AI companies expand to Medellin, Colombia Aug 22, 2019

After his tenure as Chief Scientist at Baidu, Andrew Ng, the founder of the Google Brain project and former CEO of Coursera, set up a number of different proejcts that all focus on making AI more approachable. These include the education startup Deeplearning.ai, the AI Fund startup studio for building AI companies and Landing.ai, which helps enterprises (and especially manufacturing companies) use AI. Today, Ng announced that he has opened a second office for these projects in Medellin, Colombia.

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The five technical challenges Cerebras overcame in building the first trillion transistor chip Aug 21, 2019

Superlatives abound at Cerebras, the until-today stealthy next-generation silicon chip company looking to make training a deep learning model as quick as buying toothpaste from Amazon. Launching after almost three years of quiet development, Cerebras introduced its new chip today — and it is a doozy. The “Wafer Scale Engine” is 1.

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H20.ai announces $72.5M Series D led by Goldman Sachs Aug 21, 2019

H20.ai‘s mission is to democratize AI by providing a set of tools that frees companies from relying on teams of data scientists. Today it got a bushel of money to help. The company announced a $72.5 million Series D round led by Goldman Sachs and Ping An Global Voyager Fund. Previous investors Wells Fargo, NVIDIA and Nexus Venture Partners also participated. Under the terms of the deal, Jade Mandel from Goldman Sachs will be joining the H2O.ai Board.

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Men’s personal care startup Huron raises $1M Aug 20, 2019

Huron founder and CEO Matt Mullenax is hoping to build a big business around body wash. “For us, the broader mission is A+ personal care for guys everywhere — not just guys in New York or guys in the Bay Area or guys in Los Angeles,” he said. The startup has raised $1 million in seed funding from RXBAR founders Peter Rahal and Jared Smith, CXT Investments, and Lean Luxe founder M. Paul Munford.

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Twitter leads $100M round in top Indian regional social media platform ShareChat Aug 20, 2019

Is there room for another social media platform? ShareChat, a four-year-old social network in India that serves tens of million of people in regional languages, just answered that question with a $100 million financing round led by global giant Twitter . Other than Twitter, TrustBridge Partners, and existing investors Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital also participated in the Series D round of ShareChat.

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Binance launches Venus, which it calls an “independent, regional version” of Facebook’s Libra Aug 19, 2019

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced today that it will launch an open blockchain project called Venus to develop regional stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies (or traditional currencies usually issued and backed by a government). Based in Malta, Binance launched its decentralized trading service, Binance Chain, earlier this year, and since then has issued stablecoins pegged to Bitcoin and the British pound.

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Flower delivery startup UrbanStems raises $12M to fund national expansion Aug 19, 2019

UrbanStems is announcing that it has raised $12 million in Series B funding. CEO Seth Goldman told me the startup has already been using the money to expand nationally. He explained that UrbanStems now has two delivery models — there are bike couriers who deliver plants and flowers within two hours in New York City and Washington, D.C. (where the company is headquartered), and then there’s a third-party shipping partner who offers next-day delivery to anywhere else in the United States.

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Only 24 hours left to apply to Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen Aug 15, 2019

Holy hardware, startup founders! You have only 24 hours left to apply to the Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhenon November 11-12. This hardware-only pitch competition, cousin to TechCrunch’s world-renown Startup Battlefield, is a real game-changer. Got hardware? Want to launch on a world stage? Do. Not. Delay. Apply to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019 before 11:59pm on August 14th. What’s in it for you? Excellent question.

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Ex-NSA chief Mike Rogers and Team8 founder Nadav Zafrir will be at Disrupt SF Aug 15, 2019

What happens when two former spies meet the startup world? We’re about to find out. We’re pleased to announce former National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers will be at Disrupt SF on October 2-4. The former U.S. intelligence head oversaw the shadowy agency during one of its most tumultuous times in its history in the aftermath of the massive leak of classified documents by whistleblower Edward Snowden. He also oversaw the Pentagon’s cyberwar-fighting division, U.S.

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Would you rent out your living room for a few hours? This startup is counting on it Aug 14, 2019

Would you rent out your living room for a few hours? This startup is counting on it Recharge, a startup that tried convincing hotels to let its customers rent their rooms by the hour and even minute, has revamped and rebranded. Now Globe, the company is hoping to convince guests to sign up for short stays instead in people’s homes so that they can kick back between other commitments, and, if the host allows it, to shower and nap.

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Postmates to drop IPO filing next month Aug 13, 2019

Postmates plans to make its IPO paperwork public in September, TechCrunch has learned. Despite previous reports indicating the on-demand delivery company is seeking an M&A exit, sources close to the matter say Postmates is on track to go complete an initial public offering this year. With the S-1 dropping in September, San Francisco-based Postmates is expected to debut on the stock exchange by the end of the third fiscal quarter of 2019.

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BuzzFeed CTO joins men’s health startup Ro Aug 13, 2019

Ro, a two-year-old startup known for its online pharmacy of men’s health products, has named BuzzFeed’s Todd Levy its chief technology officer. Levy first joined BuzzFeed in 2014 as the digital media company’s vice president of engineering; he was named CTO in 2016. Prior to BuzzFeed, Levy co-founded and led link management tool bit.ly. Levy begins his new role Wednesday, August 14. We’ve reached out to BuzzFeed for comment.

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Vector’s launch business in peril after ‘major change in financing’ Aug 12, 2019

Small satellite launch startup Vector has indefinitely shut down operations “in response a major change in financing,” the company confirmed. Co-founder and CEO Jim Cantrell has also been cut loose as part of the upset. The news comes as a surprise to the space startup community, and apparently to its employees. The company lined up $70 million in funding late last year, and recently was announced as a qualified contestant in DARPA’s Launch Challenge.

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Keith Rabois, BoxGroup back New York-based Brex competitor Aug 12, 2019

Considering its unparalleled success, it was only a matter of time before a Brex copycat emerged. Ramp Financial, a new startup led by Capital One-acquired Paribus founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh (pictured), has raised $7 million, TechCrunch has learned. The capital came from Keith Rabois of Founders Fund, BoxGroup’s Adam Rothenberg and Coatue Management, a hedge fund that recently launched a $700 million early-stage investment vehicle.

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Statespace picks up $2.5M to help gamers train Aug 09, 2019

Gaming continues to grow in popularity, with esports revenue growing 23 percent from last year to top $1 billion in 2019. But the metrics by which talent is evaluated in gaming, and the methods by which gamers can train to better hone their craft, are varied and at times non-existent. That’s where StateSpace, and specifically the company’s gaming arm Klutch, come into play. In 2017, Statespace launched out of stealth with their first product, Aim Lab.

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Cockroach Labs announces $55M Series C to battle industry giants Aug 09, 2019

Cockroach Labs, makers of CockroachDB, sits in a tough position in the database market. On one side, it has traditional database vendors like Oracle, and on the other there’s AWS and its family of databases. It takes some good technology and serious dollars to compete with those companies. Cockroach took care of the latter with a $55 million Series C round today. The round was led by Altimeter Capital and Tiger Global along with existing investor GV.

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Only 48 hours left for early-bird tickets to TC Sessions: Enterprise 2019 Aug 08, 2019

If enterprise software makes your entrepreneurial heart beat faster, you do not want to miss TC Sessions: Enterprise 2019 on September 5 in San Francisco. And if you really want to make your heart sing, buy an early-bird ticket and save $100. But act quickly, because that deal disappears in just 48 hours on August 9 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

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Female founders: Apply to the All Raise AMA to win a free Expo Pass to Disrupt SF Aug 08, 2019

Shouting out to all the fierce female founders. Have you applied to participate in theAll Raise“ask me anything” (AMA) sessions atDisrupt SF 2019? No? Women, it’s time to act. Apply for an AMA session by the August 30 deadline and you could win a free Expo Only Pass. You heard that right. We have 30 free Expo Only passes, and we’ll give them away at random to women founders who get accepted to the All Raise program at Disrupt SF 2019.

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Applications still open for Hardware Battlefield TC Shenzhen Aug 07, 2019

We’re still in the hunt for innovative early-stage hardware startup founders. And by that, we mean boundary-pushers, exceptional disrupters and all-around game-changers. If that sounds like you, you still have time to apply to compete in Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhenon November 11-12. Don’t miss your chance to compete in our epic, hardware-focused pitch competition. Apply to TC Hardware Battlefield 2019.

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Cybereason raises $200 million for its enterprise security platform Aug 07, 2019

Cybereason, which uses machine learning to increase the number of endpoints a single analyst can manage across a network of distributed resources, has raised $200 million in new financing from SoftBank Group and its affiliates. It’s a sign of the belief that SoftBank has in the technology, since the Japanese investment firm is basically doubling down on commitments it made to the Boston-based company four years ago.

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Monzo says it wasn’t storing ‘some’ customer PINs correctly, but has now fixed the bug Aug 06, 2019

Monzo says it wasn’t storing ‘some’ customer PINs correctly, but has now fixed the bug Monzo, the fast-growing challenger U.K. challenger bank that recently soft-launched in the U.S., is disclosing a potential, albeit relatively limited, security oversight that saw customer PINs stored incorrectly within the company’s internal systems.

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This startup wants to democratize custom sneaker ownership Aug 06, 2019

There’s nothing like having a pair of fresh, unique sneakers. Limited-release culture facilitates some of that, but The Custom Movement hopes to make originality and self-expression via sneakers more accessible to the masses. The Custom Movement, a custom sneaker startup backed by Y Combinator, enables independent artists to sell their one-of-a-kind sneaker designs to those who want highly unique Nikes, Vans, Timberlands or any other brand of shoe.

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Secure your seat to Disrupt Berlin now and pay later Aug 05, 2019

Secure your seat to Disrupt Berlin now and pay later Sonderangebot! That sounds like a super-cool robotics startup you’d find at Disrupt Berlin 2019, right? But it’s German for special offer — and that’s super cool, too. Our premier tech conference takes place on 11-12 December, and we want to make attending Disrupt Berlin as easy on the budget as possible.

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Bloomscape raises $7.5M to sell you plants of all sizes Aug 05, 2019

Direct-to-consumer plant retailer Bloomscape has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding, with several high-profile D2C startup founders signing on as investors. Founder and CEO Justin Mast told me that his family has five generations of experience as greenhouse owners and operators, and that he first tried to get Bloomscape off the ground more than a decade ago. Since then, Mast has worked at other startups, but he said, “Bloomscape was the one that got away.

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UrbanClap, India’s largest home services startup, raises $75M Aug 02, 2019

UrbanClap, a startup that offers home services across India and UAE, has raised $75 million to expand its business. The Series E round for the four-and-half-year-old Gurgaon-based startup was led Tiger Global. Existing investors Steadview Capital, which led the startup’s Series D round, and Vy Capital also participated in the round. The startup has raised about $185 million to date, according to Crunchbase.

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Attend Disrupt SF 2019 for free as a volunteer Aug 02, 2019

Forget the village, people. It takes an army to make TechCrunch Disrupt the well-oiled experience that savvy start-uppers have come to know and love. And we couldn’t do it nearly as well without our incredible volunteers.

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Calling all hardware startups! Apply to Hardware Battlefield @ TC Shenzhen Aug 01, 2019

Got hardware? Well then, listen up, because our search continues for boundary-pushing, early-stage hardware startups to join us in Shenzhen, China for an epic opportunity; launch your startup on a global stage and compete in Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhenon November 11-12. Apply here to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019. Why? It’s your chance to demo your product to the top investors and technologists in the world.

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Prodly announces $3.5M seed to automate low code cloud deployments Jul 31, 2019

Low code programming is supposed to make things easier on companies, right? Low code means you can count on trained administrators instead of more expensive software engineers to handle most tasks, but like any issue solved by technology, there are always unintended consequences. While running his former company, Steelbrick, which he sold to Salesforce in 2015 for $360 million, Max Rudman identified a persistent problem with low-code deployments.

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Tesseract makes spacecraft propulsion smaller, greener, stronger Jul 31, 2019

Launch vehicles and their enormous rocket engines tend to receive the lion’s share of attention when it comes to space-related propulsion, but launch only takes you to the edge of space — and space is a big place. Tesseract has engineered a new rocket for spacecraft that’s not only smaller and more efficient, but uses fuel that’s safer for us down here on the surface.

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NakedPoppy launches curated beauty marketplace for wellness junkies Jul 30, 2019

NakedPoppy co-founders Jaleh Bisharat and Kimberly Shenk are an impressive duo. Bisharat, the startup’s chief executive officer, is a commanding presence and a bona fide marketing savant. The perfect compliment to Shenk, a reticent and data-focused chief product officer. Together they’re building a cosmetics startup, NakedPoppy, where people can purchase high-quality “clean” makeup, or sustainable, ethically-made and cruelty-free products produced without harmful chemicals.

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Fintech decacorn Nubank raises $400m led by TCV Jul 29, 2019

Another day, another mega round for a fintech startup. And this one is mega-mega. Brazil-based Nubank, which offers a suite of banking and financial services for Brazilian consumers, announced today that it has raised a $400 million Series F round of venture capital led by Woody Marshall of TCV. The growth-stage fund is best known for its investment in Netflix but has also made fintech a high priority, with over $1.5 billion in investments in the space.

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Robinhood stored passwords in plaintext, so change yours now Jul 26, 2019

Investment and stock trading app Robinhood stored some user credentials, including passwords, in plaintext on internal systems, the company revealed today. This particularly dangerous security misstep could have seriously exposed its users, though it says that it has no evidence the data was accessed improperly. Better change your password now. Sensitive data like passwords and personal information are generally kept encrypted at all times.

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Ethyca raises $4.2M to simplify GDPR compliance Jul 26, 2019

GDPR, the European data privacy regulations, have been in effect for over a year, but it’s still a challenge for companies to comply. Ethyca, a New York City startup, has created a solution from the ground up to help customers adhere to the regulations, and today it announced a $4.2 million investment led by IA Ventures and Founder Collective. Table Management, Sinai Ventures, Cheddar founder Jon Steinberg and Moat co-founder Jonah Goodhart also participated.

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Andreessen Horowitz values camping business Hipcamp at $127M Jul 26, 2019

Hipcamp uses technology to get people away from technology. The San Francisco-based startup provides a “people-powered platform” that unlocks access to private land for camping, glamping or just a beautiful spot to park your RV, as described by Alyssa Ravasio, founder and chief executive officer. Amid explosive growth in emerging markets, including Florida and Texas, the company has attracted a $25 million Series B investment at a valuation of $127 million.

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SMB payroll startup Gusto raises $200m series D, plans R&D expansion to NYC Jul 25, 2019

Every employee loves receiving their paycheck. It just so happens though that paying employees can be a royal pain, what with incredibly diverse labor laws across all 50 U.S. states. While large, Fortune 500 employers have a bevy of options, from traditional firms like ADP to newer entrants like Workday, small and medium businesses (SMBs) face the brunt of the challenge — too small to be attractive to the biggest players, but still responsible for following the complexity of U.S. labor law.

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DoorDash will change controversial tipping model Jul 25, 2019

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu announced via Twitter that the company will be changing its model for compensating Dashers (a.k.a. DoorDash drivers and other delivery people). The companyfaced criticism this year its payment policies. Under the current system, a Dasher’s payment consists of a $1 base from DoorDash, the customer’s tip and — when the first two items fall below the guaranteed minimum — an additional payment boost from DoorDash.

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WeWork accelerates IPO plans, plots September listing Jul 24, 2019

WeWork chief executive officer Adam Neumann is already rich, but soon all of the early employees and investors of the co-working giant will be too. The business, now known as The We Company, has accelerated its plans to go public, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. WeWork is expected to unveil is S-1 filing next month ahead of a September initial public offering. WeWork declined to provide comment for this story.

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Almost sold out! Buy a ticket to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party Jul 24, 2019

Last call, startuppers! TechCrunch’s Silicon Valley summer soiree — a.k.a. the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party — is nearly sold out. If you want to join the brightest members of the startup community on July 25 and celebrate your intrepid entrepreneurial spirit, you’d best buy a ticket while you can. It’s now o’clock, people! This annual event is a true startup tradition.

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Meet 500 Startups’ 25th batch of startups Jul 23, 2019

It’s that time of year again. When startup founders fret for weeks on end as the long-awaited Demo Day approaches. Investors pore through lists of startups participating in various accelerator programs and have their associates ping dozens of founders for coffee meetings. Demo Day season is upon us.

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Serverless, Inc expands free Framework to include monitoring and security Jul 23, 2019

Serverless development has largely been a lonely pursuit until recently, but Serverless, Inc has been offering a free framework for intrepid programmers since 2015. At first, that involved development, deployment and testing, but today the company announced it is expanding into monitoring and security to make it an end-to-end tool — and it’s available for free.

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Deadline extended! Apply to the All Raise female founder program at Disrupt SF 2019 Jul 22, 2019

We’ve got great news for all the time-strapped female founders out there. Yeah, we’re looking at you, sister. We’re extending the application deadline to apply for the All Raise “ask me anything” (AMA) sessions at Disrupt SF 2019. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to meet with a leading female VC and, well, ask her anything. Apply for an AMA sessionby August 15.

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Hardware startups take center stage for Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen Jul 19, 2019

Software grabs so much attention that it even has its own catchphrase — there’s an app for that. It’s not a bad thing, but we know nothing happens without hardware. That’s why we’re hunting for the best early-stage hardware startups to take center stage at Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhenon November 11-12 in China. Apply here to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019, our hardware-focused pitch competition.

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Last chance! Apply for the All Raise female founder program at Disrupt SF 2019 Jul 19, 2019

Newsflash for all female founders of the early-stage startup variety. Your chance to meet with leading women VCs atDisrupt SF 2019on October 2-4 ends on July 19 at 5 p.m. (PT).Apply for an AMA sessionbefore the deadline expires. We’re serious when it comes to supporting women in tech, which is why we partnered with All Raise — a startup nonprofit dedicated to accelerating female founder success.

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3 lessons from Roblox’s growth to gaming dominance Jul 18, 2019

Our recently published EC-1 on Roblox recounts the origin story and growth prospects of the company. But there’s one more piece to the story: what Roblox’s impact will be on gaming and the broader startup industry, if the company manages to multiply its current 90 million users.

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AlphaSense, a search engine for analysis and business intel, raises $50M led by Innovation Endeavors Jul 18, 2019

Google and its flagship search portal opened the door to the possibilities of how to build a business empire on the back of organising and navigating the world’s information, as found on the internet. Now, a startup that’s built a search engine tailored to the needs of enterprises and their own quests for information has raised a round of funding to see if it can do the same for the B2B world.

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Social chat app Capture launches to take a shot at less viral success Jul 17, 2019

At first glance launching a new social app may seem as sensible a startup idea as plunging headfirst into shark-infested waters. But with even infamous curtain-ripper Facebook now making grand claims about a ‘pivot to privacy’ it’s clear something is shifting in the commercial shipping channels that contain our digital chatter. Whisper it: Feeds are tiring. Follows are tedious. Attention is expiring.

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Final ticket release to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party Jul 17, 2019

One of Silicon Valley’s most fun and enduring traditions — the14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party — takes place on July 25. If you don’t have a ticket yet, know this: We just released the last batch of tickets. Once they’re gone, that’s it. No party for you. Don’t miss out on a night of fun and opportunity — buy your ticket today.

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India’s budget hotel startup Oyo enters co-working business with $30 million Innov8 acquisition Jul 16, 2019

India’s Oyo has expanded its hotel chain business to over 80 countries and entered co-living spaces segment in recent years. The firm, which has raised about $1 billion in the last two quarters from several big names including Airbnb, has now identified a new business to target: co-working spaces. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm on Tuesday announced Oyo Workspaces that is already operational across 10 cities in India with over 20 centres.

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Brave Care, backed by Y Combinator, is an urgent care clinic just for kids Jul 16, 2019

Brave Care is an urgent care facility for pediatric care that costs, on average, about 80% less than a pediatric ER visit. Darius Monsef and his co-founder came up with the idea shortly after a fateful week for the Monsef family, during which their four-year-old dove off a bike ramp and their one-year-old started having breathing problems. For both visits, he went to a pediatric urgent care facility where his kids were thoughtfully and patiently treated by Dr. Corey A. Fish.

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Sage Plus for Experts gives travel experts a central place to share their content Jul 15, 2019

Sage is giving reviewers, chefs and other experts and publishers a central place to share all their content. To do this, the startup has created a new product called Sage Plus for Experts, which isn’t open to the public yet, but is accepting signups from those aforementioned travel experts — the kinds of experts who can share content around things to do, food, drinks, experiences and shopping.

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With so much late-stage money available, why are tech companies going public now? Jul 15, 2019

Ajay Chopra Contributor Ajay Chopra co-founded Pinnacle Systems in his living room and grew it to a multi-billion dollar public company before becoming a venture capitalist with Trinity Ventures.

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This new autonomous startup has designed its delivery robot to conquer winter Jul 12, 2019

This new autonomous startup has designed its delivery robot to conquer winter Refraction, a new autonomous delivery robot company that came out of stealth Wednesday at TC Sessions: Mobility, sees opportunity in areas most AV startups are avoiding: regions with the worst weather. The company, founded by University of Michigan professors Matthew Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan, calls its REV-1 delivery robot the “Goldilocks of autonomous vehicles.

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3 reasons startups should exhibit at Disrupt SF 2019 Jul 12, 2019

Early-stage startup founders, you’re searching for opportunities to take your company to greater heights, amirite? Then allow me to direct your attention to Disrupt San Francisco 2019, TechCrunch’s flagship event that takes place October 2-4. More specifically to Startup Alley, the exhibition floor where opportunity thrives. Grab that opportunity by the scruff and buy a Startup Alley Exhibitor Package.

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N26 launches its challenger bank in the U.S. Jul 11, 2019

European fintech startup N26 is now accepting customers in the U.S. The company is launching a bank account with a debit card that should provide a better experience compared to traditional retail banks. If you’re familiar with N26, the product that is going live today won’t surprise you much. Customers in the U.S. can download a mobile app and create a bank account from their phone in just a few minutes. It’s a true bank account with ACH payments, routing and account numbers.

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Bankrupt Maker Faire revives, reduced to Make Community Jul 11, 2019

Maker Faire and Maker Media are getting a second chance after suddenly going bankrupt, but they’ll return in a weakened capacity. Sadly, their flagship crafting festivals remain in jeopardy, and it’s unclear how long the reformed company can survive. Maker Media suddenly laid off all 22 employees and shut down last month, as first reported by TechCrunch.

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Hardware startups: Pitch to the world’s top investors at Hardware Battlefield 2019 Jul 10, 2019

Early-stage hardware startupfounders, it’s your turn to step into the spotlight and launch your innovative inventions to the world’s top investors. We’re inviting you to apply to compete in our hardware-focused pitch competition,Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhenon November 11-12. You might even walk away with $25,000 and a whole new business trajectory.

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Fresh tickets to our 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party Jul 10, 2019

Our 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party is a mere two weeks away, and we’re serving up a fresh new batch of tickets to this popular Silicon Valley tradition. Jump on this opportunity, folks, because our previous releases sold out in a flash — and these babies won’t last long, either. Buy your ticket today. Our summer soiree takes place on July 25 at Park Chalet, San Francisco’s coastal beer garden.

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Glitch is bringing remix culture back to the web with a $30 million Series A round Jul 09, 2019

Building apps and tools on the web shouldn’t just be for the technically inclined. In the early days of the web, it was easy to make your MySpace account, for example, unique to your personal aesthetic. Glitch is doing that for the modern era. Glitch, formerly known as Fog Greek Software, is an online community where people can upload projects and enable others to remix them. Dash likens coding on Glitch to working together inside Google Docs.

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A 23-year-old B2B company has shown how keen India is for tech IPOs Jul 08, 2019

Away from the limelight of the press and the frenzy of fundraising, a tech startup in India has achieved a feat that few of its peers have managed: going public. IndiaMART, the country’s largest online platform for selling products directly to businesses, raised nearly $70 million in a rare tech IPO for India this week.

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Karamel is an app to find activities for your kids Jul 08, 2019

Karamel is an app to find activities for your kids French startup Karamel wants to help you find things to do for your kids. The company is launching a mobile app that lets you find and book kid-friendly activities around you. The startup also just raised a $450,000 round (€400,000) from Kima Ventures, Roxanne Varza and Thibaud Elzière. Varza participates in the Atomico Angel Programme, which means that Atomico handed out $100,000 to invest in multiple early-stage companies.

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Why you should naturalize — now, not later Jul 05, 2019

It’s no secret that America thrives on tech-savvy immigrants who put down permanent roots: Three in five of the country’s biggest tech companies —Apple, Facebook, and Google among them — were founded by first- or second-generation immigrants. Those giants combined boast a market cap of over $4 trillion and employ nearly two million workers.

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HQ Trivia lays off ~20% as it preps subscriptions Jul 05, 2019

HQ Trivia is struggling after a mutiny failed to oust its CEO. Downloads per month are down 92% versus last June according to Sensor Tower. And now four sources confirm that HQ laid off staff members this week. One said about 20% of staff was let go, and another said six to seven employees were departing. That aligns with Digiday reporter Kerry Flynn’s tweet that 7 employees were let go bringing HQ to under 30 (shrinking from 35 to 28 staffers would be a 20% drop).

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Pod Foods gets VC backing to reinvent grocery distribution Jul 04, 2019

Larissa Russell and Fiona Lee founded a cookie startup called Green Pea Cookie in 2014. The cookies were 100% natural, vegan and “handcrafted with love.” The company failed but not because the cookies weren’t selling. The business couldn’t keep up with the antiquated wholesale food distribution system’s steep costs. Two incumbent players, United Natural Foods Inc. and KeHE Distributors, essentially controlled its only pathway to grocery stores across the country.

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Fast Forward raises new war chest to fight Silicon Valley’s inequality machine Jul 03, 2019

San Francisco is a city of extremes, with multi-billion dollar glass-cladded obelisks piercing the SoMa sky while thousands of the city’s long-term residents fail to find even the basic rudiments of housing and other social services. The tech industry has created the world’s greatest inequality machine, solving every one of our problems except the ones like housing affordability, education access, and healthcare availability that might lead to greater agency and equality.

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TikTok is being investigated in the U.K. for how it handles children’s data and safety Jul 03, 2019

TikTok is being investigated in the U.K. for how it handles children’s data and safety TikTok is being investigated in the U.K. for how it handles the safety and personal data of underage users. According to the Guardian, information commissioner Elizabeth Denham told a parliamentary committee that the probe started in February, after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission levied a $5.7 million fine against TikTok for breaking children’s privacy law.

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AR headsets promise new enterprise productivity, but can the startups building them survive? Jul 02, 2019

Just as the bluetooth headset ushered in an era of hands-free calling, AR startups are trying to convince manufacturing startups that AR headsets will bring new efficiencies with hands-free computing. As Magic Leap and Microsoft have dropped hundreds of millions trying to spend their way into new tech modalities for enterprise customers, smaller players are relying on less ground-breaking hardware and hoping that easy-to-use software can drive new customers into their arms.

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Tara.ai, which uses machine learning to spec out and manage engineering projects, nabs $10M Jul 01, 2019

Artificial intelligence has become an increasingly important component of how a lot of technology works; now it’s also being applied to how technologists themselves work. Today, one of the startups building such a tool has raised some capital, Tara.

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Google finance head joins Postmates board ahead of anticipated IPO Jul 01, 2019

Google’s vice president of finance, has joined Postmates’ board of directors, the latest sign that the on-demand food delivery startup is prepping to take the company public. Postmates announced Friday that Kristin Reinke, vice president of Finance at Google, will join the San Francisco startup as an independent director. Reinke has been with Google since 2005. Prior to Google, Reinke was at Oracle for eight years.

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DoorDash double downs on controversial pay model Jun 28, 2019

There’s seemingly no end in sight for DoorDash’s compensation model where it subsidizes driver wages with customer tips. The mildly bright side, however, is that DoorDash is now providing more transparency after each completed delivery, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu wrote in a blog post today. “With our current pay model, Dashers see a guaranteed minimum — including tips — prior to accepting a delivery,” Xu wrote.

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Wedding dress customizer Anomalie raises $13M as bridal stores crumble Jun 28, 2019

David’s Bridal once owned 50% of the $36 billion wedding gown market before it filed for bankruptcy last year. Brides were growing sick of the lack of styles and sizes plus high prices at expensive brick & mortar shops. The industry was destined for disruption by software that would replace overhead costs and inflexibility with direct-to-consumer personalization. That’s why I profiled a new custom wedding dress startup back in 2016 called Anomalie despite little funding or traction.

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Station F launches a co-living space for 600 startup people Jun 27, 2019

Startup campus Station F is expanding beyond its original building in Paris with a co-living space called Flatmates. 600 people will be able to rent a room in shared apartments. Compared to traditional accommodation in Paris, it’s much easier to get a room as you don’t need a French full-time work contract, guarantors and all the stupid stuff that landlords and professionals ask you — trust me, it’s a nightmare in Paris.

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New tickets available to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party Jun 27, 2019

Could you use a little summer startup fun? We’re rolling out our next round of tickets to theTechCrunch Summer Party at Park Chalet, San Francisco’s coastal beer garden. If you want to join your startup peers to eat, drink and be merry, don’t delay. These limited-release tickets will be snapped up before you can say “hold my beer.” Buy your Summer Party ticket today.

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Millennials don’t want to get drunk. What do they want? Apéritifs. Jun 26, 2019

Gen Z doesn’t want to get drunk. Millennials are tired of the obligatory after-work drinks. Haus, a new startup selling apéritifs online, has a solution for them. The company’s beverages have a lower alcohol content than standard hard liquors on the market, which means you can drink one, even a few, without getting wasted. Made from distilled grapes, fresh herbs and botanicals, its natural ingredients and A-plus branding are sure to appeal to the younger demographic.

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Dirty Lemon parent Iris Nova will fund and distribute third-party beverages Jun 26, 2019

Iris Nova, the Coca-Cola-backed startup that createsDirty Lemonbeverages, is announcing plans to spend $100 million over the next three to five years to expand its offerings. Founder and CEO Zak Normandin said the money will go towards launching new beverage brands developed internally at Iris Nova, as well as investing in beverages created by other companies, which will then distributed via the Iris Nova platform.

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SpaceRyde wants to make access to space more available and more affordable Jun 25, 2019

Life can be tough for a small satellite operator – it may be relatively cheap and easy to build small sats (or CubeSats, as they’re sometimes called), but arranging transportation for those satellites to get to orbit is still a big challenge. That’s why SpaceRyde is pursuing a novel way of launching light payloads, that could help small sat companies skip the line, and save some cash in the process.

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Trash uses AI to edit your footage into a fun, short videos Jun 25, 2019

Trash is a new startup promising to make it easier for anyone to create well-edited videos. Social video is an area that CEO Hannah Donovan knows well, having previously served as general manager at Vine (the video app that Twitter acquired and eventually shut down).

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African fintech dominates Catalyst Fund’s 2019 startup cohort Jun 24, 2019

African fintech has taken center stage for the Catalyst Fund, a JP Morgan Chase and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed accelerator that provides mentorship and non-equity funding to emerging markets startups. The organization announced its 2019 startup cohort and three out of the four finance ventures — Chipper Cash, Salutat and Turaco — have an Africa focus (Brazil-based venture Diin, was the fourth).

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GirlGaze Network looks to connect brands with female creatives Jun 24, 2019

It started with a hashtag. Amande de Cadenet, photographer, author, and TV host, was spending time with her sister, a director and photographer in her own right, when an ACLU study on the lack of diversity among directors was published in the NYT Magazine, with de Cadenet’s sister an interviewee in the cover story. “It’s about damn time,” she said to her sister, launching a conversation that would re-route de Cadenet’s path forward.

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Machine learning for everyone startup Intersect Labs launches platform for data analysis Jun 21, 2019

Machine learning is the holy grail of data analysis, but unfortunately, that holy grail oftentimes requires a PhD in Computer Science just to get started. Despite the incredible attention that machine learning and artificial intelligence get from the press, the reality is that there is a massive gap between the needs of companies to solve business challenges and the availability of talent for building incisive models.

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The boring genius of how Atrium kills legal busy work Jun 21, 2019

Law firms have little incentive to build or buy software that will save their lawyers time since they often bill clients by the hour. Tasks like tracking down legal documents, extracting key information, and drawing up hiring offers or funding term sheet add up to make lawyers expensive even if they’re constantly repeating mindless busy work. That’s why legal startup Atrium is so exciting even though it’s developing tech that might seem boring on the surface.

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Founders Factory is going live in Paris Jun 20, 2019

After London and Johannesburg, startup accelerator and incubator Founders Factory is launching a third city — Paris. Once again, the company is partnering with a corporate backer. And this time, insurance company Aviva France is backing Founders Factory Paris. Albin Serviant is heading the team in Paris and the plan is to hire 50 people. There will be more corporate backers coming soon, which should give enough runway for the next five years.

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Canada’s True North conference is not your typical tech event Jun 20, 2019

From the venue and the flashy event website, Waterloo, Ontario’s True North conference (in its second year) doesn’t seem all that distinct from a laundry list of other major tech events that take place each year across North America. But from the moment its main stage programming kicked off on the first day, it was clear this wasn’t your typical gathering place for the tech industry faithful. The main stage track kicked off with Communitech CEO Iain Klugman.

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Whitebox raises $5M for its e-commerce logistics platform Jun 19, 2019

Whitebox, a startup that CEO Marcus Startzel said is working to “power the direct-to-consumer economy,” has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The company works with both startups and more established brands, giving them the tools they need to run direct-to-consumer e-commerce businesses. Customers includeMcCormick, Starbucks,KitchenAid, Bare Bones and Super Coffee-maker Kitu.

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Focals by North Review: The future is (almost) here Jun 19, 2019

The concept of an IRL heads-up display has been a part of science fiction since basically the beginning. Big players have tried their hand at it with less than stellar results — most notably Google with Glass, and more recently Intel’s Vaunt. But North may have cracked the nut on smart glasses with Focals.

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Clockwise nabs $11M Series A to make your calendar smarter Jun 18, 2019

Almost every organization, regardless of size, is inundated with meetings, so much so it’s often hard to find dedicated time do actual work. Clockwise wants to change that by bringing machine learning to the calendar to help employees free up time. Today, it announced an $11 million Series A investment, and made the product, which had been in Beta, generally available. The round was co-led led by Greylock and Accel .

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More tickets available to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party Jun 18, 2019

Get ready for summer in the city, TechCrunch -style. We just released a fresh batch of tickets to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party. Available on a first-come, first-served basis, tickets to our popular event sell out quickly, and they’ll be gone before you know it. Don’t wait — buy your ticket today.

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Meet Hatch Baby’s portable, WiFi-enabled sleep device Rest+ Jun 17, 2019

Menlo Park-based Hatch Baby has prided itself on introducing “smart” nursery devices — including Grow, a changing pad with a built-in scale and Rest, a device doubling as a sound machine and night light. Now, the company is introducing an updated version of Rest with Rest+ as part of an effort to help further establish Hatch Baby in the family sleep space.

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Shyp is preparing for a comeback under new management Jun 17, 2019

Fifteen months after shutting down, Shyp is getting ready to launch again. The startup tweeted today that “We are back! We’re hard at work to rebuild an unparalleled shipping experience. Before we begin operations again, we’d love to hear your feedback in this quick survey. We look forward to working with you and can’t wait to change the future of shipping!” We are back! We’re hard at work to rebuild an unparalleled shipping experience.

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Demo your early-stage startup at the TechCrunch Summer Party Jun 14, 2019

Nothing says summer in Silicon Valley better than the TechCrunch Summer Party. In its 14th year, we’re celebrating the startup spirit and culture at the Park Chalet, San Francisco’s coastal beer garden, on July 25. Who doesn’t love ocean views? And nothing says relaxed networking in Silicon Valley more than showcasing your early-stage startup at our summer soiree.

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Target Circle and TapHeaven team up in a mobile marketing merger Jun 14, 2019

Target Circle andTapHeavenhave announced that they’re merging into a single company under the Target Circle brand. TapHeaven co-founder and CEO Chris Hoyt, who is becoming chief growth officer at the combined organization, said the two companies have been “trying to solve the same problem” — namely, eliminating many of the inefficiencies in the mobile advertising business.

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KKR leads $300M investment in phishing training company KnowBe4 Jun 13, 2019

You might not have known about KnowBe4 before, but you should now because this morning, the company announced a massive $300 million investment led by private equity firm KKR. The deal is based on a billion valuation. Existing investors Elephant and TenEleven Ventures also participated in the round. The massive influx of cash comes on top of a $50 million round in March, also led by KKR. They really, really like this company.

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Stride raises $2.2M from JetBlue, NFX for its guided trips marketplace Jun 13, 2019

Group travel, it’s something you either love or hate, but Stride, which describes itself as a marketplace for “experiential multi-day and multi-destination packaged trips planned by experts,” wants to change this perception. The service, which was co-founded by former Starwood Hotels and Viator executive Gavin Delany, today announced that it has raised a $2.2 million seed round from JetBlue Ventures and NFX.

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Welcome’s new app will do your travel planning for you Jun 12, 2019

Welcome is a new app that CEO Matthew Rosenberg said is designed for a more spontaneous approach to traveling. “What we’re going after is these millennials [and] Gen Z travelers who feel comfortable going in the moment,” Rosenberg told me. “Eighty-five percent of people aren’t even looking at activities before they arrive.

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Yubo is a social network about socializing Jun 12, 2019

Meet Yubo, a French startup that wants to make social networks a bit more… social. Yubo is an app designed for teenagers, and it’s all about meeting people, making new friends and belonging to a community. The app has quietly grown over the past few years and managed to attract 20 million users. There are now close to a million users who open the app every day, and the company says that it is currently growing by 10 percent month-over-month.

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Infarm closes $100M Series B to scale its ‘urban farming platform’ Jun 11, 2019

Infarm, the Berlin-based startup that has developed vertical farming tech for grocery stores and restaurants, is disclosing $100 in in Series B investment. The round is led by London VC Atomico, and consists of mix of equity funding and debt financing. Infarm’s existing investors, including Balderton Capital, Astanor Ventures, Cherry Ventures, also participated in the round. In addition, TriplePoint Capital has invested, presumably providing a bulk if not all of the debt.

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Workhorse gets $25 million needed to finish electric delivery van Jun 11, 2019

Workhorse Group, the electric vehicle company that grabbed headlines last month over a proposed deal to buy General Motors’ Lordstown, Ohio factory, has raised $25 million from a group of unnamed investors. The money will not go toward the factory. Instead, it will be used for the more pressing matter of keeping the company running. Under terms of the deal, investors will receive preferred stock and warrants to buy shares. An annual dividend will be paid out in shares of Workhorse stock.

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Depop, a social app targeting millennial and Gen Z shoppers, bags $62M, passes 13M users Jun 10, 2019

The rising popularity of omni-channel commerce — selling to customers wherever they happen to be spending time online — has spawned an army of shopping tools and platforms that are giving legacy retail websites and marketplaces a run for their money. Now, one of the faster growing of these is announcing an impressive round of funding to stay on trend and continue building its business.

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Unmortgage, the ‘part own, part rental’ housing startup, loses founder and CEO Jun 10, 2019

Unmortgage founder and CEO Rayhan Rafiq-Omar (centre) has departed the companny Unmortgage, the London-based startup that wants to let people buy as little as five percent of a home and rent the rest, has lost its founder and CEO, TechCrunch has learned. According to a regulatory filing on Companies House, Unmortgage’s Rayhan Rafiq-Omar was terminated as a Director on 4th of May, and has been replaced on the board by Unmortgage co-founder and product lead Josef Wasinski.

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Thumbtack is raising up to $120M on a flat valuation Jun 07, 2019

Thumbtack, one of the first players in what is now known as the gig economy, has hit the fundraising circuit once again. The online services marketplace that matches customers with nearby professionals is raising up to $120 million in Series H shares, according to a Delaware stock authorization filing uncovered by the Prime Unicorn Index. Thumbtack did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The Ticket Fairy is tech’s best hope against Ticketmaster Jun 07, 2019

Ticketmaster’s dominance has led to ridiculous service fees, scalpers galore, and exclusive contracts that exploit venues and artists. The moronic approval of venue operator and artist management giant Live Nation’s merger with Ticketmaster in 2010 produced an anti-competitive juggernaut. It pressures venues to sign ticketing contracts under veiled threat that artists would otherwise be routed to different concert halls.

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VCs bet $12M on Troops, a Slackbot for sales teams Jun 06, 2019

Slack wants to be the new operating system for teams, something it has made clear on more than one occasion, including in its recent S-1 filing. To accomplish that goal, it put together an in-house $80 million venture fund in 2015 to invest in third-party developers building on top of its platform. Weeks ahead of its direct listing on The New York Stock Exchange, it continues to put that money to work. Troops is the latest to land additional capital from the enterprise giant.

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AntiToxin sells safetytech to clean up poisoned platforms Jun 05, 2019

The big social networks and video games have failed to prioritize user well-being over their own growth. As a result, society is losing the battle against bullying, predators, hate speech, misinformation and scammers. Typically when a whole class of tech companies have a dire problem they can’t cost-effectively solve themselves, a software-as-a-service emerges to fill the gap in web hosting, payment processing, etc.

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Dilution: The good, the bad and the ugly Jun 05, 2019

Bernard Moon Contributor Bernard Moon is co-founder and partner at SparkLabs Group, a network of accelerators and venture capital funds.

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Cookware startup Great Jones launches Potline, a text service for recipes and advice Jun 04, 2019

Great Jones, a startup selling pots, pans and even an oven directly to consumers, is introducing a new way to get help in the kitchen. Potline is a free text message service where anyone can ask for recipe ideas, or get advice when things are going wrong in the middle of the cooking process, or get tips on how to clean up afterwards.

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Fitness startup Mirror nears $300M valuation with fresh funding Jun 04, 2019

Today, Peloton is a bonafide success. The company, which sells $2,245 internet-connected exercise bikes, boasts a $4 billion valuation and a cult following. That hasn’t always been the case. For years, Peloton battled for venture capital investment and struggled to attract buyers. Now that it’s proven the market for tech-enabled home exercise equipment and affiliated subscription products, a whole bunch of startups are chasing down the same customer segment.

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Startups net more than capital with NBA players as investors Jun 03, 2019

Mary Ann Azevedo Contributor Share on Twitter Mary Ann Azevedo covers startups and tech at Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor It’s not so obvious that this VC firm is focused on impact With these numbers, it’s no surprise SoftBank is investing in Latin America If you’re a big basketball fan like me, you’ll be glued to the TV watching the Golden State Warriors take on the Toronto Raptors in the NBA finals.

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Machine learning startup Weights & Biases raises $15M Jun 03, 2019

Weights & Biases, a startup building development tools for machine learning, has raised $15 million in its second round of funding. The company was started by CrowdFlower founders Lukas Biewald and Chris van Pelt, along with former Google engineer Shawn Lewis. (Under its new name Figure Eight, CrowdFlower was acquired by Appen for up to $300 million in March.

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Logz.io lands $52M to keep growing open source-based logging tools May 31, 2019

Logz.io announced a $52 million Series D investment today. The round was led by General Catalyst. Other investors participating in the round included OpenView Ventures, 83North, Giza Venture Capital, Vintage Investment Partners, Greenspring Associates and Next47. Today’s investment brings the total raised to nearly $100 million, according to Crunchbase data. Logz.

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Firefly raises $30M to bring more ads to Ubers, Lyfts and taxis May 31, 2019

Firefly, a startup that allows ridehail drivers to make money from advertising, has raised $30 million in Series A funding. The company is about to launch in New York City, where it’s also acquiring the digital operations of advertising company Strong Outdoor. Co-founder and CEO Kaan Gunay said this will allow Firefly to start working with traditional taxis in a big way.

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Pillar launches with $5.5M from Kleiner Perkins and others to tackle your student loan debt May 30, 2019

A new startup aims to help you get your student loans under control. Today, an app called Pillar, backed by $5.5 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins, is launching a simpler way for consumers to better understand their student loan debt — and even pay it off early. To do so, the app connects with your student loan servicer and bank, then makes personalized suggestions based on your loans, your income, and your spending.

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Soda Says, a curated consumer electronics retail platform, launches in the U.S. May 30, 2019

Soda Says, a curated consumer electronics retail platform, launches in the U.S. Grace Gould has spent her life thinking about the intersection of retail and tech. She started out in Apple Retail, and then moved on to Index Ventures where she worked on early stage investments. She then worked at PCCH International as the VP of Global Retail Strategy, working with companies and hardware makers to develop, manufacture, package and distribute products.

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VCs give failed AR startup Meta a do-over with new CEO, corporate entity May 29, 2019

AR startup Meta’s original investors might have been screwed by the company’s collapse and fire sale, but a pair of VC firms are giving the brand another shot with a new corporate entity and CEO that the new backers hope will lead to a less abysmal outcome. Meta Company is now Meta View, “a wholly new and unaffiliated entity.

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Which public US universities graduate the most funded founders? May 28, 2019

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Big revenues, huge valuations and major losses: charting the era of the unicorn IPO Some reassuring data for those worried unicorns are wrecking the Bay Area A lot of students attend public universities to lessen the financial burden of higher education. At last tally, tuition and fees at American public colleges and universities averaged around $6,800 a year,perthe federal government.

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As the term ‘unicorn’ goes broke from overuse, what’s actually rare? May 28, 2019

Alex Wilhelm Contributor Alex Wilhelm is the editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News and co-host of Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast. More posts by this contributor Equity transcribed: How to avoid an IPO How to avoid an IPO On Wednesday afew unicorns were born. You’ve already forgotten their names if you learned them at all (Tip: It was MarqetaandIvalua.) Don’t worry, I’m not cross with you.

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Lime’s founding CEO steps down as his co-founder takes control May 27, 2019

In an all-hands meeting this afternoon, the scooter and bike-sharing phenom Lime announced co-founder and chief executive officer Toby Sun would transition out of the C-suite to focus on company culture and R&D. Brad Bao, a Lime co-founder and long-time Tencent executive, will assume chief responsibilities, Lime confirmed to TechCrunch.

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Throw out your diary, Jour is a new app for guided journaling May 24, 2019

Since Jour, a new app for private and portable journaling, dropped on the App Store two months ago, it’s racked up 80,000 users. No paid marketing or public announcements. Just organic interest in discovering a better way of journaling than pen to paper. “We can reinvent and redesign what we call journaling and the journal,” Jour co-founder and chief executive officer Maxime Germain told TechCrunch. “If we do it right, it will go mainstream.

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Modsy scores $37M to virtually redesign your home May 24, 2019

Modsy has raised some new cash as the computer vision startup looks to get physical and build more of the furniture it recommends. The startup announced that they have closed $37 million in Series C funding led by TCV. They’ve now raised north of $70 million to date. The service combines computer vision tech with human designer know how to let users design the trendy home of their dreams.

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Future launches $150/mo exercise app where real coaches nag you May 23, 2019

The only way to beat laziness is with guilt, and so that’s what Future sells. It assigns you an actual human trainer who builds personalized workout plans and message you throughout the day to make sure you’re doing them. It even gives you an Apple Watch to track your activity and ensure you’re not lying. Future actually got me to the gym where my coach kicked my ass remotely with a 30 minute lifting routine I’d never have stuck to by myself.

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DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg is coming to Disrupt May 23, 2019

2019 is the year Facebook announced a ‘pivot to privacy’. At the same time, Google is trying to claim that privacy means letting it exclusively store and data-mine everything you do online. So what better time to sit down at Disrupt for a chat about what privacy really means with DuckDuckGo founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg? We’re delighted to announce that Weinberg is joining us at Disrupt SF (October 2-4).

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Quadric.io raises $15M to build a plug-and-play supercomputer for autonomous systems May 22, 2019

Quadric.io, a startup founded by some of the folks behind the once-secretive bitcoin mining operation “21E6,”has raised $15 million in a Series A round that will fund the development of a supercomputer designed for autonomous systems. The round was led by automotive Tier 1 supplier DENSO and its semiconductor products arm NSITEXE, which will also be one of Quadric.io’s customers for future electronic systems in all levels of autonomous driving solutions.

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Identity platform Auth0 raises $103M, pushing its valuation over $1B May 21, 2019

Auth0, a 2013-founded identity and authentication platform, has pushed into unicorn territory with a $1 billion valuation after raising $103 million in its latest Series E round. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from K9 Ventures, Telstra Ventures and several others. In all, Auth0 total funding tops $210 million to date.

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Robin picks up $20 million Series B to optimize the office May 21, 2019

Robin Powered, a startup looking to help offices run better, has today announced the close of a $20 million Series B funding. The round was led by Tola Capital, with existing investors Accomplice and FirstMark participating in the round, along with a new strategic Allegion Ventures. Robin started as part of an agency called One Mighty Roar, where Robin Powered cofounder Sam Dunn and his two cofounders built out RFID and beacon tech for clients’ live events.

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Credder offers Rotten Tomatoes-style ratings for the news May 20, 2019

In an age of online misinformation and clickbait, how do you know whether a publication is trustworthy? Startup Credder is trying to solve this problem with reviews from both journalists and regular readers. These reviews are then aggregated into an overall credibility score (or rather, scores, sincethe journalist and reader ratings are calculated separately).

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Fastly pops in public offering showing that there’s still money for tech IPOs May 20, 2019

Shares of Fastly, the service that’s used by websites to ensure that they can load faster, have popped in its first hours of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, which priced its public offering at around $16 — the top of the estimated range for its public offering — have risen more than 50% since their debut on public markets to trade at $25.01.

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Mobile ticketing company TodayTix raises $73M in new funding May 17, 2019

TodayTix, a mobile ticketing company that makes it easy and relatively affordable to go to Broadway shows and other live performances, is announcing a new $73 million round of funding led by private equity firm Great Hill Partners. The company was founded in 2013, and it served initially as the mobile equivalent of New York’s TKTS booths for discounted, last-minute theater tickets.

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Fiverr files to go public, reports revenue of $75.5M and a net loss of $36.1M for 2018 May 17, 2019

Freelance marketplace Fiverr has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, is losing money — its net losses grew from $19.3 million in 2017 to $36.1 million in 2018. At the same time, revenue grew by nearly 45 percent, from $52.1 million to $75.5 million. “Our mission is to change how the world works together,” Fiverr says in the filing.

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Xnor’s AI2GO serves up custom edge AI models with a few clicks May 16, 2019

AI would be useful for tons of everyday tasks for small businesses and other operations — if people just knew how to build and deploy their own machine learning agent. Unfortunately, few do. Edge-based AI startup Xnor.ai aims to let non-experts put state of the art AI to work as easily as they might update their website.

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Solo.io wants to bring order to service meshes with centralized management hub May 16, 2019

As containers and microservices have proliferated, a new kind of tool called the service mesh has developed to help manage and understand interactions between services. While Kubernetes has emerged as the clear container orchestration tool of choice, there is much less certainty in the service mesh market. Solo.io announced a new open source tool called Service Mesh Hub today, designed to help companies manage multiple service meshes in a single interface.

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India’s ride-hailing firm Ola is now in the credit card business, too May 15, 2019

A day after India’s largest wallet app Paytm entered the credit cards business, local ride-hailing giant is following suit. Ola has inked a deal with state-run SBI bank and Visa to issue as many as 10 million credit cards in next three and a half years, it said today. The move will help Visa and SBI bank acquire more customers in India, where most transactions are still bandied out over cash.

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Voi unveils ‘longer-lasting’ e-scooters designed to withstand rentals, and launches its first e-bikes May 15, 2019

Voi Technology, the “micro-mobility” startup that operates an e-scooter service on the streets of a growing number of European cities, has unveiled a range of new scooters and a first e-bike more suited to rentals. The company is also revealing plans to expand to another 150 cities and towns, having ratcheted up 2 million rides in eight months since launching.

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Mailchimp expands from email to full marketing platform, says it will make $700M in 2019 May 14, 2019

Mailchimp, a bootstrapped startup out of Atlanta, Ga., is known best as a popular tool for organizations to manage their customer-facing email activities — a profitable business that its CEO told TechCrunch has now grown to around 11 million active customers with a total audience of 4 billion (yes, 4 billion), and is on track for $700 million in revenue in 2019. (Note: Slack’s previous quarter was around $133 million, and it’s operating at a loss.

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As a founder, I mistook my work for self-worth May 14, 2019

Dale Stephens Contributor Share on Twitter Dale Stephens was one of the first Thiel Fellows and ran an education company for six years. These days he works an executive coach, helping entrepreneurs and executives grow as fast as their companies. These days, most days are good days. My clients are founder and executives, I set my own schedule, and I live in a city I love. As an executive coach and advisor, I work with founders and CEOs of companies who have raised more than $100M.

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India’s most popular services are becoming super apps May 13, 2019

Truecaller, an app that helps users screen strangers and robocallers, will soon allow users in India, its largest market, to borrow up to a few hundred dollars in the nation. The crediting option will be the fourth feature the nine-year-old app adds to its service in the last two years. So far it has added to the service the ability to text, record phone calls and mobile payment features, some of which are only available to users in India.

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Saas Management startup Intello scores $2.5 million extended seed May 13, 2019

Intello, the New York City-based Saas management platform, announced a $2.5 million extended seed round today, along with some product enhancements. The round was led by Resolute Ventures . Harrison Metal and Magnetico Ventures also participated along with various individual angel investors including Zane Lackey from Signal Sciences, Chris Smoak from Atrium and Zach Sherman from Timber. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $4 million, according the company.

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Razor startup Harry’s will be acquired by Edgewell Personal Care for $1.37B May 10, 2019

Razor startup Harry’s will be acquired by Edgewell Personal Care for $1.37B Edgewell Personal Care, which owns brands like Schick (razors), Banana Boat (sunscreen) and Wet Ones (moist wipes), is adding Harry’s to that list in a $1.37 billion acquisition. Founded in 2013, Harry’s is part of the current wave of brands using the internet to sell products directly to consumers.

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Clean.io raises $2.5M to fight malicious advertising May 10, 2019

Existing approaches to blocking malicious advertising aren’t working — at least according to digital ad veteran Seth Demsey. That should resonate with anyone who’s ever encountered an ad that immediately redirected them to a website filled with annoying gift card offers. And it’s the issue that the startup Demsey co-founded,clean.io, is working to address. Today, the company is unveiling the new clean.

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Cybersecurity insurance startup Coalition raises $40M in Series B funding May 09, 2019

Coalition, a cybersecurity insurance company, has raised $40 million in its latest round of funding. Fintech investment giant Ribbit Capital led the investment with participation from Greenoaks Capital and Hillhouse Capital. Coalition’s insurance covers expenses incurred from liabilities related to third-parties, such as fines and penalties — as well as fraud, breach response, extortion and ransomware recovery, and device replacement, and more. The company also aims to give U.S.

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Rent the Runway just opened its largest brick-and-mortar store yet May 09, 2019

Who would have thought Rent the Runway would emerge as a competitor to The Wing and all traditional brick-and-mortar retail? Its newest store, complete with co-working space, shows it’s more than just a designer gown rental service. Shortly after landing a $125 million investment at a $1 billion valuation, Rent the Runway (RTR) has replanted roots in San Francisco, opening an 8,300 square foot West Coast flagship in the city’s Union Square neighborhood.

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Serverless monitoring startup Espagon expands to cover broader microservices May 08, 2019

When Espagon launched last Fall, the Israeli startup had an idea to monitor serverless, architectures, specifically AWS Lambda. But the company didn’t want to confine itself to monitoring a narrow class of applications, and today it announced it is now able to monitor a broader set of microservice development approaches. CEO and co-founder Nitzan Shapira says when it launched, the startup wanted to take aim at serverless and Lambda seemed to be the prime tool for doing that.

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Shape Security’s latest product protects smaller businesses from credential stuffing May 08, 2019

Shape Security has been helping big companies stay safe from fraudulent activities like password reuse and bot traffic on their publicly facing websites and apps. The company now wants to help smaller companies have that same type of protection, and today it announced a new cloud service called Connect aimed at that market.

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Sendbird snags additional $50M for messaging API tool, as it extends Series B to $102M May 06, 2019

Sendbird, a startup that enables developers to add messaging to their apps with a couple of lines of code, announced a secondary Series B investment of $50 million today. This additional funding comes on top of the $52 million, the company raised in February. The new money was led by Tiger Global Management with significant participation from the Iconiq, the firm that led the initial Series B round.

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SeatGeek names former Tumblr and NYT exec Brian Murphy as CTO May 06, 2019

Ticketing startup SeatGeek has a new CTO. Brian Murphy previously held the same position at Tumblr (which, like TechCrunch, is owned by Verizon Media) and has also served as vice president of engineering at The New York Times and senior director of technology at Condé Nast. “Brian is an incredible leader and team-builder who has overseen engineering teams for some remarkable companies,” said SeatGeek co-founder and CEO Jack Groetzinger in a statement.

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Sean Parker’s Brigade/Causes acquired by govtech app Countable May 03, 2019

Causes grew to a jawdropping 186 million users as one of the first ten Facebook platform apps. Started by Facebook co-founder Sean Parker, it was meant to turn a generation into activists and philanthropists. Causes acquired Votizen to augment shallow clicktivism with a way to remind friends to vote. But after Facebook went mobile and the web platform waned, Parker arranged Causes’ sale to his newer civic tech effort Brigade, for which he’d led a $9.

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Unshackled Ventures has $20M to invest exclusively in immigrant founders May 03, 2019

Unshackled Ventures isn’t like other venture capital funds. The firm invests in immigrant founders and helps them secure visas so they can ditch their corporate job and launch the startup of their dreams. Today, Unshackled is announcing its sophomore fund of $20 million, topping its debut effort by $15.5 million.

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Plum, the money management chatbot, raises another $4.5M and lands on iOS May 02, 2019

Plum, the money management chatbot, raises another $4.5M and lands on iOS Plum, the chatbot-based app that helps you manage your money, is disclosing $4.5 million in further funding. The round, which quietly closed in the summer, was led by venture firm VentureFriends and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It brings total funding for the London and Athens-based fintech to $6.3 million.

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Early-stage US VC Joyance to scout for health and wellness startups in Europe May 02, 2019

Early-stage US VC Joyance to scout for health and wellness startups in Europe Good news for European startups with a health or wellness bent. Joyance Partners, a $20M US VC firm that invests in early-stage startups in the health and ‘better living’ space is launching into the European market with a dedicated European partner. The move could be seen as taking advantage of leaps in the capability of European startups, especially in the health and AI space.

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Golden unveils a Wikipedia alternative focused on emerging tech and startups May 01, 2019

Jude Gomila, who previously sold his mobile advertising company Heyzap to RNTS Media, is taking on a new challenge — building a “knowledge base” that can fill in Wikipedia’s blind spots, particularly when it comes to emerging technologies and startups. While Gomila is officially launching Golden today, it’s already full of content about things like the latest batch of Y Combinator startups and morphogenetic engineering.

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Altice USA buys digital news network Cheddar for $200M May 01, 2019

Cable television provider Altice USA has confirmed plans to pay $200 million for the millennial-focused, digitally-native news network Cheddar in all-cash, or all-cheddar, rather, deal. The price tag comes at a 25 percent premium to the media startup’s $160 million Series D valuation. Jon Steinberg, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Cheddar and former president and chief operating officer of BuzzFeed, will become president of Altice News.

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Caribou Biosciences CEO, Rachel Haurwitz will talk CRISPR’s present and future applications at DisruptSF Apr 30, 2019

Seven years ago, Rachel Haurwitz finished her last day as a student in the University of California laboratory where she helped conduct some of the pioneering research on the gene editing technology known as CRISPR, and became employee number one at Caribou Biosciences, a company founded to commercialize that research. In those seven years, the market for CRISPR applications has grown tremendously and Caribou Biosciences is at the forefront of the companies propelling it forward.

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Some reassuring data for those worried unicorns are wrecking the Bay Area Apr 30, 2019

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor A record $2.5B went to US insurance startup deals last year, and big insurers are in all the way Space tech rockets higher The San Francisco Bay Area is a global powerhouse at launching startups that go on to dominate their industries. For locals, this has long been a blessing and a curse. On the bright side, the tech startup machine produces well-paid tech jobs and dollars flowing into local economies.

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FutureLearn takes $65M from Seek Group for 50% stake in UK online degree platform Apr 29, 2019

Edtech and recruitment continue to converge. London-based online degree platform, FutureLearn, is taking £50 million (~$64.6M) from Australian-based online job matching group, Seek, in exchange for a 50 per cent stake in the business — just days after the same group led a massive Series E in U.S. online learning giant Coursera. U.K.

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Movie subscription service Sinemia is ending US operations Apr 29, 2019

Over the past few months, Sinemia has gone from promising MoviePass competitor to the source of frustration for moviegoers across the country. After rumors surfaced earlier this week that it would be backing away from its troubled subscription-based movie ticket offering, it posted official word tonight that it will be shutting down operations in the U.S.

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Wheely raises $15 million for its luxury ride-hailing app Apr 26, 2019

London-based startup Wheely has raised a $15 million Series B round led by Concentric with Oleg Tscheltzoff, Misha Sokolov and other investors also participating. The company wants to build an Uber competitor focused on the luxury market. It’s a bit ironic when you think about it as Uber started as a luxury company. But everybody knows someone with horrific Uber stories. That’s why Wheely is building a reliable and predictable ride-hailing experience.

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Chive Media’s out-of-home TV spinoff Atmosphere raises $10M Apr 26, 2019

When Chive Media Group spun out its out-of-home TV business last year, co-founder and CEO Leo Resig said the structure should help the new company, called Atmosphere, raise venture capital. Looks like those fundraising efforts were successful, with Atmosphere announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by S3 Ventures, with participation from Capstar Capital.

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Postmates has launched in 1,000 new cities since December Apr 25, 2019

Postmates is expanding like crazy ahead of an initial public offering expected later this year. The food delivery business has launched in 1,000 new cities since December, the company announced today. San Francisco-based Postmates now operates its on-demand delivery platform, powered by a network of local gig economy workers, in 3,500 cities across all 50 states. Postmates does not yet operate in any international markets aside from Mexico City.

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Are women better gamers than men? This startup’s AI-driven research says yes Apr 25, 2019

Are women better gamers than men? This startup’s AI-driven research says yes Last year the Gosu.ai startup, which has developed an AI assistant to help gamers play smarter and improve their skills, raised $1.9M. Using machine learning, it analyzes their matches and makes personal recommendations, and allows the gamer to be taught by a virtual assistant. Because they have this virtual assistant they can now do some interesting research.

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Blueshift announces $15M Series B to expand AI-fueled cross-channel marketing tool Apr 24, 2019

Blueshift is startup founded by tech industry veterans, who saw first-hand how difficult cross-channel marketing was. They decided to launch a company and build a cross-channel marketing platform from the ground up that uses AI and machine learning to make sense of the growing amount of customer data. Today, the startup announced a $15 million Series B round to keep it going. The round was led by Softbank Ventures Asia, a fund focused on AI startups like Blueshift .

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Luxury consignment e-tailer The RealReal to enter the unicorn club with new funding Apr 24, 2019

The RealReal, an online retailer for authenticated luxury consignment, has authorized the sale of up to $70 million in new shares, per a Delaware stock authorization filing discovered by the Prime Unicorn Index. If the company raises the entire amount, it would reach a valuation of $1.06 billion, cementing its status as the newest e-commerce unicorn. The filing doesn’t guarantee The RealReal will sell the full amount of authorized shares.

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Vine reboot Byte begins beta testing Apr 23, 2019

Twitter shut down Dom Hoffman’s app Vine, giving away the short-form video goldmine to China’s TikTok. Now a year and half since Hoffman announced he’d reimagine the app as V2 then scrapped that name, his follow-up to Vine called Byte has finally sent out the first 100 invites to its closed beta. Byte will let users record or upload short, looped vertical videos to what’s currently a reverse-chronological feed.

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Down To Shop is a tongue-in-cheek mobile shopping network Apr 23, 2019

Cyrus Summerlin and Max Hellerstin, who previously created the Push for Pizza app (which allowed users to order a pizza with the push of a button), are officially launching their new startup today,Down to Shop. The app bills itself as both a modern reinvention of QVC and “the funnest way to shop.” It allows users to watch funny videos featuring products that can be purchased directly from the app.

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From lab-grown meat to fermented fungus, here’s what corporate food VCs are serving up Apr 22, 2019

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor A record $2.5B went to US insurance startup deals last year, and big insurers are in all the way Space tech rockets higher In a foodie’s ideal world, we’d all eat healthy, minimally processed cuisine sourced from artisanal farmers, bakers and chefs. In the real world, however, most of us derive the lion’s share of calories from edibles supplied by a handful of giant food conglomerates.

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Zoom, the profitable tech unicorn, prices IPO above range Apr 22, 2019

Zoom, a relatively under-the-radar tech unicorn, has defied expectations with its initial public offering. The video conferencing business priced its IPO above its planned range on Wednesday, confirming plans to sell shares of its Nasdaq stock, titled “ZM,” at $36 apiece, CNBC reports.

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Birth control delivery startup Nurx taps Clover Health’s Varsha Rao as CEO Apr 19, 2019

Varsha Rao, Airbnb’s former head of global operations and, most recently, the chief operating officer at Clover Health, has joined Nurx as its chief executive officer. Rao replaces Hans Gangeskar, Nurx’s co-founder and CEO since 2014, who will stay on as a board member.

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Lyric raises $160 million Series B led by Airbnb Apr 19, 2019

Lyric, a platform for folks who struggle to decide between a hotel and an Airbnb, has today announced the close of a $160 million Series B financing led by none other than Airbnb . Other investors who participated in the round include Tishman Speyer, RXR Realty, Obvious Ventures, SineWave, Dick Costolo, Adam Bain, as well as existing investors Barry Sternlicht, NEA, SignalFire, FifthWall and Tusk Ventures. Lyric is a hospitality platform for business travelers.

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Pinterest prices IPO above range Apr 18, 2019

Pinterest priced shares of its stock, “PINS,” above its anticipated range on Wednesday evening, CNBC reports. The company will sell 75 million shares of Class A common stock at $19 apiece in an offering that will attract $1.4 billion in new capital for the visual search engine. The NYSE-listed business had planned to sell its shares at between $15 to $17 and didn’t increase the size of its planned offering prior to Wednesday’s pricing. Valued at$12.

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Airbase launches with $7M Series A to simplify spending control systems Apr 18, 2019

Airbase is a startup with a plan to change the way you think about accounting around spending. Instead of multiple workflows, it wants to create a simpler one involving, well, Airbase. It’s a bold move for any startup to take on something as entrenched as financials, but it’s giving it a shot, and today the company launched with a $7 million Series A investment. First Round Capital was lead investor. Maynard Webb, Village Global, BoxGroup and Quiet Capital also participated.

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Unicorns: A tale of two continents Apr 17, 2019

Victor Basta Contributor Victor Basta is the founder of the boutique investment firm Magister Advisors. More posts by this contributor Venture investing in the US and Europe are totally different industries If you’re hoping to create a unicorn on a budget, look to the European technology sector for inspiration.

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ZenGo wants to become the crypto wallet for the masses Apr 17, 2019

KZen is about to release ZenGo, a mobile app to manage your cryptocurrencies securely and more easily. There are already countless crypto wallets out there, but the startup thinks they’re all either too complicated or too insecure. If you own cryptocurrencies, chances are they’re sitting on an exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance. If somebody manages to log in to your account, nothing is stopping them from sending those assets to other wallets and stealing everything.

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Airbnb officially owns HotelTonight Apr 16, 2019

Airbnb has completed its acquisition of the last-minute hotel booking application, HotelTonight, the company announced on Monday. The deal is Airbnb’s largest M&A transaction yet and will accelerate the home-sharing giant’s growth as it gears up for an initial public offering. Airbnb reportedly began talks to acquire HotelTonight months ago and finally confirmed its intent to acquire the business in early March.

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YC alum Keeper raises $1.6M to help gig workers pay taxes Apr 16, 2019

Every year around this time, Uber drivers, Wag dog walkers, Bird scooter chargers, social media influencers and other gig economy workers face the unsightly challenge of paying their taxes. Companies like Uber and Lyft classify their drivers as independent contractors, which means you aren’t given any benefits and the company doesn’t withhold any of your taxes.

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Armis nabs $65M Series C as IoT security biz grows in leaps and bounds Apr 15, 2019

Armis is helping companies protect IoT devices on the network without using an agent, and it’s apparently a problem that is resonating with the market, as the startup reports 700 percent growth in the last year. That caught the attention of investors, who awarded them with a $65 million Series C investment to help keep accelerating that growth. Sequoia Capital led the round with help from new investors Insight Venture Partners and Intermountain Ventures.

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WTF is Baillie Gifford? Apr 12, 2019

The SoftBank Vision Fund has been screaming from the venture headlines the last few months, driven by eye-popping rounds (and valuations!) into some of the most notable startups around the world. Yet, SoftBank isn’t the only player rapidly buying up the cap tables of top startups. Indeed, another firm, more than a century old, has been fighting for that late-stage equity crown. Baillie Gifford .

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Public health startup Cityblock raises $65M Series B Apr 12, 2019

Redpoint Ventures has led a $65 million Series B in Cityblock, a healthcare company focused on providing improved care to low-income neighborhoods. The business launched roughly 18 months ago out of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation incubator known for projects like mobility data startup Coord, which itself raised a $5 million round in October.

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Online used car startup Shift adds another $40M, snags COO in road to IPO Apr 11, 2019

Online used car startup Shift Technologies has tacked on another $40 million in equity funding, hired a new COO with Amazon and Enjoy roots and scaled up its engineering staff — all in the past several months — as the company aims to double its revenue this year. The recent activity, along with what executives have told TechCrunch is a diligent focus on unit economics, is all directed toward a larger objective to take the company public sometime in 2021.

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Klaviyo raises $150M Series B after building company the old fashioned way Apr 10, 2019

Klaviyo, a Boston-based email marketing firm founded in 2012, went about building its email marketing business the old fashioned way. First it built a profitable company, then it went looking for funding to accelerate the growth. Today, it announced a massive $150 million Series B with the entire sum coming from Summit Partners. The company had raised just $8.5 million before today’s announcement.

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New privacy assistant Jumbo fixes your Facebook & Twitter settings Apr 10, 2019

Jumbo could be a nightmare for the tech giants, but a savior for the victims of their shady privacy practices. Jumbo saves you hours as well as embarrassment by automatically adjusting 30 Facebook privacy settings to give you more protection, and by deleting your old tweets after saving them to your phone. It can even erase your Google Search and Amazon Alexa history, with clean up features for Instagram and Tinder in the works.

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Scaling a nonprofit, startup style Apr 09, 2019

It’s been a year since All Raise emerged with the support of dozens of venture capital’s most powerful women. The 34 founding members had a lofty goal: Double the capital going to female founders in five years and double the representation of female VCs in 10 years. After a few experiments, some trial and error and the first-of-its-kind Women Who Venture Summit, All Raise cemented its reputation as a force for change in Silicon Valley.

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Partnering with Visa, emerging market lender Branch International raises $170 million Apr 09, 2019

The San Francisco-based startup Branch International, which makes small personal loans in emerging markets, has raised $170 million and announceda partnership with Visa to offer virtual, pre-paid debit cards to Branch client networks in Africa, South-Asia and Latin America. Branch — which has 150 employees in San Francisco, Lagos, Nairobi, Mexico City and Mumbai — makes loans starting at $2 to individuals in emerging and frontier markets.

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The Wing poaches Snap’s comms director Apr 08, 2019

Women-focused co-working space The Wing has hired Rachel Racusen as vice president of communications. Racusen has been the director of communications at Snap, the developer of Snapchat, since late 2016. Racusen’s exit represents the latest in a series of departures at the “camera company.” Earlier this year, the company’s chief financial officer Tim Stone stepped down.

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Torch take $10M to teach empathy to executives Apr 05, 2019

When everyone always tells you ‘yes’, you can become a monster. Leaders especially need honest feedback to grow. “If you look at rich people like Donald Trump and you neglect them, you get more Donald Trumps” says Torch co-founder and CEO Cameron Yarbrough about our gruff president. His app wants to make executive coaching (a polite word for therapy) part of even the busiest executive’s schedule.

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Clearbanc plans to disrupt venture capital with ‘The 20-Min Term Sheet’ Apr 04, 2019

Raising venture capital isn’t easy; for some, it’s impossible. Clearbanc offers startups a fundraising alternative — despite itself being well-capitalized by VCs — and is today launching a new campaign to back 2,000 businesses with $1 billion in non-dilutive capital by the end of 2019.

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How France’s new digital minister plans to regulate tech Apr 04, 2019

What happens when you’re working behind the scene with French President Emmanuel Macron and you suddenly become a minister? This is what’s happening to Cédric O this week who was appointed Minister for the Digital Economy on Sunday. I was the first journalist to interview him after his appointment. While Cédric O has been talking with the French tech ecosystem for years, he usually stays away from cameras and microphones.

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Lyft’s stock has a blue Monday as shares slide after public debut Apr 03, 2019

Today, investors took off their rose-colored glasses (and pink-colored mustaches) and looked at Lyft’s shares with fresh eyes after Friday’s ebullient debut. And — judging by the company’s share price at the end of the day — what they saw wasn’t exactly to their liking. Lyft’s shares suffered a pretty blue Monday in trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange today, closing down $9.28 (or 11.85 percent).

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FireHydrant lands $1.5M seed investment to bring order to IT disaster recovery Apr 03, 2019

FireHydrant, a NYC startup wants to help companies recover from IT disasters more quickly, and understand why they happened with the goal of preventing similar future scenarios from happening again. Today, the fledgling startup announced a $1.5 million seed investment from Work-Bench, a New York City venture capital firm that invests in early stage enterprise startups. In addition to the funding, the company announced it was opening registration for its FireHydrant incident management platform.

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Online catering marketplace ezCater gets another $150M at a $1.25B valuation Apr 02, 2019

In 2007, Stefania Mallett and Briscoe Rodgers conceived of ezCater, an online marketplace for business catering, and began building the company in Mallet’s Boston home, mostly at her kitchen table. Recently, sitting at that same table, Mallett negotiated with Brad Twohig of Lightspeed Venture Partners the final terms of a $150 million Series D-1 at a $1.25 billion valuation.

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Jio Health combines online and offline healthcare in Southeast Asia, starting in Vietnam Apr 02, 2019

The internet is often lauded for the potential to increase the impact of a range of primary services in emerging markets, including education, commerce, banking and healthcare. While many of those platforms are now being built, a few are finding that a hybrid approach combining online and offline is advantageous. That’s exactly what Jio Health, a “full stack” (forgive the phrase) healthcare startup is bringing to consumers in Southeast Asia, starting in Vietnam.

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Snap CEO’s sister Caroline Spiegel starts a no-visuals porn site Apr 01, 2019

If you took the photos and videos out of pornography, could it appeal to a new audience? Caroline Spiegel’s first startup Quinn aims to bring some imaginationto adult entertainment. Her older brother, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, spent years trying to convince people his app wasn’t just for sexy texting. Now Caroline is building a website dedicated to sexy text and audio.

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Ride-hailing, bike and scooter companies probably raised less money than you thought Apr 01, 2019

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor To get big faster, younger unicorns start buying startups sooner Small VC funds continue to raise, despite pressure from above After years of fierce competition as private companies, Uber and Lyft aregoing publicon U.S. markets.

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Lyft prices IPO at top of range Mar 29, 2019

Lyft raised more than $2 billion Thursday afternoon after pricing its shares at $72 apiece, the top of the expected range of $70 to $72 per share, per reports. This gives Lyft a fully-diluted market value of $24 billion. The company will debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday morning, trading under the ticker symbol “LYFT.

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Turns out The Correspondent isn’t opening a US newsroom after all Mar 29, 2019

Dutch news organization The Correspondent surprised some of its supporters earlier this week, when co-founder and CEO Ernst Pfauth posted an update on Medium saying that the company would not be opening a newsroom in New York City. Which was odd, since the organizationraised $2.6 millionin a crowdfunding campaign last fall with the express purpose of launching in the United States. At least, that’s what I thought.

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Goodly replaces lame office perks with student loan repayment Mar 28, 2019

There are better employee perks than a ping-pong table. 70 percent of Americans graduate college with student loan debt. That’s 45 million people who owe $1.6 trillion. So when employers useGoodly to offer $100 per month in student loan payback for a $6 fee, talent sticks around. The startup found 86 percent of employees said they’d stay with a company for at least five years if their employer helped pay down their student loans.

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Unicorns aren’t profitable, and Wall Street doesn’t care Mar 28, 2019

In Silicon Valley, investors don’t expect their portfolio companies to be profitable. “Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies,” a bible for founders, instead calls for heavy spending on growth to scale in an Amazon -like fashion. As for Wall Street, it’s shown an affinity for stock in Jeff Bezos’ business, despite the many years it spent navigating a path to profitability, as well as other money-losing endeavors.

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Startups Weekly: A much-needed unicorn IPO update Mar 27, 2019

As I’m sure everyone reading this knows, female-founded businesses receive just over 2 percent of venture capital on an annual basis. Most of those checks are written to early-stage startups. It’s extremely difficult for female founders to garner late-stage support, let alone cash $100 million checks. Maybe that’s finally changing.

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Lyft’s IPO is hot, YC demo day, two new unicorns, and what’s Boy Brow? Mar 26, 2019

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm took us through an IPO, a big round, 943 startup pitches, two new unicorns, and some scooter news. A very 2019 mix, really. Up first we took a peek at the latest from the Lyft IPO saga. Recall that Lyft is beating Uber to the public markets, and we can report that it’s having a good time doing so.

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Robotics process automation startup UiPath raising $400M at more than $7B valuation Mar 22, 2019

UiPath, a robotics process automation platform targeting IT businesses, is raising more than $400 million in Series D funding from venture capital investors at a valuation north of $7 billion, sources have confirmed to TechCrunch following a report from Business Insider. We’ve reached out to the company for comment. UiPath, founded in 2005, has raised $409 million to date, meaning the new round of capital will double the total capital invested in the startup, as well as its valuation.

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Morphin instantly Deepfakes your face into GIFs Mar 22, 2019

Want to star in your favorite memes and movie scenes? Upload a selfie to Morphin, choose your favorite GIF, and your face is grafted in to create a personalized copy you can share anywhere. Become Tony Stark as he suits up like Iron Man. Drop the mic like Obama, dance like Drake, or slap your mug on Fortnite characters. Now after three years in a stealth developing image mapping technology, Morphin is ready to launch its put-you-in-a-GIF maker.

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Lyft’s imminent IPO could value the company at $23B Mar 21, 2019

Ride-hailing firm Lyft will make its Nasdaq debut as early as next week at a valuation of up to $23 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports. The business will reportedly price its shares at between $62 and $68 apiece, raising roughly $2 billion in the process. With a $600 million financing, Lyft was valued at $15.1 billion in June. Lyft filed paperwork in December for an initial public offering, mere hours before its competitor Uber did the same.

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Custom framing startup Framebridge is opening two retail stores Mar 21, 2019

For a long while, you couldn’t swing a bag of cats around without hitting a retailer looking to create a digital presence. Now, the inverse is growing in popularity, with many digital-first retail brands looking to set up a brick-and-mortar shop. The latest is Framebridge, a custom framing startup that has raised more than $67 million. The company is launching two new retail stores in the D.C. area, one downtown and one in Bethesda.

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Patreon ups its revenue cut, but grandfathers in old creators Mar 20, 2019

Patreon couldn’t survive charging all creators just a 5 percent rake on the monthly subscriptions they earn from fans while building commerce tools like CRMs and merchandise to try to stay ahead of Twitch, YouTube and Google. But it also didn’t want to screw all its loyal early creators. So today, Patreon is overhauling its pricing. Any creator can still get a 5 percent rate, but just for a Lite version without bonus tools or different fan tiers.

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YC-backed Basement is a social network for close friends only Mar 19, 2019

The past few years have been a bit of a dark age for budding social media startups. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap and messenger apps took up all the time of their users, leaving little room for yet another social media platform. But the tide is shifting. Privacy scandals have shaken some users’ faith giants like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and users have grown fatigued by the constant onslaught of #content.

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Meet eFounders’ next batch of startups that want to redefine the future of work Mar 19, 2019

Meet eFounders’ next batch of startups that want to redefine the future of work European startup studio eFounders has been relentlessly building new startups over the past few years. In 2019, the company plans to launch Bonjour, a demo tool for sales teams, Chilli, a recommandation service to help small and medium companies leverage modern software-as-a-service products, and Swan, a banking API to generate banking services on demand.

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Decade in review: Trends in seed- and early-stage funding Mar 18, 2019

We’ve decided to step back from the breaking news for a minute to conduct a review of seed and early-stage funding trends over the last decade for U.S.-based companies. I’m fairly certain we can all agree that the environment for startups has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, specifically in two major ways: The development of seed funding as its own class and; The expansion of growth stage investing.

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London proptech startup Nested has laid off 20% of its workforce citing ‘Brexit uncertainty’ Mar 18, 2019

Nested, the London-based “data-driven” estate agency that provides a cash advance to help you buy a new home before you’ve sold your old one, has laid off 20 percent of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned. According to sources, the more than 15 staff being let go were informed earlier today. The majority of departures are within Nested’s operations team, including sales, although I understand they also include a number of engineers and other product people.

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WeWork Labs is launching a food tech accelerator Mar 15, 2019

WeWork Labs, the coworking giant’s startup program that relaunched just over a year ago, is announcing a new initiative focused on food and agriculture startups — WeWork Food Labs. Roee Adler, the global head of WeWork Labs, told me that there will be two main pieces to the Food Labs program.

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DoorDash claims drivers made an average of at least $17.50/hour on deliveries in 2018 Mar 14, 2019

On-demand food delivery startup DoorDash has been under fire as of late for its practices around paying drivers. In an email to drivers today, obtained by TechCrunch, DoorDash said drivers received an average of $17.50 or more per hour on a delivery in 2018. That figure, of course, does not take into account cost of mileage, payroll taxes for 1099 independent contractors and other expenses. Sage Wilson, an organizer at non-profit labor group Working Washington, explained to TechCrunch how that $17.

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Truepill, the ‘AWS for pharmacies,’ gets $10M from Initialized Capital Mar 14, 2019

Venture capitalists’ latest on-demand delivery bet is in the pharmaceutical space. Truepill, an online pharmacy powering delivery for the likes of Hims, Nurx, LemonAID and other direct-to-consumer healthcare brands, has nabbed a $10 million Series A from early-stage VC fund Initialized Capital. The investment brings the Y Combinator graduate’s total raised to $13.4 million. Y Combinator, Sound Ventures, Tuesday Capital and others participated in the round.

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Goalsetter gives parents a way to teach their kids how to save money Mar 13, 2019

When the bubble burst in the year 2000, Tanya Van Court lost over $1 million in stock and options over the course of a few minutes. Then and there she vowed to never let something like that happen to her children. Five years later, her daughter Gabrielle was born. At the time, she was a VP of Digital Product Dev at ESPN.

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The Dubler Studio Kit lets you use your voice to control synths, drum machines and other MIDI gear Mar 12, 2019

The Dubler Studio Kit lets you use your voice to control synths, drum machines and other MIDI gear Vochlea Music, a U.K. startup and alumni of Abbey Road Red, the music tech incubator from Abbey Road Studios, is launching a crowdfunding campaign today for “Dubler Studio Kit,” a new device and app that turns your voice into a MIDI controller for synths, drum machines, DAWs and other music gear.

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Bottomless has a solution for lazy coffee addicts Mar 12, 2019

If you’re like me, you let out a heavy sigh every month or so when you reach out and unexpectedly find an empty bag of coffee. Bottomless, one of the 200-plus startups in Y Combinator’s latest batch, has a solution for us caffeine addicts. For a $36 annual membership fee, a cost which co-founder Michael Mayer says isn’t set in stone, plus $11.29 per order depending on the blend, Bottomless will automatically restock your coffee supply before you run out.

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Startups Weekly: What’s up with YC? Plus, mobility layoffs and Airbnb’s grand plans Mar 11, 2019

Where to begin… Netflix darling Marie Kondo is hitting up Sand Hill Road in search of $40 million to fund an ecommerce platform, Y Combinator is giving $150,000 to a startup building a $380,000 flying motorcycle (because why not) and Jibo, the social robot, is calling it quits, speaking to owners directly of its imminent shutdown. It was a hectic week in unicorn land so, I’m just going to get right to the good stuff.

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Changes at YC, $1.5B more for ride hailing, and Airbnb buys HotelTonight Mar 11, 2019

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back to basics this week with Kate Clark at the helm, Alex Wilhelm in the sidecar, and a stack of venture capital news and happenings to get through. And to make everyone feel included, we kicked off the episode with a roll-call of new VC funds. Then, of course, we dug into the recent news out of Y Combinator .

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Bird launches platform to let entrepreneurs manage their own fleet of scooters Mar 08, 2019

Bird launches platform to let entrepreneurs manage their own fleet of scooters Bird is launching its new program, Bird Platform, in New Zealand, Canada and Latin America in the coming weeks. First up is New Zealand, where Bird has partnered with a local entrepreneur to manage a fleet of Bird electric scooters. Residents of New Zealand will start to see Bird scooters on the streets next week.

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WellSaid aims to make natural-sounding synthetic speech a credible alternative to real humans Mar 08, 2019

Many things are better said than read, but the best voice tech out there seems to be reserved for virtual assistants, not screen readers or automatically generated audiobooks. WellSaid wants to enable any creator to use quality synthetic speech instead of a human voice — perhaps even a synthetic version of themselves. There’s been a series of major advances in voice synthesis over the last couple years as neural network technology improves on the old highly manual approach.

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Clari platform aims to unify go-to-market operations data Mar 07, 2019

Clari started out as a company that wanted to give sales teams more information about their sales process than could be found in the CRM database. Today, the company announced a much broader platform, one that can provide insight across sales, marketing and customer service to give a more unified view of a company’s go-to-market operations, all enhanced by AI.

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Red Cat wants to track drone flight data on the blockchain Mar 07, 2019

Red Cat, a startup that wants to store drone flight data on the blockchain to guarantee immutability, announced the second Beta of its drone data platform today. Jeff Thompson, CEO of Red Cat says in 2017 he was looking at what was holding back the commercial drone business and the need for a black-box kind of system became apparent to him. The so-called black box is really a flight recorder that tracks data about a flight.

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The Silicon Valley exodus continues Mar 06, 2019

For a long time, it was the norm for founders to haul their hardware to the 3000 block of Sand Hill Road, where the venture capitalists of “Silicon Valley” would be awaiting their pitches. Today, many of the investors that touted the exclusivity of “The Valley” have moved north to San Francisco, where they have better access to top entrepreneurs.

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Eargo raises $52M for virtually invisible, rechargeable hearing aids Mar 06, 2019

Eargo wants to become the ultimate consumer hearing brand. The company’s small and virtually invisible direct-to-consumer hearing aids, which come in an AirPods-style chargeable case, are designed to help destigmatize hearing loss. One month after revealing its newest product — the Eargo Neo ($2,550), which can be customized remotely via the case’s Bluetooth connectivity — the startup has closed a $52 million Series D, bringing its total raised to date to $135 million.

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Jupiter raises $23 million to tell businesses and governments how climate change will destroy them Mar 05, 2019

Jupiter raises $23 million to tell businesses and governments how climate change will destroy them Whether it’s by flood, fire or the fury of a storm, climate-related catastrophes are now impacting most cities and towns across the country.

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Glossier launches its first spin-off brand, a line of Instagram-friendly ‘dialed-up’ beauty extras Mar 05, 2019

Glossier, known for its line of understated makeup products and a cult-following of millennial Instagrammers, is getting colorful with the launch of its first spin-off brand, Glossier Play. The company — led by founder and chief executive officer Emily Weiss, who built the nearly $400 million business from a makeup blog called Into The Gloss — has raised a total of $92 million in venture capital funding from top-tier consumer investors Forerunner Ventures, Index Ventures and IVP.

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Ceros raises $14M for its interactive content platform Mar 04, 2019

Cerosallows marketers to create animated, interactive content — but don’t call it a content marketing company. “We think content is just a dry, bland, over-leveraged, oversaturated space,” said founder and CEO Simon Berg. “The goal is not to hack the system, the goal is to make a great experience for your customers.” That’s why he describes Ceros as a platform for creating experiences.

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Cherry lets startup employees choose their own office perks Mar 01, 2019

Forget the office ping pong table,Cherry, a startup in Y Combinator’s latest batch, wants to let employees take company perks into their own hands.

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Sequoia-backed Medallia files to raise $70M at a $1.7B valuation, documents show Mar 01, 2019

Customer experience management platform Medallia has filed to raise up to $70 million in Series F funding, according to regulatory documents obtained by the Prime Unicorn Index. The new shares were priced at $15 apiece, valuing the nearly two-decades-old business at $1.7 billion. We’ve reached out to Medallia for comment. Medallia is expected to finally transition to the public markets in 2019, a year chock-full of high-profile unicorn IPOs.

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Search marketing company Botify raises $20M Feb 28, 2019

Botify, a search engine optimization company that works with customers like Expedia and Nike, announced today that it has raised $20 million in Series B funding. Co-founder and CEO Adrien Menard said that the opportunity in SEO is “even bigger now than in the past,” and that the problem ismuch broader problem than many realize.

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The Shadow Ghost turns cloud gaming into a seamless experience Feb 28, 2019

French startup Blade, the company behind Shadow, is launching a new set-top box to access its cloud gaming service — the Shadow Ghost. I’ve been playing with the device for a couple of weeks and here’s my review. The Shadow Ghost is a tiny little box that doesn’t do much. The true magic happens in a data center near your home. When you sign up to Shadow, you don’t even have to get a box.

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For a monthly subscription fee, this startup will send out customized gifts to current and prospective clients at scale Feb 27, 2019

For a monthly subscription fee, this startup will send out customized gifts to current and prospective clients at scale In today’s noisy, fast-paced world, finding a way to let clients and potential customers know that they are top of mind can be a major challenge for companies. Enter Sendoso, a 2.5-year-old, San Francisco-based online-to-offline startup that promises to source, store and ship anything a business ever needs to send — and track its return on investment, to boot.

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Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund, leads $7M investment in English learning app Elsa Feb 27, 2019

Google’s Gradient Ventures, the search giant’s dedicated AI fund, is casting its eye to Asia after it led a $7 million Series A round for Elsa, a startup that operates an app for English language learners. The deal is Gradient’s first in Asia, and it includes participation from existing investors Monk’s Hill Ventures and SOSV. Elsa has now raised $12 million to date.

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Ubiquitilink advance means every phone is now a satellite phone Feb 26, 2019

Last month I wrote about Ubiquitilink, which promised, through undisclosed means, it was on the verge of providing a sort of global satellite-based roaming service. But how, I asked? (Wait, they told me.) Turns out our phones are capable of a lot more than we think: they can reach satellites acting as cell towers in orbit just fine, and the company just proved it.

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Airbnb, Automattic and Pinterest top rank of most acquisitive unicorns Feb 25, 2019

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor Companies raising supergiant VC aren’t getting any younger Coastal startups don’t have a monopoly on raising big at early-stage It takes a lot more than a good idea and the right timing to build a billion-dollar company.

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DoorDash raises $400M round, now valued at $7.1B Feb 25, 2019

Delivery company DoorDash is announcing that it has raised $400 million in Series F financing. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was looking to raise $500 million at a valuation of $6 billion or more. In fact, DoorDash now says the funding came at a $7.1 billion valuation.

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wearTRBL lets you express yourself with a connected T-shirt Feb 22, 2019

When I interviewed Parrot founder and CEO Henri Seydoux at TechCrunch Disrupt back in 2016, he surprised everyone when he said he was working on a new kind of T-shirt —nobody knew for sure whether he was joking or not. But the connected T-shirt is real, and it’s called wearTRBL. While the project started as a Parrot subsidiary, the company was spun off in July 2018. Seydoux is still credited as co-founder and Olivier Levy acts as co-founder and CEO.

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EF raises $115M new fund, aiming to create another 300-plus startups in the next three years Feb 20, 2019

Entrepreneur First (EF), the London-headquartered “talent investor” that recruits and backs individuals pre-team and pre-idea to enable them to found startups, has raised a new fund of its own to continue scaling globally. The $115 million first close was led by a number of leading (mostly unnamed) institutional investors across the U.S., Europe and Asia, including new anchor LP Trusted Insight. A number of well-known European entrepreneurs also invested.

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SendBird snags $52M Series B to expand messaging API tool Feb 19, 2019

SendBird, a San Francisco area startup, helps developers add messaging to their apps with a couple of lines of code. It’s an idea similar to Stripe for payments or Twilio for communications. Today, the company announced a $52 million Series B investment. The round was led by Iconiq Capital. Existing investors Shasta Ventures, August Capital, Y Combinator, and Funders Club also participated. Today’s investment brings the total raised to over $70 million, according to Crunchbase.

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Startups Weekly: Is Y Combinator’s latest cohort too big? Feb 19, 2019

Greetings from Chittorgarh, one of my stops on a two-week excursion through Goa and Rajasthan, India. I’ve been a little too busy exploring, photographing cows and monkeys and eating a lot of delicious food to keep up with *all* the tech news, but I’ve still got the highlights. For starters, if you haven’t heard yet, TechCrunch launched Extra Crunch, a paid premium subscription offering full of amazing content.

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Alan raises another $45 million for its health insurance product Feb 18, 2019

Paris-based startup Alan has raised a Series B round of funding of $45 million (€40 million). Index Ventures is once again leading the round, with partners of DST Global also participating. The company had raised a $28 million funding round only ten months ago. Alan is a software-as-a-service startup tackling a very specific industry — the health insurance market in France — and soon across Europe.

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3DEN raises $2M to create pay-as-you-go urban spaces Feb 18, 2019

3DEN is building spaces for what it calls the “in-between moments” of your day. The name (pronounced “Eden”) comes from the idea of the “third place” — a space that’s neither home nor work. Founder and CEO Ben Silver told me the idea is to create a space that people can use if, say, they’ve got 45 minutes to fill between meetings, or if they’ve just gotten off a red eye flight and need somewhere to freshen up.

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WeWork launches skills-based profiles as a value add for tenants Feb 15, 2019

WeWork has made a big name for itself in a short period of time as a global co-working space. In fact, WeWork is now the largest private office tenant in all of Manhattan. But whether the real estate play alone can support its reported $47 billion valuation still remains to be seen. That might explain the company’s 2018 acquisition spree, as well as today’s newly announced changes to the WeWork app.

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Why your startup may not be as great as everyone says Feb 15, 2019

Gil Ben-Artzy Contributor Gil Ben-Artzy is a founding partner at UpWest Labs. One of the very first things we ask Israeli entrepreneurs who are hoping to break into the U.S. market is to tell us how their product or service is being received by their target market. What is the feedback? Are potential customers hungry for what the team is selling? Validation, both of the broader vision and the early product itself, has to be a key focus for any aspiring entrepreneur.

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Donde Search picks up $6 million to help fashion retailers with visual search Feb 14, 2019

Donde Search has just closed a $6 million Series A investment led by Matrix Partners, with participation from previous investors such as senior leaders from AliExpress, Google and Waze. Donde first launched in 2014 as a consumer-facing app that helped users search and discover apparel items based on visual characteristics rather than text-based searches. In early 2018, the company pivoted to the enterprise space, helping retailers power suggestions and related items on their websites.

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Tim Cook-backed shower startup Nebia shows off a warmer, water-saving shower head Feb 14, 2019

I’m not in the habit of getting naked during meetings at startup offices, but this time it felt appropriate. Nebia, a shower startup that has attracted investments from the likes of Apple CEO Tim Cook and former Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s foundationis back with some new cash (though it won’t divulge how much) and a new generation of its thoughtfully designed shower heads that aim to dramatically reduce the amount of water people use while cleaning up.

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DoorDash subsidizes driver wages with tips Feb 13, 2019

It’s true that DoorDash offsets the amount it pays its drivers with customer tip, according to an FAQ page on its own site. “For each delivery, you will always receive at least $1 from DoorDash plus 100% of the customer tip,” DoorDash states on a Dasher FAQ page.“Where that sum is less than the guaranteed amount, DoorDash will provide a pay boost to make sure you receive the guaranteed amount.

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Glide helps you build mobile apps from a spreadsheet without coding Feb 13, 2019

The founders of Glide, a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 class, had a notion that building mobile apps in the enterprise was too hard. They decided to simplify the process by starting with a spreadsheet, and automatically turning the contents into a slick mobile app.

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Startups Weekly: Spotify gets acquisitive and Instacart screws up Feb 12, 2019

Did anyone else listen to season one of StartUp, Alex Blumberg’s OG Gimlet podcast? I did, and I felt like a proud mom this week reading stories of the major, first-of-its-kindSpotify acquisition of his podcast production company, Gimlet. Spotify also bought Anchor, a podcast monetization platform, signaling a new era for the podcasting industry.

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Startup names may have passed peak weirdness Feb 12, 2019

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Where seed and early-stage funding is growing, contracting or holding steady Hire faster, work happier: Startups target employment with AI and engagement tools For years, decades even, startup names have been getting weirder. This isn’t a scientific verdict, but it is how things have seemed to someone who spends a lot of hours perusing this stuff.

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Facebook picks up retail computer vision outfit GrokStyle Feb 11, 2019

If you’ve ever seen a lamp or chair that you liked and wished you could just take a picture and find it online, well, GrokStyle let you do that — and now the company has been snatched up by Facebook to augment its own growing computer vision department. GrokStyle started as a paper — as AI companies often do these days — at 2015’s SIGGRAPH.

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Airbnb hires a global head of transportation Feb 11, 2019

Airbnb made it easier for travelers to find a place to crash. Now it wants to make it easier for them to get around. The $31 billion home-sharing giant has hired Fred Reid as its first-ever global head of transportation. Reid served as the founding chief executiveofficer of Virgin America from 2004 to 2007 after a three-year stint as the president of Delta Airlines.

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Gametime lets you buy tickets for games and concerts that have already started Feb 08, 2019

Ticketing app Gametime is taking its last-minute approach about as far as it can go, with the launch of a new feature called LastCall. This allows users to purchase tickets through Gametime until 90 minutes after an event has started.

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Thriva expands its range of test-at-home kits to add female hormone and cortisol stress tests Feb 08, 2019

UK home health analysis kit startup Thriva is adding three more products to its range later this month: A saliva-based cortisol stress test and two female hormone kits. The Seedcamp-backedUK startup has been offering blood-prick-based health monitoring kits since 2016, and says it’s had more than 50,000 customers sign up to stab their own finger with its spring-loaded plastic lancet and massage a drop of blood into a tube to post away for lab-based analysis.

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Self-driving truck startup Ike raises $52 million Feb 07, 2019

Ike, the autonomous trucking startup founded by veterans of Apple, Google and Uber Advanced Technologies Group’s self-driving truck program, has raised $52 million in a Series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures. Redpoint Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, Basis Set Ventures and Neo also participated in the round.Bain Capital Ventures partner Ajay Agarwal has joined Ike’s board.

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Bird CEO on scooter startup copycats, unit economics, safety and seasonality Feb 06, 2019

Bird’s electric scooters were on full display at the Upfront Summit in Malibu last week, a two-day event that brings togetherthe likes of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC’s elite. Not only were a dozen or so brand spanking new scooters available to ride throughout the event but Upfront general partner Mark Suster, an investor in the startup, was seen riding a Bird on stage to the tune of Chamillionaire’s ‘Ridin’ Dirty.

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Bots are cheap and effective. One startup trolls them into going away Feb 06, 2019

Bots are ruining the internet. When they’re not pummeling a website with usernames and passwords from a long list of stolen credentials, they’re scraping the price of hotels or train tickets and odds from betting sites to get the best data. Or, they’re just trying to knock a website offline for hours at a time. There’s an entire underground economy where bots are the primary tools used in automating fraudulent purchases, scraping content and launching cyberattacks.

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Aurora Solar’s computer-generated installation maps pull in a $20M Series A Feb 05, 2019

Solar installations are becoming a no-brainer for anyone with a roof in much of the country. But getting an estimate on how much it would cost and how much juice it would generate can be complicated and time consuming. Aurora Solar has made an automated process for doing this, and attracted $20 million in funding as a result. A big part of the uncertainty anyone has about getting solar installed is the upfront cost and return on investment.

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Austin in January: Cash rich and maturing Feb 04, 2019

Mary Ann Azevedo Contributor Share on Twitter Mary Ann Azevedo covers startups and tech at Crunchbase News. 2019 has been good to the Austin startup scene so far. Combined, Austin startups have raised $240.3 million in January. That’s not much less than the nearly $300 million raised inall of Q4 2018. And since the beginning of the year, the Texas capital has seen a number of double-digit funding rounds and a nearly quarter of a billion dollaracquisition.

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Timescale announces $15M investment and new enterprise version of TimescaleDB Feb 04, 2019

It’s a big day for Timescale, makers of the open source time series database, TimescaleDB. The company announced a $15 million investment and a new enterprise version of the product. The investment is technically an extension of the $12.4 million Series A it raised last January, which it’s referring to as A1. Today’s round is led by Icon Ventures with existing investors Benchmark, NEA and Two Sigma Ventures also participating.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s artist-collaboration platform HitRecord raises $6.4M Feb 01, 2019

In the early 2000s, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt was frustrated with the roles he was being offered. Instead of starring in critically acclaimed indies, he was typecast as “the funny kid on TV” due to roles like Tommy from “3rd Rock from the Sun.” So like anyone who matured alongside the internet, he created a website where he could ideate, produce and share his work.

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Step targets teens and parents with a no-fees mobile bank account and Visa card Feb 01, 2019

A new mobile banking startup called Step wants to help bring teenagers and other young adults into the cashless era. Today, cash is used less often, as more consumers shop online and send money to one another through payment apps like Venmo. But teenagers in particular are still heavily burdened with cash — even though they, too, want to spend their money on things that require a payment card, like Amazon.com purchases or mobile gaming, for example. That’s where Step comes in.

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Cosmic JS wants to simplify web development, so you can focus on content Jan 31, 2019

If you are a web developer, you know how complex many of the traditional web content management systems have been. One of the big problems has been managing the underlying infrastructure for the system. Cosmic JS, a member of the Winter 2019 Y Combinator class, wants to simplify that by taking care of the infrastructure part for you, while providing a flexible front end for content creators.

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Amex blocks Curve as the fintech startup vows to fight “anti-competitive” decision Jan 30, 2019

Well, that was short-lived: Just 36 hours after Curve, the London fintech that lets you consolidate all of your bank cards into a single Curve card, re-instated support for Amex, the feature has once again been unceremoniously blocked by American Express. This time, however, the context feels very different from 2016 when the startup was barely off the ground, with Curve telling customers in an email this morning that it intends to “fight Amex’s decision with our full might”.

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YC-backed Oxygen raises seed to bring digital banking to freelancers Jan 30, 2019

Few things are easy in our financial system if you don’t have regular employment. It’s hard to prove (regular) income, which makes applying for a credit card or personal loan much more difficult and time-consuming. That’s particularly tough, since freelancer income is variable, and these sort of income smoothing tools can be critical to make ends meet.

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The new Parsley Health Center in NYC doesn’t feel like a doctor’s office Jan 29, 2019

Parsley Health has just opened up a new, fully redesigned space on Fifth Avenue in New York City, marking the first true Parsley Health Center. Since launch, the startup has been operating out of clinics in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. But TechCrunch got the chance to check out Parsley’s new Fifth Ave location, which marks the company’s first space designed from the ground up as Parsley Health. Founded by Dr.

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Sequoia-backed NEXT gets $97M as investment in logistics heats up Jan 28, 2019

Despite its “unsexy” reputation, the logistics industry is attracting massive investment from venture capitalists. With a fresh $97 million in Series C funding, NEXT joins a fleet of heavily funded logistics platforms, including Flexport, Huochebang and Convoy. The company, which connects shippers and carriers through an online marketplace, raised the capital fromBrookfield Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital and logistics solutions provider GLP.

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Verizon’s unlimited data carrier Visible starts selling iPhones, announces Android compatibility Jan 25, 2019

When Verizon stealthily launched a new startup called Visible last year, it operated under a bring-your-own-device model — to sign up, you needed to already have an unlocked iPhone, and Visible would send you a new SIM card. Today, however, Visible is announcing that it’s partnering with Affirm and Apple to sell iPhones with 0 percent APR financing.

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After an abrupt shutdown, Munchery’s small business vendors are the ones picking up the bill Jan 25, 2019

Munchery’s vendors claim the food delivery startup took advantage of them in its final hours, knowingly allowing them to continue making deliveries it couldn’t pay for. Earlier this week, Munchery surprised customers with an email announcing it wouldcease operations, effective immediately.

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How we’re finding the best lawyers for early-stage startups Jan 24, 2019

We’re nearing 1,000 submissions from startup founders and leaders in Silicon Valley and across the world about the best early-stage tech lawyers to work with. As we’ve sorted through survey responses and begun scheduling interviews with the first qualified nominees, we’ve gotten a bunch of questions. We love questions. First of all, why are we creating a living list of great tech startup lawyers?Lawyers don’t create startups, but they can help great startups succeed.

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The Pill Club raises $51M as VCs find new opportunities in women’s health Jan 24, 2019

Through telemedicine and direct-to-consumer sales platforms, startups are streamlining the historically arduous process of accessing contraception. The latest effort to secure a significant financing round is The Pill Club, an online birth control prescription and delivery service.

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Roger Dickey ditches $32M-funded Gigster to start Untitled Labs Jan 23, 2019

Most founders don’t walk away from their startup after raising $32 million and reaching 1000 clients. But Roger Dickey’s heart is in consumer tech, and his company Gigster had pivoted to doing outsourced app development for enterprises instead of scrappy entrepreneurs. So today Dickey announced that he’d left his role as Gigster CEO, with former VMware VP Christopher Keane who’d sold it his startup WaveMaker coming in to lead Gigster in October.

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UK startup veteran and investor Wendy Tan White joins Alphabet X as Vice President Jan 22, 2019

Wendy Tan White, a veteran of the U.K. startup scene — including founding SaaS website builder Moonfruit, which exited to Yell Group for $37 million — is joining Alphabet X (formerly Google X), TechCrunch has learned. According to sources, Tan White was approached by Google late last year, as she weighed up a number of other options, including raising a VC fund of her own dedicated to “deep tech”.

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Following a record year, Illinois startups kick off 2019 on a strong foot Jan 21, 2019

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor SoftBank’s Vision Fund inches closer to $100B The top 10 cities for $100M VC rounds in 2018 so far Illinois’s startup market in 2018 was very strong, and it’s not slowing down as we settle into 2019.

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Alation announces $50M Series C investment as data catalog biz takes off Jan 21, 2019

Alation, a startup that helps crawl a company’s databases in order to build a data search catalogue, announced a $50 million Series C investment today. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. Existing investors Costanoa Ventures, DCVC (Data Collective), Harmony Partners and Icon Venturesalso participated. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $82 million, according to Crunchbase data.

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Slack’s product chief is out ahead of direct listing Jan 18, 2019

Slack is losing its chief product officer April Underwood ahead of a direct listing expected in 2019. Tamar Yehoshua, a long-time Google vice president, has been tapped to fill Underwood’s shoes as Slack’s new product chief. Underwood joined Slack, the provider of workplace communication tools, in 2015 as its head of platform after a five-year stint as Twitter’s director of product. She was promoted to the chief product role about 10 months ago.

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Squad is the new screensharing chat app everyone will copy Jan 18, 2019

Squad could be the next teen sensation because it makes it easy to do nothing… together. Spending time with friends in the modern age often means just being on your phones next to each other, occasionally showing off something funny you found. Squad lets you do this even while apart, and that way of punctuating video chat might make it the teen girl “third place” like Fortnite is for adolescent boys.

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Techstars will build and launch startups with new venture studio Jan 17, 2019

Similar to Y Combinator, early-stage technology startup accelerator Techstars has spent much of the last decade supporting and seeding innovative projects, including Plated, ClassPass, SendGrid and PillPack. Now, it wants to take its service a step further. Today, Techstars is announcing the launch of Techstars Studio, a new venture that will have the accelerator developing and launching venture-scale businesses with the support of several corporate partners.

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YC-backed Upsolve is automating bankruptcy for everyone Jan 17, 2019

The popular image of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy might be a large company like Enron failing, or maybe some lazy drifter trying to shirk their financial responsibilities. The reality is anything but those sorts of images. Today in America, the most common reason for bankruptcy is to discharge egregious sums of medical debt [1], which might have been incurred in a short stint in a hospital emergency room.

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For $5,800 per year, Chief helps women reach the C-suite Jan 16, 2019

For decades, women in business have lacked the resources necessary to navigate to or sustain executive roles. Finally, venture-funded projects have emerged to fill this gap. The latest is Chief, a private network for New York-based women in senior roles intech, retail, enterprise, finance, media and more.

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Opendoor competitor Knock raises $400M Jan 16, 2019

Home trade-in platform Knock has brought in a $400 million investment to accelerate a national expansion and double its 100-person headcount. Foundry Group has led the Series B funding round in New York-based Knock, with participation from Company Ventures and existing investors RRE Ventures, Corazon Capital, WTI and FJ Labs .Knock co-founder and chief executive officer Sean Black declined to disclose the startup’s valuation.

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Daily Crunch: Bing has a child porn problem Jan 15, 2019

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here: 1. Microsoft Bing not only shows child pornography, it suggests it A TechCrunch-commissioned report has found damning evidence on Microsoft’s search engine.

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Startups Weekly: Will Trump ruin the unicorn IPOs of our dreams? Jan 14, 2019

The government shutdown entered its 21st day on Friday, upping concerns of potentially long-lasting impacts on the U.S. stock market. Private market investors around the country applauded when Uberfinallyfiled documents with the SEC to go public. Others were giddy to hear Lyft, Pinterest, Postmates and Slack (via a direct listing, according to the latest reports) were likely to IPO in 2019, too.

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Elon Musk shows off the assembled Starship test rocket Jan 14, 2019

After weeks teasing renderings and production photos, Elon Musk finally showed off the finished Starship test rocket last night. Starship test flight rocket just finished assembly at the @SpaceX Texas launch site. This is an actual picture, not a rendering. pic.twitter.com/k1HkueoXaz — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 11, 2019 As you can well see, the Starship test rocket has a stainless steel skin, which had a few people scratching their heads.

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Meet Caper, the AI self-checkout shopping cart Jan 11, 2019

The Amazon boogie-man has every retailer scrambling for ways to fight back. But the cost and effort to install cameras all over the ceiling or into every shelf could block stores from entering the autonomous shopping era. Caper Labs wants to make eliminating checkout lines as easy as replacing their shopping carts while offering a more familiar experience for customers.

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Uber’s IPO may not be as eye-popping as we expected Jan 11, 2019

Uber is expected to raise $10 billion later this year in one of the largest U.S. initial public offerings in history. The float will value the ride-hailing giant somewhere between $76 billion — the valuation it garnered with its last private financing — and $120 billion — a sky-high figure assigned by Wall Street bankers that’s had even early Uber investors scratching their heads. A new report from The Information pegs Uber’s initial market cap at $90 billion.

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Daily Crunch: Well Facebook, you did it again Jan 10, 2019

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here: 1. Facebook is the new crapware Well Facebook, you did it again. Fresh off its latest privacy scandal, the troubled social media giant has inked a deal with Android to pre-install its app on an undisclosed number of phones and make the software permanent.

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Daily Crunch: The age of quantum computing is here Jan 09, 2019

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here: 1.IBM unveils its first commercial quantum computer The 20-qubit system combines the quantum and classical computing parts it takes to use a machine like this for research and business applications into a single package.

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Hire faster, work happier: Startups target employment with AI and engagement tools Jan 08, 2019

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Robot couriers scoop up early-stage cash Bots replacing office workers drive big valuations If you have a job today, there’s a good chance you personally reached out to your employer and interviewed with other humans to get it. Now that you’ve been there a while, it’s also likely the workday feels more like a long slog than the fulfilling career move you had envisioned.

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Daily Crunch: Nvidia breaks with tradition at CES 2019 Jan 08, 2019

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here: 1. Nvidia launches the $349 GeForce RTX 2060 Nvidia broke with tradition and put a new focus on gaming at CES. Last night the company unveiled the RTX 2060, a $349 low-end version of its new Turing-based desktop graphics cards. The RTX 2060 will be available on Jan. 15. 2.

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Startups Weekly: VCs celebrate the new year the only way they know how Jan 07, 2019

Venture capitalists swore in the new year the only way they know how… by submitting SEC paperwork for new funds! insert party hat/confetti emoji here. As many of us brainstormed our New Year’s resolutions and let our hangovers wear off, several firms began this week what for some is a long and arduousprocess of raising a VC fund and for others is as simple as a few phone calls to LPs.

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Moesif raises $3.5M seed round to provide insight into API usage Jan 07, 2019

Today, many companies provide developer access to their services via APIs.Moesif, a San Francisco startup, wants to help these companies gain insight into their customer’s API usage patterns. Today, the company announced a $3.5 million seed round. The investment was led by Merus Capital with participation by Heavybit, Fresco Capital and Zach Coelius, who sold his startup, Cruise Automation, to General Motors for $1 billion in 2016.

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NYSE operator’s crypto project Bakkt brings in $182M Jan 02, 2019

The Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) cryptocurrency projectBakkt celebrated New Year’s Eve with the announcement of a $182.5 million equity round from a slew of notable institutional investors. ICE, the operator of several global exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange, established Bakkt to build a trading platform that enables consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets.

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Samsara banks $100M at a $3.6B valuation for its internet-connected sensors Dec 31, 2018

Sensor data platform Samsara confirmed this morning that it had closed a new round of funding from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst that values the startup at $3.6 billion. The news was first reported by Cheddar, which spotted a filing with the state of Delaware on December 21 disclosing Samsara’s intent to raise a $100 million round at more than double the valuation it garnered upon its $50 million Series Dthis March.

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Venture capital, global expansion, blockchain and drones characterize African tech in 2018 Dec 31, 2018

Jake Bright Contributor Jake Bright is a writer and author in New York City. He is co-author of The Next Africa. More posts by this contributor IBM Africa and Hello Tractor pilot AI/blockchain agtech platform Africa Roundup: Terragon’s Asia acquisition, Twiga Foods’ $10M raise, SimbaPay’s China payment service 2018 saw Africa’s tech sector become more dynamic and international. VC firms on the continent multiplied. There were numerous investment rounds.

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Why your startup shouldn’t rush to $1 million in revenue Dec 28, 2018

Martina Lauchengco Contributor Share on Twitter Martina spent over 20 years as a marketing and product executive building and crafting strategies for market-defining software like Microsoft Office and Netscape Navigator. As an operating partner at Costanoa Ventures, she sits on multiple boards and advises companies on all things go-to-market. She also teaches at the UC Berkeley graduate school of engineering.

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Cap table management tool Carta valued at $800M with new funding Dec 28, 2018

Startups supporting startups are blazing a new trail with support from venture capitalists. Co-working spaces like The Wing and The Riveter raked in funding rounds this year, as did Brex, the provider of a corporate card built specifically for startups. Now Carta, which helps companies manage their cap tables, valuations, portfolio investments and equity plans, has announced an $80 million Series D at a valuation of $800 million.

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Captiv8 report highlights data for spotting fake followers Dec 27, 2018

Captiv8, a company offering tools for brands to manage influencer marketing campaigns, has released its 2018 Fraud Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report. The goal is to give marketers the data they need to spot fake followers — and thus, to separate the influencers with a real following from those who only offer the illusion of engagement. The report argues that that this a problem with a real financial impact (it’s something that Instagram is working to crack down on), with $2.

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A new solar technology could be the next big boost for renewable energy Dec 27, 2018

A new solar technology could be the next big boost for renewable energy Across the globe, a clutch of companies from Oxford, England to Redwood City, Calif. are working to commercialize a new solar technology that could further boost the adoption of renewable energy generation. Earlier this year, Oxford PV, a startup working in tandem with Oxford University,received $3 million from the U.K. government to develop the technology, which uses a new kind of material to make solar cells.

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My product launch wishlist for Instagram, Twitter, Uber and more Dec 26, 2018

‘Twas the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a feature was stirring from the designer’s mouse . . . Not Twitter! Not Uber, Not Apple or Pinterest! On Facebook! On Snapchat! On Lyft or on Insta! . . . From the sidelines I ask you to flex your code’s might. Happy Xmas to all if you make these apps right. Instagram See More Like This – A button on feed posts that when tapped inserts a burst of similar posts before the timeline continues.

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HQ Trivia launches HQ Words tonight under reinstalled CEO Dec 25, 2018

HQ’s expansion beyond trivia emerges from beta tonight, but the question is whether it’s different and accessible enough to revive the startup’s growth. HQ Words opens to everyone with today’s 6:30pm pacific broadcast within the HQ Trivia app after several weeks of closed beta testing of the Wheel Of Fortune-style game.

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How Juul made vaping viral to become worth a dirty $38 billion Dec 24, 2018

A Juul is not a cigarette. It’s much easier than that. Through devilishly slick product design I’ll discuss here, the startup has massively lowered the barrier to getting hooked on nicotine. Juul has dismantled every deterrent to taking a puff. The result is both a new $38 billion valuation thanks to a $12.8 billion investment from Marlboro Cigarettes-maker Altria this week, and an explosion in popularity of vaping amongst teenagers and the rest of the population.

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Boosted nabs $60M as the electric skateboard maker looks to build something new Dec 24, 2018

Boosted nabs $60M as the electric skateboard maker looks to build something new Boosted has scored some serious cash as it looks to move beyond the world of electric skateboards to conquer new forms of personal transportation. The startup announced today that it has closed a $60 million round of Series B funding co-led by Khosla Ventures andiNovia Capital.Stanford’s StartX and Bay Meadows also participated in the round. Boosted has now raised north of $70 million.

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Teeth aligner startup Candid opens up physical locations in SF Dec 21, 2018

Candid, a teeth aligner startup that aims to make straight teeth more accessible and more affordable than Invisalign, is evolving its direct-to-consumer business. In addition to its at-home impression process, Candid recently started enabling people to come into a physical office to get their teeth scans completed. Today, Candid is opening physical storefronts in San Francisco, Austin, Columbus, Ohio and Santa Monica, Calif.

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Earnin raises $125M to help workers track and cash out wages in real time Dec 21, 2018

BeforeRam Palaniappan founded Earnin, he developed a system for employees at a payments company called UniRush, where he spent eight years as president. If you needed money before payday, he would write you a check from his checking account and when payday rolled around, employees would reimburse him.

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Square Roots is bringing more transparency to its produce Dec 20, 2018

If you’re concerned about what you eat, there’s a good chance you’ve looked at the food in the supermarket, or in your fridge, and wondered where it actually comes from. Now urban farming incubator Square Roots is introducing a new way for you to check full history of the produce that you’re about to purchase. To do so, you just scan the QR code or type in the lot number that the company says will be included in the packaging of all its produce moving forward.

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Coinbase’s Earn.com becomes a crypto webinar with crypto rewards Dec 20, 2018

Coinbase acquired Earn.com for at least $120 million back in April. And the company now plans to transform Earn.com into Coinbase Earn, a website with educational content to learn more about cryptocurrencies. Users who complete those classes will earn tokens. Coinbase bought Earn.com partly so that it could appoint Earn.com co-founder and CEO Balaji Srinivasan as Coinbase’s CTO. The previous iteration of Earn.com wasn’t a priority for Coinbase. Earn.

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The Wing gets $75M from Sequoia, Airbnb Dec 19, 2018

The Wing, the owner of several co-working spaces and social clubs designed for women, has garnered the support of Sequoia Capital in its latest funding round. The startup has announced a $75 million Series C led by the storied venture capital firm, with support from Airbnb and Upfront Ventures, as well as existing investors NEA and WeWork. Headquartered in New York, The Wing was founded by Audrey Gelman and Lauren Kassan in 2015. To date, the pair have raised $117.

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At cobotics startup Formant, ex-Googlers team up humans & machines Dec 19, 2018

Our distinct skillsets and shortcomings mean people and robots will join forces for the next few decades. Robots are tireless, efficient, and reliable, but in a millisecond through intuition and situational awareness, humans can make decisions machine can’t.Until workplace robots are truly autonomous and don’t require any human thinking, we’ll need software to supervise them at scale.

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Lightspeed is raising its largest China fund yet Dec 18, 2018

Lightspeed China Partners, the China-focused affiliate of Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, has set a $360 million target for its fourth flagship venture fund, according to a document filed with theU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. If the target is reached, the fund will be Lightspeed China’s largest yet, perPitchBook. Lightspeed China’s previous two funds each closed on $260 million. The VC raised $168 million for its debut fund in 2013.

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But not a broken man Dec 18, 2018

I’ve been living for the past few years in a limbo between journalist and entrepreneur, trying to build startups the way I saw them being built on stage at Disrupt and discovering that my skill and will to win are no match against the world. That’s fine. These days I’ll take it. But for a few minutes in Chicago last May, I couldn’t. That day was normal for me.

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Propel raises $12.8M for its free app to manage government benefits Dec 17, 2018

Propel, maker of the Fresh EBT app for managing food stamps and other benefits, announced today that it has raised $12.8 million in Series A funding. Fresh EBT (the EBT stands for the Electronics Transfer Benefit card, which is how food stamp participants receive their benefits) allows users to check their food stamp/SNAP balance and find stores that accept food stamps. Users can also track their spending.

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Robinhood said to not be properly insured to offer checking & savings Dec 17, 2018

Robinhood’s new high-interest, zero-fee checking and savings featureseems to be too good to be true. Users’ money may not be fully protected. The CEO of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, a non-profit membership corporation that insures stock brokerages, tells TechCrunch its insurance would not apply to checking and savings accounts the way Robinhood claims.

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A former Ofo exec is launching his own scooter startup Dec 14, 2018

The funding extravaganzamay be approaching its end for scooter “unicorns” Lime and Bird, but smaller startups in the micro-mobility space have continued to close venture capital rounds at a consistent pace. See Grin, Tier and Yellowfor examples. The latest is Dott, a European scooter startup founded by Maxim Romain, Ofo’s former head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

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The annual PornHub year in review tells us what we’re really looking at online Dec 14, 2018

PornHub, a popular site that features people in various stages of undress, saw 33.5 billion visits in 2018. There are currently 7.53 billion people on Earth. Y’all have been busy. The company, which owns most of the major porn sites online, produces a yearly report that aggregates user behavior on the site. Of particular interest, aside from the fact that all of us are horndogs, is that the U.S.

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Farfetch bets on sneakers with $250M Stadium Goods acquisition Dec 13, 2018

The lines between streetwear and luxury fashion have blurred in recent years, especially as excitement around sneaker brands like Yeezy and Off-White has soared. A marriage between a luxury fashion marketplace and a sneaker and streetwear reseller seems like a natural way to wrap up M&A in 2018. With that said, Farfetch has acquired New York-based Stadium Goods, opting to pay $250 million for the sneaker startup in a combination of cash and Farfetch stock.

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YayPay raises $8.4 million for its accounts receivable service Dec 13, 2018

Fintech startup YayPay just raised another $8.4 million for its software-as-a-service solution focused on collecting money from outstanding invoices. The company participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield several years ago. Information Venture Partners led today’s funding round with existing investors Birchmere, QED, Fifth Third Capital, Gaingels and 500 Fintech Fund also participating. YayPay targets large companies with an accounting department.

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How Uber will become an ad company, starting with Eats Pool Dec 11, 2018

Where there is discovery in an app, there is paid discovery. Google helped you choose between links, then sold ads that promote a few. Facebook helped you choose between pieces of content, then sold ads that promote a few. And eventually, as Uber helps you choose between restaurants, it will sell ads that promote a few. It could become the marketing platform through which the physical world vies for your attention.

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Why you need a supercomputer to build a house Dec 10, 2018

When the hell did building a house become so complicated? Don’t let the folks on HGTV fool you. The process of building a home nowadays is incredibly painful. Just applying for the necessary permits can be a soul-crushing undertaking that’ll have you running around the city, filling out useless forms, and waiting in motionless lines under fluorescent lights at City Hall wondering whether you should have just moved back in with your parents.

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2 Milly files a lawsuit against Fortnite maker Epic Games over dance move Dec 10, 2018

Rapper 2 Milly is suing Epic Games over Fortnite’s use of his dance move, the Milly Rock. The lawsuit claims direct infringement of copyright, contributory infringement of copyright, violation of the Right of Publicity under California Common Law, among other things.

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The trust dilemma of continuous background checks Dec 07, 2018

First, background checks at startups, then Huawei’s finance chief is arrested, SoftBank’s IPO is subscribed, and I am about to record our next edition of TechCrunch Equity. It’s Thursday, December 6, 2018. TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the author (Danny at danny@techcrunch.com) if you like or hate something here.

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Freeletics raises $45M for its AI-powered mobile fitness coach Dec 06, 2018

One of Europe’s most popular fitness applications is poised to flourish in the U.S. market with the help of several Los Angeles-based investors. Freeletics, headquartered in Munich, Germany, is today announcing its first round of private capital after bootstrapping since 2013. The $45 million Series A was co-led by FitLab, Causeway Media Partners and JAZZ Venture Partners, with participation from Courtside Ventures, Elysian Park Ventures and ward.ventures.

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Birth control delivery startup Nurx now offers an at-home HPV testing kit Dec 06, 2018

Telemedicine startup Nurx— once dubbed the “Uber for birth control” — has launched a direct-to-consumerHuman papillomavirus (HPV) testing kit. The addition means its customers can test for the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and a cause of genital warts and cervical cancer in the comfort of their own homes.

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Uber Eats test lets restaurants trade discounts for ranking boost Dec 05, 2018

Uber Eats has effectively invented its own native ad unit. Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that a test quietly running in markets around India allows restaurants to bundle several food items together and sell them at a discounted price in exchange for promoted placement by Uber Eats in a featured section of local “Specials”. In some cases, restaurants foot the cost of the discount, while in others Uber pays for the discounts.

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Agricool raises another $28 million to grow fruits in containers Dec 04, 2018

French startup Agricool is raising another $28 million round of funding (€25 million). The company is working on containers to grow fruits and vegetables in urban areas, starting with strawberries. Bpifrance, Danone Manifesto Ventures, Marbeuf Capital, Solomon Hykes and other business angels participated in today’s funding round. Some existing investors also participated, such as daphni, XAnge, Henri Seydoux and Kima Ventures.

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WiARframe wants to make building AR experiences easy Dec 04, 2018

Augmented reality has been a buzzword for years, but for the most part, it has remained a novelty. WiARframe, which is competing in our Startup Battlefield competition today at Disrupt Berlin, believes that we are still very early on in the AR game and that part of what is holding the market back is that the tools need to become easier to use and that designers need to find better ways to find inspiration for their AR experiences.

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Lyft’s pink-wheeled shareable bikes will be available to rent soon Nov 30, 2018

Lyft has finally given us a glimpse of its forthcoming line of shareable bikes, which the ridesharing company says will be available to rent within its mobile app in select cities “soon.” The news comes as the $15 billion company announces the final close of its acquisition of Motivate, the New York City-based mobility startup that owns a number of bike-rental services, like Citi Bike, Ford GoBike, Divvy, Blue Bikes and Capital Bikeshare.

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Spin Analytics automates credit risk modeling for banks Nov 29, 2018

Meet Spin Analytics, a startup that wants to leverage artificial intelligence to automatically write credit risk modeling regulation reports. The company is participating in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. If you work for a big bank, you know how painful it can be to launch a new product. Every time you start selling a new asset, you need to comply with regulations around the world. It can take months and a lot of money to write detailed documents about your asset.

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Australian scheduling software company Deputy brings in $81M amid rapid growth Nov 29, 2018

After eight years of bootstrapping, Deputy sought scale. So the workforce management platform turned to venture capital, quickly raising a $25 million Series A in early 2017. Today, Deputy is announcing a major accomplishment: the close of an $81 million round — the largest Series B in Australian history. IVP has led the investment for the Sydney and Atlanta-headquartered company, with support from OpenView Venture Partners, Square Peg Capital and Equity Venture Partners.

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Meet ‘Bitski’, the single sign-on wallet crypto desperately needs Nov 28, 2018

The mainstream will never adopt blockchain-powered decentralized apps (dApps) if it’s a struggle to log in. They’re either forced to manage complex security keys themselves, or rely on a clunky wallet-equipped browser like MetaMask. What users need is for signing in to blockchain apps to be as easy as Login With Facebook. So that’s what Bitski built.

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Amazon exec Dave Stephenson tapped to lead Airbnb to the public markets Nov 27, 2018

Airbnb has completed a much-needed hire ahead of its rumored 2019 initial public offering. Thehospitality giant has brought on Dave Stephenson, a long-time Amazon vice president and former president of Big Fish Games, as its chief financial officer. Stephenson replaces the company’s head of global financial planning and analysis, Ellie Mertz, who served as interim head of finance as Airbnb searched for its former CFO Laurence Tosi’s replacement.

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Banuba raises $7M to supercharge any app or device with the ability to really see you Nov 27, 2018

Banuba raises $7M to supercharge any app or device with the ability to really see you Walking into the office of Viktor Prokopenya – which overlooks a central London park – you would perhaps be forgiven for missing the significance of this unassuming location, just south of Victoria Station in London.

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Cloud communications platform Agora closes $70M Series C to create new developer tools Nov 26, 2018

Part of Agora’s team. The cloud communications startup has offices in Santa Clara and Shanghai. Agora, a developer of cloud communication APIs, will create products for new markets and verticals after raising a $70 million Series C led by Coatue Management. Existing investors SIG, Morningside Capital, and Shunwei Capital also returned for the round, which brings Agora’s total funding so far to $125 million.

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Move over Le Creuset? A new cookware startup founded by and for millennials is getting down to business Nov 23, 2018

Move over Le Creuset? A new cookware startup founded by and for millennials is getting down to business Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine a product or industry that a new e-commerce startup hasn’t tried to remake already, fromslipperstomattresses, fromluggagetolipstick.

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October lets 11 public companies borrow money on its platform Nov 22, 2018

French crowd-lending platform October (formerly known as Lendix), wants to educate more people about new ways to borrow money. That’s why the company is launching a project called Grandir Ensemble (grow together). 11 big companies are borrowing €100,000 each on October at a 2.5 percent interest rate. October users will be able to lend as little as €20 to one of these companies. If you look at the list of companies, all those names will sound familiar to French readers and beyond.

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CVCompiler is an robot that fixes your resume to make you more competitive Nov 22, 2018

CVCompiler is an robot that fixes your resume to make you more competitive Machine learning is everywhere now, including recruiting. Take CVCompiler, a new product by Andrew Stetsenko and Alexandra Dosii. This web app uses machine learning to analyze and repair your technical resume, allowing you too shine to recruiters at Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. The founders are marketing and HR experts who have a combined fifteen years experience in making recruiting smarter. Stetsenko founded Relocate.

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Berlin-based Wind Mobility raises $22M for its e-scooter rental service Nov 21, 2018

Wind Mobility, a Berlin-based mobility startup that offers “dockless” e-scooter (and electric bicycle) rentals, has raised $22 million in seed funding, throwing its hat into the European competitor to Bird and Lime ring. It follows recent raises by Sweden’s VOI ($50 million Series A led by Balderton) and Germany’s Tier (€25 million Series A led by Northzone). All three companies are attempting to be pan-European from the get-go.

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iHeartMedia to acquire radio adtech company Jelli Nov 21, 2018

Radio giant iHeartMedia announced today that it’s reached an agreement to acquire Jelli, a company bringing programmatic ad-buying to radio broadcasters. In fact, iHeartMedia was already working with Jelli to allow businesses to use programmatic tools to buy advertising on the company’s 850 broadcast radio stations. iHeartMedia also invested in Jelli’s most recent funding round.

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Genies brings lifelike avatars to other apps with $10M from celebrities Nov 20, 2018

Genies is emerging as the top competitor to Snapchat’s wildly popular Bitmoji as Facebook, Apple, and Google have been slow to get serious about personalized avatars. Over one million people have customized dozens of traits to build a realistic digital lookalike of themselves from over a million possible permutations.

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Shyft raises $6.5M to help retail and service workers swap shifts Nov 20, 2018

Anyone that has experience in the service or retail industry knows swapping shifts can be a logistical nightmare that leaves employees in trouble with management or stuck working during a friend’s birthday party. As a former Old Navy “sellebrity” myself, I can confirm there’s a huge need for an efficient tool to solve this problem. That’s where Shyft, a Seattle-based startup that helps connect shift workers, comes in.

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Plastiq raises $27M at 2X+ value to let you pay for anything on credit Nov 19, 2018

“I wasn’t asking to pay in Bitcoin!” Plastiq CEO and co-founder Eliot Buchanan recalls with a laugh. “I went to pay part of my tuition at Harvard and I was told that they didn’t (and never would) accept credit card. It was inconvenient and seemed odd. Credit cards had been around for 50 years.” That set off the a light bulb in his head. “Why couldn’t I use a credit card to pay for this important bill? So, I set out to solve my own problem.

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Standard Cognition raises $40M to replace retailers’ cashiers with cameras Nov 19, 2018

The Amazon Go store requires hundreds of cameras to detect who’s picking up what items. Standard Cognition needs just 27 to go after the $27 trillion market of equipping regular shops with autonomous retail technology. Walk into one of its partners’ stores and overhead cameras identify you by shape and movement, not facial recognition. Open up its iOS or Android app and a special light pattern flashes, allowing the cameras to tie you to your account and payment method.

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Bunch scores $3.8M to turn mobile games into video chat LAN parties Nov 16, 2018

The best parts of gaming are the jokes and trash talk with friends. Whether it was four-player Goldeneye or linking up PCs for Quake battles in the basement, the social element keeps video games exciting. Yet on mobile we’ve lost a lot of that, playing silently by ourselves even if we’re in a squad with friends somewhere else. Bunch wants to bring the laughter back to mobile gaming by letting you sync up with friends and video chat while you play.

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Lies, damn lies, and HQ2 Nov 15, 2018

There are few things certain in our world except for the uplifting tendencies of technology. I’ve spent the past few years trying to prove this to myself, at least, by interviewing hundreds of thinkers on the topic. I’ve come to a singular conclusion: when tech moves into a city, be it an iOS dev shop or a robotic facility for making widgets, things change primarily for the better.

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Clearbanc raises $70M to give startups ad money for a rev share Nov 15, 2018

Selling equity to buy Facebook and Google ads is a bad deal for startups. Clearbanc offers a fundraising alternative. For fast-growing businesses reliably earning sales from their marketing spend, Clearbanc offers funding from $5,000 to $10 million in exchange for a steady revenue share of their earnings until it’s paid back plus a 6 percent fee.

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Lime is debuting its line of shareable vehicles in Seattle this week Nov 14, 2018

Lime, the well-funded startup known for its fleet of brightly colored dockless bicycles and electric scooters, has a new way for its customers to get around: cars. Beginning this week, Lime users in Seattle will be able to reserve a “LimePod,” a Lime-branded 2018 Fiat 500, within the Lime mobile app. There will be 50 cars available to start as part of the company’s initial rollout. Lime plans to increase that number at the end of the month.

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Calm heads to the airport, invests $3 million in XpresSpa Nov 13, 2018

Wellness app Calm has today announced a $3 million equity investment in XpresSpa Group, a fast-spa service you may have noticed in your local airport. Calm sees the investment as a way to expand its offline presence, growing awareness of the app as well as its retail products like Sleep Mist and the Calm Book. Calm subscribers will have access to a variety of in-store benefits and treatments at one of 52 XpresSpa locations in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York.

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SAP agrees to buy Qualtrics for $8B in cash, just before the survey software company’s IPO Nov 13, 2018

SAP agrees to buy Qualtrics for $8B in cash, just before the survey software company’s IPO Enterprise software giant SAP announced today that it has agreed to acquire Qualtrics for $8 billion in cash, just before the survey and research software company was set to go public. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2019. Qualtrics last round of venture capital funding in 2016 raised $180 million at a $2.5 billion valuation.

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A tale of two scooter cities Nov 12, 2018

The kids in Madrid’s El Retiro Park are loving their new on-demand joyriding toys. Lime launched its scooters in the Spanish capital this summer. Spending a weekend in the city center last month the craze was impossible to miss. Scooters parked in clusters vying for pay-to-play time. Sometimes lined up tidily. All too often not. The bright Lime rides really stood out, though it’s not the only brand in town.

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Pure Bit, a South Korean exchange, pulls a $2.8 million exit scam Nov 12, 2018

Another day, another exit scam. This time it comes to us from South Korea where an exchange, Pure Bit, has completely shut down after raising $2.8 million in Ethereum from investors. The exchange, which promised to deliver something call Pure Coin, was live yesterday and today is completely shut down after posting “Sorry” and “Thanks” to their communications channels.

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Olho do Dono is the winner of Startup Battlefield Latin America Nov 09, 2018

Fifteen startups have spent the day presenting on-stage in Sao Paulo, Brazil. For the finalists, that meant presenting twice — once in the initial rounds, then again for our finalist judges. This was all part of Startup Battlefield Latin America, an event that we put on in partnership with Facebook’s FB Start program.

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The scooters arrive in Australia Nov 09, 2018

The scooter startups are taking over the world — or trying to. Earlier this week, Bird debuted its electric scooters in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; today, Lime is announcing its foray into the land down under with the launch of a three-month scooter pilot atMonash University in Melbourne, Australia. Lime has also released several hundred of its dockless electric bikes in Sydney and plans to introduce its scooters there, aswell as in Brisbane, soon.

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The disappearing Form D Nov 08, 2018

We are experimenting with new content forms at TechCrunch. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the authors: Danny at danny@techcrunch.com or Arman at Arman.Tabatabai@techcrunch.com if you like or hate something here. Ignoring the midterm hysteria, we continue our obsession with SoftBank today by looking at the group’s IPO of its telecom unit, but first, some thoughts about Form Ds.

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Automakers invest in Transit, the app that helps people get around without a car Nov 07, 2018

Automakers invest in Transit, the app that helps people get around without a car Transit, a company that built a mobile app designed to help people in cities live without cars, has raised $17.5 million from two automakers in a Series B round. The round wasled by RenaultNissan-Mitsubishi’s joint investment arm Alliance Ventures.InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund, also joined the round, as well as two past investors, Accel and Real Ventures.

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Men’s wellness startup HIMS has launched a line of women’s health products called HERS Nov 05, 2018

Exactly one year to the day since it launchedits line of men’s health products, HIMS is announcing its foray into women’s wellness. The company is using its mountain of venture capital to support the new brand, called HERS. In September, HIMS raised another $50 million in a round led by IVP. The financing valued the startup, which has brought in $97 million to date, at $500 million, according to PitchBook.

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VICIS completes $28.5M Series B and launches its first youth helmet Nov 02, 2018

VICIS has closed its Series B on $28.5 million, with participation from NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers via Rx3 Ventures. Rodgers joins a list of other pro footballers to back the helmet startup, includingRogerStaubach, JerryRice, Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin. VICIS is known for its $950 Zero1 football helmet designed for adult players.

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Brex has partnered with WeWork, AWS and more for its new rewards program Nov 01, 2018

Brex, the corporate card built for startups, unveiled its new rewards program today. The billion-dollar company, which announced its $125 million Series C three weeks ago, has partnered with Amazon Web Services, WeWork, Instacart, Google Ads, SendGrid, Salesforce Essentials, Twilio, Zendesk, Caviar, HubSpot, Orrick, Snap, Clerky and DoorDash to give entrepreneurs the ability to accrue and spend points on services and products they use regularly.

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Lime hires its first chief business officer amid push into car-sharing Nov 01, 2018

After four months “on the beach,” per his LinkedIn profile, Uber’s former global head of business and corporate development has a new gig. Lime has hired David Richter (pictured) as its first-ever chief business officer and interim chief financial officer. Based in San Francisco, Richter will be overseeing the bike- and e-scooter-sharing startup’s business operations.

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Sentieo raises $19M to be the AI-powered Bloomberg Terminal Oct 31, 2018

To get an edge on the market, investors must look beyond traditional financial info like revenue and profits. Our every online activity generates data exhaust like web traffic, Twitter mentions, app downloads, and search trends. It’s the ability to overlay the old and new data sets to spot surprising trends that will set the best traders apart. Sentieo wants to be their tool.

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Freebird flies off with $8M to rescue passengers after flight cancellations Oct 31, 2018

There are few things more irritating than a canceled flight, whether it’s on your way to a friend’s wedding, a conference or to celebrate a holiday back home. Wouldn’t it be nifty if technology could put an end to our travel woes? Freebird, a travel rebooking service, has raised an $8 million Series A to do just that.

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Failed drone startup Airware auctions assets, Delair buys teammates Oct 30, 2018

Airware desperately sought cash for 18 months before running out of money and shutting down last month, leaving about 120 employees without jobs after the startup had burned $118 million in funding. Bandaid strategic investments from construction company Caterpillar and others kept Airware alive as it looked for a $15 million round, according to a former employee.

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Eaze co-founder Keith McCarty raises $5M for his new B2B cannabis startup Oct 30, 2018

Keith McCarty couldn’t stay out of the booming weed business for long. The co-founder and former chief executive officer of the well-funded marijuana delivery startup Eaze has launched WAYV, a B2B cannabis logistics and compliance platform that delivers inventory to cannabis retailers. Today, the company is announcing its first round of funding, a $5 million seed round led by David Sacks at Craft Ventures.

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Valentin Stalf to talk about scaling N26 at Disrupt Berlin Oct 29, 2018

We couldn’t put together a conference in Berlin without inviting Valentin Stalf from N26, the co-founder and CEO of one of Europe's most promising startups. A few years ago, few people would have bet on a startup creating a bank from scratch. N26 now has over 1.5 million clients and a ton of funding. N26 originally launched at TechCrunch Disrupt London back in 2014. The company didn't win the Startup Battlefield. At the time, the company was called Number26 and they had 0 client.

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Summersalt raises $6M for its direct-to-consumer line of eco-friendly swimsuits Oct 29, 2018

Founders Fund has led the $6 million Series A for Summersalt, an early-stage e-commerce startup embracing the next-gen consumer’s penchant for inclusivity and affordability. Headquartered in St. Louis, the 1-year old company sells swimsuits designed in-house with eco-friendly fabrics directly to consumers. Like other D2C brands, Summersalt cuts out the middlemen to give its customers access to its swimsuits for $95 or less. What sets it apart is its data-focused fit system.

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Confirmed: ShopRunner acquires Spring, raises $40M Oct 26, 2018

ShopRunner chief executive Sam Yagan conquered the online dating world. Can he conquer the e-commerceworld, too? Hot off the heels of its first profitable year, ShopRunner is announcing its first infusion of venture funding under Yagan, an acquisition of the shopping app Spring and, sources tell TechCrunch, it’s readying a major overhaul to its mobile app, signaling what could be a new era for the company.

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Daily Crunch: Tesla is profitable again Oct 26, 2018

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here: 1. Tesla earns its first profit in two years Tesla reported a profit in the third quarter, reversing seven consecutive quarters of losses. This is only the third time in the company’s history that it has achieved this milestone. The turnaround was driven by sales of the Model 3.

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Voting is a social experience Oct 25, 2018

If your Instagram followers aren’t aware that you’ve voted, did you really even vote? In 2018, the act of voting is great social media fodder. People want their friends to know they’ve registered to vote, or that they’ve just mailed in their absentee ballot or even that they’ve bought some sort of “look, I voted” t-shirt.These announcements are being shared across social platforms like it’s a required part of the voting process.

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Marieme Diop and Shikoh Gitau to speak at Startup Battlefield Africa Oct 24, 2018

Startup Battlefield Africa is set for December 11 in Lagos and investor Marieme Diop and ICT expert Shikoh Gitau will be there to lend their perspective and expertise.The Lagos TechCrunch event is a return to Africa for the Startup Battlefield series after its debut on the continent in Nairobi, Kenya. Shikoh Gitau Diop — who is a VC investor in early-stage African startups at Orange Digital Ventures— will speak on venture capital in Africa.

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iPharmacy Roman fights stigmas with premature ejaculation meds Oct 24, 2018

There’s a war brewing to become the cloud pharmacy for men’s health. Roman, which launched last year offering erectile dysfunctional medication and recently added a ‘quit smoking’ kit, is taking on $97 million-funded Hims for the hair loss market. Today, Roman launched four new products it hopes to cross-sell to users through a unified telemedicine subscription and pill delivery app.

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Tier, the Berlin-based scooter rental startup, raises €25M as European e-scooter market heats up Oct 23, 2018

Tier, one of a number of electric scooter rental startups based in Berlin, has raised a chunky €25 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is VC fund Northzone, with participation from existing investors Speedinvest, and Point Nine. The investment marks the biggest financial backing for a European company in the space, and, according to my sources, signals the beginning of a pending VC war to create the “Bird or Lime of Europe”.

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Lime is building its first scooter “lifestyle brand store” in LA Oct 23, 2018

How can Lime differentiate its scooters and bikes from the piles of Birds and Spins filling Los Angeles sidewalks? Apparently with a physical storefront where it can convince customers of the wonders of on-demand mobility. According to a job listing from Lime seeking a “Retail Store Manager”, the startup plans to open a “lifestyle brand store in Santa Monica” that “will place heavy importance on brand experience and customer engagement.

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TrackR is rebranding to Adero as it looks beyond small devices to track lost items Oct 22, 2018

WhenTrackR raised $50 million from investors that included Amazon a year ago, the Santa Baraba startup made a big splash in the growing market for small connected dongles that you could attach to “dumb” objects like keys to keep tabs on their location. But times for the company have been challenging since then. It’s weatheredlayoffs; a succession of natural disasters; and its co-founders stepping away from exec roles asCEO and president.

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Twilio shops, Uber and Lyft IPO scuttlebutt, and Instacart raises $600M Oct 22, 2018

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had the Three Excellent Friends (Connie Loizos, Danny Chrichton, and Alex Wilhelm) on hand to kick things about with Scale Venture Partner’s own Rory O’Driscoll. As I’ve written the last few weeks, what a pile of news we’ve had recently. And like the last few episodes, we had to pick and choose what to drill into.

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Jane.VC, a new fund for female entrepreneurs, wants founders to cold email them Oct 19, 2018

Want to pitch a venture capitalist? You’ll need a “warm introduction” first. At least that’s what most in the business will advise. Find a person, typically a man, who made the VC you’re interested in pitching a whole bunch of money at some point and have them introduce you. Why? Because VCs love people who’ve made them money; naturally, they’ll be willing to hear you out if you’ve got at least one money maker on your side.

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Embracing multimodality, Uber pioneers ride recommendations Oct 19, 2018

For the first time, Uber will make contextual, personalized suggestions about the best way to get from point A to point B. The startup offers more than just cars now, and it’s starting to understand the tradeoffs between price, speed, convenience, and comfort amidst its multi-modal fleet. Most noticeably, you’ll now see JUMP bikes get premier billing right alongside Uber’s other vehicles.

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The new normal Oct 18, 2018

When we first started writing about startups at TechCrunch the idea of a startup – a small business with global ambitions – was a pipe dream.

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10 lessons from Marketo’s growth to a multi-billion-dollar exit Oct 17, 2018

Doug Pepper Contributor Doug Pepper is a managing director at Shasta Ventures. More posts by this contributor A New Revolution Modernizes The Revenue Supply Chain With Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo, I have been reflecting on what an amazing and pioneering company Marketo has been since it was founded in 2006.

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Journal raises $1.5 million to bring Google-like search to your personal life Oct 17, 2018

In today’s world of Slack, email and a gazillion other web apps and services, it’s become increasingly hard to search for information. Did your boss Slack you or email you that information about your bonus? Or did they share it via a Google Doc? Who knows? Clearly not you, but Journal knows. Journal, a machine learning and natural language processing-powered platform designed to search across all your web services and tools, today announced a $1.

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Announcing the Disrupt Berlin Agenda Oct 16, 2018

TechCrunch Disrupt is the world’s biggest and most impactful tech startup conference, and we can’t wait to bring the hype to Berlin. We’re very proud of the show we’ve put together and are thrilled to give you a look at what’s in store. Editor’s Note: Not all of our speakers are included on this agenda as we like to keep a couple tricks up our sleeves.

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Readdle’s Denys Zhadanov to talk about bootstrapping at Disrupt Berlin Oct 16, 2018

Readdle might not be a familiar name, but chances are you’ve been using some of their mobile apps. The Ukrainian company is a bootstrapped success story with 100 million downloads, 135 employees and a profitable business. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Readdle Vice President Denys Zhadanov is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to talk about this remarkable journey.

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AllTrails gets $75M to keep hikers happy Oct 15, 2018

The app for hiking enthusiasts just secured a big round of capital that will help it map more trails worldwide. AllTrailshas raised $75 million, led by Spectrum Equity, which has taken a majority stake in the company in the process. Founded in 2010, AllTrails raised a small amount of capital years ago from investors, including 2020 Ventures and 500 Startups. It was also part ofAngelPad’s inauguralaccelerator class. This is its first sizeable round of equity financing.

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With $50M in fresh funding, Allbirds will open new stores in the US, UK and Asia Oct 15, 2018

With $50M in fresh funding, Allbirds will open new stores in the US, UK and Asia The quintessential venture capitalist’s uniform consists of a pair of designer jeans, a Patagonia fleece vest and $95 wool sneakers. The company behind the shoes, Allbirds, entered the unicorn club this morning with the announcement of a $50 million Series C from late-stage players T. Rowe Price, which led the round, Tiger Global and Fidelity Investments.

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Jennifer Garner’s baby food company Once Upon a Farm raises $20M Series B Oct 12, 2018

CAVU Venture Partners has led the $20 million Series B for Once Upon a Farm, which sells organic, cold-pressed baby food in 8,500 grocery stores in the U.S. The Berkeley-based startup was originally founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs Rohan Oza and Clayton Christopher. Today, it lists actress Jennifer Garner and former General Mills presidentJohn Foraker as co-founders, too.

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YC-grad Papa raises $2.4M for its ‘grandkids-on-demand’ service Oct 12, 2018

One of the latest additions to the on-demand economy is Papa, a mobile app that connects college students with adults over 60 in need of support and companionship. The recent graduate of Y Combinator’s accelerator program has raised a $2.4 million round of funding to expand its service throughout Florida and to five additional states next year, beginning with Pennsylvania. Initialized Capital led the round, with participation from Sound Ventures.

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Tim Berners-Lee is on a mission to decentralize the web Oct 11, 2018

“I’ve always believed the web is for everyone,” wrote Tim Berners-Lee, the well-known (and knighted) creator of the World Wide Web. “The web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas,” he added. “Today, I believe we’ve reached a critical tipping point, and that powerful change for the better is possible — and necessary.

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The Wing, a co-working space for women, opens its doors in San Francisco Oct 11, 2018

Women-focused co-working space The Wing has made its way to California, opening its first of two planned locations in the state this morning. On Sansome Street in San Francisco’s Financial District, The Wing hopes to attract professional women able to shell out $215 per month for access to its 8,000-square-foot workspace, which is complete with conference rooms, a cafe, a library stocked with books on feminist theory, a lactation room and more.

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SoftBank is considering taking a majority stake in WeWork Oct 10, 2018

SoftBank may soon own up to 50 percent of WeWork, a well-funded provider of co-working spaces headquartered in New York, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. SoftBank is reportedly weighing an investment between $15 billion and $20 billion, which would come from its $92 billion Vision Fund, a super-sized venture fund led by Japanese entrepreneur and investor Masayoshi Son. WeWork declined to comment. SoftBank already owns some 20 percent of WeWork. The firm invested $4.

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Venture capital investment in US companies to hit $100B in 2018 Oct 10, 2018

So many new unicorns valued at $1 billion-plus, countless$100 million venture financings, an explosion of giant funds— it’s no surprise 2018 is shaping up to be a banner year for venture capital investment in U.S.-based companies. There are more than 2.5 months remaining in 2018 and already U.S. companies have raised $84.1 billion — more than all of 2017 — across 6,583 VC deals as of Sept. 30, 2018, according to data from PitchBook’s 3Q Venture Monitor.

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SoundCloud finally lets more musicians monetize four years later Oct 09, 2018

SoundCloud moves painfully slow for a tech company, and no one feels that pain more than musicians who are popular on the site but don’t get paid. 10 years since SoundCloud first launched, and four years since it opened an invite-only program allowing just the very biggest artists to earn a cut of the ad and premium subscription revenue generated by their listeners, SoundCloud is rolling out monetization.

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Faraday Future investor Evergrande Health now says the troubled startup is trying to back out of deal Oct 09, 2018

Faraday Future investor Evergrande Health now says the troubled startup is trying to back out of deal Evergrande Health, the investor that bailed out besieged electric vehicle startup Faraday Future in a deal worth $2 billion this summer, is now accusing it ofattempting to break an agreement it made with previous backer Season Smart.

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RankScience closes $1.8M seed — and now only wants to replace human SEO staff if you don’t have any Oct 08, 2018

RankScience closes $1.8M seed — and now only wants to replace human SEO staff if you don’t have any A couple of years ago YC-backed RankScience, which offers AI-enhanced SEO split-testing, put a few SEO experts’ noses out of joint when the fledgling startup brashly talked about replacing human expertise with automation. Two years on its pitch has mellowed, with the team saying their self-service platform is “augmenting human SEO ability rather than replacing them”.

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Flutterwave and Ventures Platform CEOs will join us at Startup Battlefield Africa Oct 08, 2018

Flutterwave and Ventures Platform CEOs will join us at Startup Battlefield Africa Startup Battlefield is returning to Africa this December. TechCrunch will be hitting Lagos, Nigeria, bringing with it our Battlefield competition and a day’s worth of panel discussions, focused on topics facing the city’s startup scene.

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JFrog lands $165 M investment as valuation jumps over $1 billion Oct 05, 2018

JFrog wants to change the way we deal with software updates. Instead of large numbered updates you have to manually download, it sees a future of continuous delivery where software is delivered as binaries and updated in the background. Investors must like that vision very much because they showered the company with a $165 million Series D investment today, which the company reports pushes its valuation past the billion dollar mark.

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Product Hunt Radio: The evolution of Y Combinator, and counter-intuitive advice for founders Oct 05, 2018

Ryan Hoover Contributor Share on Twitter Ryan Hoover is the founder of Product Hunt and host of Product Hunt Radio.

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N26 is launching its bank in the U.K. Oct 04, 2018

Nearly a year after German fintech startup N26 announced that it would launch its service in the U.K., the company is launching in the U.K. N26 is already quite popular in the Eurozone with over 1.5 million customers. In this new market, it will face tough competition from existing players, such as Revolut, Monzo, Starling and many others. N26 is going to roll out its product in multiple phases. Some lucky few will be able to open an account right away.

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KZen raises $4 million to bring sanity to crypto wallets Oct 04, 2018

KZen, a company run by former TC editor Ouriel Ohayon, has raised $4 million in seed to build a “better wallet,” obviously the elusive Holy Grail in the crypto world. Benson Oak Ventures, Samsung Next, Elron Ventures invested. Ohayon, who has worked at Internet Lab and founded TechCrunch France and Appsfire, wanted to create an easy-to-use crypto wallet that wouldn’t confound users.

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Subscription startup Bespoke Post is creating its own brands and products for men Oct 03, 2018

Subscription startup Bespoke Post is creating its own brands and products for men Bespoke Post says it has more than 100,000 subscribers signed up to receive a monthly “box of awesome” (that’s what it calls its bundles of curated men’s products). Next up: Creating brands and products of its own.

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Cover collects $16M to insure your gadgets, pets… anything Oct 03, 2018

People procrastinate about buying insurance because it’s such a boring and complicated chore to compare policies. But Cover combines plans from 45 insurance companies into a single marketplace so it’s easy to find the best one for your car, home, rental, business, personal property, pets, jewelry and more. Now Cover is building powerful onboarding tricks like a driving school that earns you lower car insurance rates, and a way for Shopify merchants to sell warranties for their items.

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Ettitude targets eco-conscious shoppers with its organic bedding Oct 02, 2018

Ettitude, recently graduated from the ERA accelerator, is looking to ride the growing wave of e-commerce by offering eco-friendly sheets. The company offers bamboo lyocell sheets and pajamas, which feel like a hybrid between silk and cotton, and stay cool longer than cotton or other fabrics. Bamboo lyocell fabric is essentially organic fabric made from weaving together tiny fibers of organic bamboo material or pulp.

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Why Blissfully decided to go all in on serverless Oct 02, 2018

Serverless has become a big buzzword of late, and with good reason. It has the potential to completely alter how developers write code. They can simply write a series of event triggers, while letting the cloud vendor worry about providing whatever amount of compute resources are required to complete the job. It represents a huge shift in how programs are developed, but it’s been difficult to find companies who were built from the ground up using this methodology because it’s fairly new.

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Ne-Yo wants to make Silicon Valley more diverse one investment at a time Oct 01, 2018

Dressed in a Naruto t-shirt and a hat emblazoned with the phrase “lone wolf,” Ne-Yo slouches over in a chair inside a Holberton Schoolclassroom. The Grammy-winningrecording artist is struggling to remember the name of “that actor,” the one who’s had a successful career in both the entertainment industry and tech investing. “I learned about all the things he was doing and I thought it was great for him,” Ne-Yo told TechCrunch.

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Vinay Gupta to talk about Mattereum at Disrupt Berlin Oct 01, 2018

Cryptocurrency speculation is over. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Vinay Gupta will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to talk about cool use cases that could make blockchain projects useful, beyond financial services. Gupta worked on the initial release of Ethereum back in 2015. He contributed when it comes to project management. He then worked with the Consensys team on other cryptocurrency projects.

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The Infatuation raises $30M from Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo to bring Zagat into the digital age Sep 28, 2018

WndrCo, the consumer tech investment and holding company founded by longtime Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, has invested $30 million in The Infatuation, a restaurant discovery platform. The Infatuation made waves earlier this year when itpurchased Zagat from Google,which had paid $151 million for the 40-year-old company in 2011.

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Rally Rd., the app that lets you invest in classic cars, raises $7M Series A Sep 28, 2018

What happens when you bring together an entrepreneur, a product designer and an investment banker who all really love collector vehicles? You get Rally Rd., an app for buying and selling equity shares in classic cars. Launched in 2016, the company’s SEC-compliant platform lets users purchase shares in Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis and other classic models for as little as $50 per share. The company says it has50,000 members that have invested millions.

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YC grad The Lobby raises $1.2M to help job seekers break into Wall Street Sep 27, 2018

Six months after completing Y Combinator’s 12-week accelerator program, The Lobbyis announcing a $1.2 million investment. The startup connects job seekers to Wall Street bankers, venture capitalists and other finance“insiders” for advice and personalized career coaching. Founder and former investment banker Deepak Chhugani wants to help people who don’t come from elite backgrounds or have the network of an Ivy League graduate land high-profile finance roles.

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Farmer’s Fridge wants to make eating healthy food as easy as getting money from an ATM Sep 27, 2018

Fast, healthy food is one of those concepts that just seems too good to be true. But Farmer’s Fridge, a Chicago-based startup that recently closed a $30 million Series C round led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, aims to make that a reality. Farmer’s Fridge retrofits vending machines to serve up healthy foods — salads, sandwiches, granola, etc. — for people on the go, for anywhere from $5 to about $8.

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Sequoia backs Maven, a virtual health clinic for women Sep 26, 2018

Despite the increase in women in the U.S. workforce and public pledges from several high-profile CEOs to close the gender pay gap, women, especially working mothers, often find themselves without the resources necessary to succeed at work. Maven, a digital health startup and benefits platform focused on improving access to healthcare for women, has emerged specifically to help businesses help their female employees.

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Data.world raises $12M to help Fortune 500 companies close the great data divide Sep 26, 2018

Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Warby Parker and a long list of other startups of the 21st century have appointed C-level employees to roles focused exclusively on data science. These digital-age companies have established “data cultures,” which provide employees broad access to high-quality data, advocate for data literacy and have data-driven decision-making processes,according to Carl Anderson, who previously led data analytics and data science at Warby Parker and WeWork.

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BlaBlaCar is on the path to profitability Sep 25, 2018

French startup BlaBlaCar just released some interesting metrics. The company has reached profitability if you look at revenue between January 2018 and today. BlaBlaCar forecasts that 50 million people will book a ride on BlaBlaCar in 2018, which represents a 40 percent increase compared to 2017. BlaBlaCar is a marketplace for long-distance rides. People driving from point A to point B can find riders willing to go in the same direction to share the cost of the ride.

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Understanding Renaud Laplanche’s next Upgraded act Sep 25, 2018

Renaud Laplanche spent ten years building LendingClub. In the process, he created an industry from scratch. Circumventing conventional banking channels for consumer credit began in 1996 when Chris Larsen started E-LOAN, which ultimately led to Prosper Marketplace. But LendingClub, which Laplanche founded in 2007, was and remains the poster child for the business of marketplace lending.

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VCs say Silicon Valley isn’t the gold mine it used to be Sep 24, 2018

In the days leading up to TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018, The Economist published the cover story, ‘Why Startups Are Leaving Silicon Valley.’ The author outlined reasons why the Valley has “peaked.” Venture capital investors are deploying capital outside the Bay Area more than ever before. High-profile entrepreneurs and investors,Peter Thiel, for example, have left. Rising rents are making it impossible for new blood to make a living, let alone build businesses.

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uBeam wireless power’s CEO Meredith Perry steps aside amidst B2B pivot Sep 24, 2018

After repeatedly missing self-imposed deadlines for progress on its wireless charging-at-a-distance phone case, uBeam’s CEO Meredith Perry has decided to shift out of the CEO position and into a board member and senior advisor role.

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‘Brotopia’ inspired OODA Health to raise its $40.5M round only from firm’s with female partners Sep 21, 2018

It’s never particularly easy to raise a round of venture capital — but I think most experienced founders will tell you its not quite as bad the second or third time around, when you’ve got some experience under your belt and a track record to present to VCs. It helps if you’re male too, at least according to all the data out there on the gender funding gap in VC. The leadership team at OODA Health, a startup developing technology to make the U.S.

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Cluep, a Canadian startup that raised just $500k, acquired for $40M Sep 21, 2018

Everyone lovesa tale of a bootstrapped startup founder’s journey to an eight-figure exit. The team at Toronto-based Cluep have a good one. The founders of theadtech startup raised less than $500,000 from angel investors before selling their company to Impact Group for $40 million ($53 milllionCAD) this week.

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Fresh out of Y Combinator, Leena AI scores $2M seed round Sep 20, 2018

Leena AI, a recentY Combinator graduate focusing on HR chatbots to help employees answer questions like how much vacation time they have left, announced a $2 million seed round today from a variety of investors including Elad Gil and Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. Company co-founder and CEO Adit Jain says the seed money is about scaling the company and gaining customers. They hope to have 50 enterprise customers within the next 12-18 months. They currently have 16.

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Mabl announces $20 million Series B to bring automated QA to enterprise customers Sep 19, 2018

Mabl, a Boston-based startup from the folks who brought you Stackdriver, wants to change software testing using machine learning, and today it announced a $20 million Series B investment led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). Existing investors CRV and Amplify Partners also participated. As part of the deal, Karim Faris, general partner at GV will be joining the Mabl board. Today’s investment comes on top of a $10 million Series A announced in February.

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Uber fires up its own traffic estimates to fuel demand beyond cars Sep 18, 2018

If the whole map is red and it’s a short ride, maybe you’d prefer taking an Uber JUMP Bike instead of an UberX. Or at least if you do end up stuck bumper-to-bumper, the warning could make you less likely to get mad mid-ride and take it out on the driver’s rating. This week TechCrunch spotted Uberoverlaying blue, yellow, and red traffic condition bars on your route map before you hail.

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Boom’s chief test pilot on the thrill and challenge of going supersonic (again) Sep 18, 2018

“There’s nothing like it out there,” says Commander Bill “Doc” Shoemaker (Ret.), chief test pilot for Boom Supersonic, the startup aiming to make a passenger airliner for transoceanic flights at speeds (as you might guess from the name) faster than sound. Shoemaker, a former Navy aviator, fighter pilot and aeronautics engineer, will have the daunting privilege of being the first to fly the company’s proof of concept single-seater during tests next year.

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Crypto’s second bubble, Juul has 60 days and three Chinese IPOs Sep 17, 2018

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. After a long run of having guests climb aboard each week, we took a pause on that front, bringing together three of our regular hosts instead: Connie Loizos, Danny Chrichton, and myself. Despite the fact that there were just three of us instead of the usual four, we got through a mountain of stuff.

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Lively raises $6.5M to bring its comfortable and inclusive lingerie to brick-and-mortar stores Sep 14, 2018

Roy Raymond opened a little store called Victoria’s Secret, now one of the most popular lingerie businesses in the world, because he was embarrassed to buy lingerie for his wife in department stores. The brand was founded on the premise that men needed a safe space to buy lingerie for women and women needed a larger variety of sexy, angelic bras and other intimates to wear for men. But it’s 2018. Women, today, buy lingerie for themselves.

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It’s the end of crypto as we know it and I feel fine Sep 14, 2018

Watching the current price madness is scary. Bitcoin is falling and rising in $500 increments with regularity and Ethereum and its attendant ICOs are in a seeming freefall with a few “dead cat bounces” to keep things lively. What this signals is not that crypto is dead, however. It signals that the early, elated period of trading whose milestones including the launch of Coinbase and the growth of a vibrant (if often shady) professional ecosystem is over. Crypto still runs on hype.

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Ready, Set, Raise is a new accelerator built for women by women Sep 13, 2018

Women in tech are not only significantly under-funded by venture capitalists, but they also often lack access to the early-stage support granted to their male counterparts. To enroll in a startup accelerator like Y Combinator, for example, its expected founders relocate to the Bay Area for three months. Women, who are more often caregivers, might not be able to do that, and even if they can, the program may not cater to their specific needs.

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Job Today gets a $16M top up as it preps for Brexit bump Sep 13, 2018

Job Today gets a $16M top up as it preps for Brexit bump Accel-backed mobile-first jobs appJob Todayhas pulled in another $16M — an expansion to its November 2016 $20M Series B round. It raised a $10M Series A in January of the same year. The 2015 founded startup offers a mobile app for job seekers that does away with the need for a CV. Instead job seekers create a profile in the app and can apply to relevant jobs.

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Paysend announces global account to compete with Revolut Sep 12, 2018

Meet Paysend’s global account, a new way to hold, spend and send money in multiple currencies using a mobile app and a card. It looks a lot like Revolut’s basic features. But the company is trying to provide a more focused and robust experience from day one. “We are quite different from both a technical infrastructure and consumer offering viewpoint.

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Global M&A activity is flat so far in 2018 Sep 12, 2018

Global M&A activity is flat so far in 2018 U.S. tech companies continue to be the most active acquirers in the world, says a new report from Crunchbase andMind the Bridge. The pair crunched data on 22,000 startup exits since 2010, recording about 4,200 so far this year. U.S. companies, though less active this year than last, have acquired approximately 2x more startups than their European counterparts. Overall, 2018 is a flat year for M&A activity, despite a record-setting 2017.

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Not hog dog? PixFood lets you shoot and identify food Sep 11, 2018

What happens when you add AI to food? Surprisingly, you don’t get a hungry robot. Instead you get something like PixFood. PixFood lets you take pictures of food, identify available ingredients, and, at this stage, find out recipes you can make from your larder. It is privately funded. “There are tons of recipe apps out there, but all they give you is, well, recipes,” said Tonnesson.

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Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong: ‘I’d love to run a public company’ Sep 10, 2018

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, wants to take his company public — maybe on the blockchain. Onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018, Armstrong dished on his ambitions for the future of Coinbase. “We are self-sustaining,” Armstrong said. “You know, we’ve been profitable for quite a while.

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Deep-linking startup Branch is raising more than $100M at a unicorn valuation Sep 10, 2018

Branch, the deep-linking startup backed by Andy Rubin’s Playground Ventures, will enter the unicorn club with an upcoming funding round. The four-year-old company, which helps brands create links between websites and mobile apps, has authorized the sale of $129 million in Series D shares, according to sources and confirmed by PitchBook, which tracks venture capital deals. The infusion of capital values the company at roughly $1 billion.

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Vtrus launches drones to inspect and protect your warehouses and factories Sep 07, 2018

Knowing what’s going on in your warehouses and facilities is of course critical to many industries, but regular inspections take time, money, and personnel. Why not use drones? Vtrus uses computer vision to let a compact drone not just safely navigate indoor environments but create detailed 3D maps of them for inspectors and workers to consult, autonomously and in real time.

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PoLTE lets you track devices using LTE signal Sep 07, 2018

Meet PoLTE, a Dallas-based startup that wants to make location-tracking more efficient. Thanks to PoLTE’s software solution, logistics and shipment companies can much more easily track packages and goods. The startup is participating in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF. If you want to use a connected device to track a package, you currently need a couple of things — a way to determine the location of the package, and a way to transmit this information over the air.

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Ashton Kutcher hates cars, loves scooters Sep 06, 2018

Ashton Kutcher and Effie Epstein discussed their investment strategy at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. With their VC fund Sound Ventures, they invested in Bird. While they are conflicted on this topic, Kutcher had a passionate answer about scooters. Here’s a video of what he had to say: Ashton Kutcher: It's a better world if scooters like Bird take off #TCDisrupt pic.twitter.

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Unity CEO says half of all games are built on Unity Sep 06, 2018

Unity CEO John Riccitiello came to TechCrunch Disrupt SF to give everyone an update on the world’s most popular game engine. You might not be aware that most of the games you’re playing, especially mobile games, are built using Unity. For those not familiar with game engines, Riccitiello started by describing game engines very clearly. Back in the days, “[game developers] would write out a game program that had lots of art assets, lots of animation, lots of sounds.

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Here are the six startups participating in Betaworks LiveCamp Sep 05, 2018

Betaworks this morning revealed this list of six startups participating in its fourth Camp accelerator program. Launched in 2016, the program brings together a collection of young companies united under a single theme. This time out, things are focused on live-streaming, for a program fittingly titled, LiveCamp. Betaworks settled on the topic based on the popularity of apps like Twitch and HQ Trivia. It’s admittedly a bit more nebulous than past topics like BotCamp, VoiceCamp and VisionCamp.

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Uber’s chief diversity officer is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 Sep 04, 2018

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2018, Uber’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Bo Young Lee will be joining us to talk about the ride-sharing company’s efforts to put detoxify its corporate culture and promote a more inclusive environment for employees. Lee was hired as the company’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer this past January, after leaving insurance company Marsh LLC where she held a similar role.

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Spotinst, excess cloud capacity management service, snares $35M Series B Aug 30, 2018

Spotinst, the startup that helps companies purchase and manage excess cloud infrastructure capacity, announced a hefty $35 million Series B today led by Highland Capital. Existing investors Leaders Fund, Intel Capital and Vertex Ventures also participated. Today’s round brings the total investment to over $52 million.

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Datree gets $3M seed round to build DevOps policy engine in GitHub Aug 30, 2018

Datree, an early-stage startup based in Israel, wants to help companies create a set of policies for their applications, and apply them in GitHub before a commit goes live. Today, it announced $3 million in seed funding from TLV partners. The check was actually written last September, according to the founders, and they are making the investment public today.

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Cleo Capital sets $10M target to fund female entrepreneurs Aug 29, 2018

Sarah Kunst has filed to raise $10 million for her debut venture capital fund, Cleo Capital. According to Axios, the firm will give cash to female entrepreneurs who will act as scouts. Scouts look for viable early-stage startups for firms to invest in and then receive a cut of the profits on the investments. Kunst, pictured above, is a scout for Sequoia; it’s unclear if that will change now that she’s running her own firm.

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Very Good Security makes data ‘unhackable’ with $8.5M from Andreessen Aug 29, 2018

“You can’t hack what isn’t there,” Very Good Security co-founder Mahmoud Abdelkader tells me. His startup assumes the liability of storing sensitive data for other companies, substituting dummy credit card or Social Security numbers for the real ones. Then when the data needs to be moved or operated on, VGS injects the original info without clients having to change their code.

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VMware acquires CloudHealth Technologies for multi-cloud management Aug 28, 2018

VMware is hosting its VMworld customer conference in Las Vegas this week, and to get things going it announced that its acquiring Boston-based CloudHealth Technologies. They did not disclose the terms of the deal, but Reuters is reporting the price is $500 million.

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Rebuilding employee philanthropy from the bottom up Aug 27, 2018

In tech circles, it would be easy to assume that the world of high-impact charitable giving is a rich man’s game where deals are inked at exclusive black tie galas over fancy hors d’oeuvre.Both Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff have donated to SF hospitals that now bear their names. Gordon Moore has given away $5B – including $600M to Caltech – which was the largest donation to a university at the time.

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Housing startup Bungalow raises $14 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures Aug 24, 2018

Moving to a new city can be tough for a number of reasons, but what’s arguably hardest about moving is a competitive and expensive housing market, and lack of a pre-existing social support network. That’s the problem startup Bungalow is trying to solve.

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Nylas scores $16M Series B to expand email API tool Aug 24, 2018

Nylas, a startup that helps developers integrate email content into applications via an API, announced a $16 million Series B today led by Spark Capital. Other investors joining in included Slack Fund, Industry Ventures, and ScaleUp along with existing investors 8VC, Great Oaks Capital, Rubicon Capital and John Chambers’ personal fund. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $30 million.

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Foundries.io promises standardized open source IoT device security Aug 23, 2018

IoT devices currently lack a standard way of applying security. It leaves consumers, whether business or individuals, left to wonder if their devices are secure and up-to-date. Foundries.io, a company that launched today, wants to change that by offering a standard way to secure devices and deliver updates over the air. “Our mission is solving the problem of IoT and embedded space where there is no standardized core platform like Android for phones,” Foundries.

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Talla builds a smarter customer knowledge base Aug 22, 2018

Talla is taking aim at the customer service industry with its latest release, an AI-infused knowledge base. Today, the company released version 2.0 of the Talla Intelligent Knowledge Base. The company also announced that Paula Long, most recently CEO at Data Gravity, has joined the company as SVP of engineering. This tool combines customer content with automation, chatbots and machine learning.

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Semmle, startup that makes code searchable, hauls in $21M Series B Aug 22, 2018

Semmle, a startup that originally spun out of research at Oxford, announced a $21 million Series B investment today led by Accel Partners. It marked the second time Accel has led an investment in the company. Other investors include Work-Bench, Capital One, Credit Suisse, Google, Microsoft, NASA and Nasdaq Trust. Today’s investment brings the total to $31 million. Semmle has warranted this kind of interest by taking a unique approach to finding vulnerabilities in code.

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Titan launches its mobile ‘not a hedge fund’ Aug 21, 2018

What Robinhood did to democratize buying individual stocks, Titan wants to do for investing in a managed portfolio. Instead of being restricted to rich accredited investors willing to pour $5,000 or even $500,000 into a traditional hedge fund that charges 2 percent fees and 20 percent of profits, Titan lets anyone invest as little as $1,000 for just a 1 percent fee while keeping all the profits.

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Incentivai launches to simulate how hackers break blockchains Aug 20, 2018

Cryptocurrency projects can crash and burn if developers don’t predict how humans will abuse their blockchains. Once a decentralized digital economy is released into the wild and the coins start to fly, it’s tough to implement fixes to the smart contracts that govern them. That’s why Incentivai is coming out of stealth today with its artificial intelligence simulations that test not just for security holes, but for how greedy or illogical humans can crater a blockchain community.

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Klarity uses AI to strip drudgery from contract review Aug 20, 2018

Klarity, a member of the Y Combiner 2018 Summer class, wants to automate much of the contract review process by applying artificial intelligence, specifically natural language processing. Company co-founder and CEO Andrew Antos has experienced the pain of contract reviews first hand. After graduating from Harvard Law, he landed a job spending 16 hours a day reviewing contract language, a process he called mind-numbing.

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Credit Karma acquires mortgage platform Approved Aug 17, 2018

Credit Karma, the service best known for providing free credit score monitoring and other financial advice(mostly to millennials), is getting into the mortgage business. The company today announced that it has acquired Approved, a mortgage platform that brings modern technology to a process that even today often still involves faxing documents back and forth. The companies did not disclose the financial details of the transaction.

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Shelf Engine uses machine learning to stop food waste from eating into store margins Aug 17, 2018

Shelf Engine’s team While running Molly’s, the Seattle-based ready meal wholesaler he founded, Stefan Kalb was upset about its 28 percent food wastage rate. Feeling that the amount was “astronomical,” he began researching how to lower it — and was shocked to discovered Molly’s was actually outperforming the industry average.

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To fight the scourge of open offices, ROOM sells rooms Aug 16, 2018

Noisy open offices don’t foster collaboration, they kill it, according to a Harvard study that found the less-private floor plan led to a 73 percent drop in face-to-face interaction between employees and a rise in emailing. The problem is plenty of young companies and big corporations have already bought into the open office fad. But a new startup called ROOM is building a prefabricated, self-assembled solution. It’s the Ikea of office phone booths.

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Owl raises $10 million for two-way car dashboard camera Aug 16, 2018

Owl, the two-way dash cam founded by a team of ex-Apple and Dropcam executives, has secured a $10 million Series A1 round led by Canvas Ventures. This brings Owl’s total funding to $28 million. “We’ve seen a lot of pent-up demand for car security, and Owl is tapping into that demand with a product that’s easy to install and use,” Canvas Ventures General Partner Rebecca Lynn said in a statement.

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“Unhackable” BitFi crypto wallet has been hacked Aug 15, 2018

The BitFi crypto wallet was supposed to be unhackable and none other than famous weirdo John McAfee claimed that the device – essentially an Android-based mini tablet – would withstand any attack. Spoiler alert: it couldn’t. First, a bit of background. The $120 device launched at the beginning of this month to much fanfare. It consisted of a device that McAfee claimed contained no software or storage and was instead a standalone wallet similar to the Trezor.

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HQ Trivia downloads spiral downward as it hits Apple TV Aug 15, 2018

HQ Trivia’s app store ranking has continued to sink the past three months, but it’s hoping a new version on your television could revitalize growth. HQ today launched an Apple TV app that lets users play the twice-daily live quiz game alongside iOS Android players. “Everything about the game is still the same – same questions, same time, same rules” says a spokesperson, except you’ll play with the Apple TV remote instead of their phone’s screen.

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Openbook is the latest dream of a digital life beyond Facebook Aug 14, 2018

As tech’s social giants wrestle with antisocial demons that appear to be both an emergent property of their platform power, and a consequence of specific leadership and values failures (evident as theypublicly failto enforce even the standards they claim to have), there are still people dreaming of a better way. Of social networking beyond outrage-fuelled adtech giants like Facebook and Twitter.

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Startups should read this checklist before they go ‘whale hunting’ for big partners Aug 14, 2018

David Frankel Contributor David Frankel is a managing partner at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor You earn a million dollars a year and can’t get funded? Dear auto entrepreneurs, please think outside the gearbox A top-four tech company recently approached the CEO of one of our B2B portfolio companies with a tremendous offer.

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Google isn’t sure how to spell “Fortnite Battle Royale” Aug 13, 2018

The launch of Fortnite Battle Royale has left Google in a slight predicament. While Google is in no way hard up for cash, Fortnite Battle Royale for Android certainly represented the potential for a relatively big revenue stream for an app. That is, until Epic Games decided it would launch Fortnite for Android from its own website, circumventing the Play Store.

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Federacy wants to put bug bounty programs in reach of every startup Aug 13, 2018

Federacy, a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2018 class, has a mission to make bug bounty programs available to even the smallest startup. Traditionally, bug bounty programs from players like BugCrowd and HackerOne have been geared toward larger organizations. While these certainly have their place, founders William and James Sulinski, who happen to be twins, felt there was a gap in the marketplace, where smaller organizations were being left out of what they considered to be a crucial service.

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Blissfully grabs $3.5 million seed investment to help companies get their SaaS in gear Aug 10, 2018

Blissfully, a New York City startup that helps companies understand their SaaS usage inside their organizations, announced it has received a $3.5 million seed round. The investment was led by by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Hubspot, Founder Collective, and several unnamed pre-seed investors also participated. They got a $1.5 million pre-seed investment, bringing the total so far to $5 million, according the company.

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Blippar is using AR to help customers find their way indoors Aug 10, 2018

Blippar is using AR to help customers find their way indoors Remember the scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruz walks through the mall and thousands of holographic ads pop up around him? That reality may not be as far off as we thought. Blippar, the augmented reality startup that launched back in 2011, is today announcing the launch of a new product that would let retailers, airports, commercial real estate owners, etc. place augmented reality content across their space.

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Evolute debuts enterprise container migration and management platform Aug 09, 2018

Evolute, a 3-year old startup out of Mountain View, officially launched the Evolute platform today with the goal of helping large organizations migrate applications to containers and manage those containers at scale. Evolute founder and CEO Kristopher Francisco says he wants to give all Fortune 500 companies access to the same technology that big companies like Apple and Google enjoy because of their size and scale.

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Soundcloud on the blockchain? Audius raises $5.5M to decentralize music Aug 09, 2018

Audius wants to cut the middlemen out music streaming so artists get paid their fair share. Coming out of stealth today led by serial entrepreneur and DJ Ranidu Lankage, Audius is building a blockchain-based alternative to Spotify or SoundCloud. Users will pay for Audius tokens or earn them by listening to ads.

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Don’t fear the big company ‘kill zones’ Aug 08, 2018

Ed Byrne Contributor Share on Twitter Ed Byrne is an entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of Scaleworks. Do you worry about the so-called “kill zones” of big tech companies? The Economistthinks you should. The theory basically suggests that if your product or service is anyway threatening or accretive to one of these incumbents, they will either force-buy your company or clone it and destroy your market.

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Researchers teach an AI how to dribble Aug 08, 2018

While this animated fellow looks like something out of NBA 2K18, it’s really an AI that’s learning how to dribble in real time. The AI starts out fumbling the ball a bit and by cycle 95 it is able to do some real Harlem Globetrotters stuff. In short, what you’re watching is a human-like avatar learning a very specialized human movement. To do this researchers at Carnegie Mellon and DeepMotion, Inc.

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Boston-area startups are on pace to overtake NYC venture totals Aug 07, 2018

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Home run exits happen stealthily for biotech While tech waffles on going public, biotech IPOs boom Boston has regained its longstanding place as the second-largest U.S. startup funding hub. After years of trailing New York City in total annual venture investment, Massachusetts is taking the lead in 2018. Venture investment in the Boston metro area hit $5.

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Epic Games sidesteps the Play Store with Fortnite for Android launch Aug 06, 2018

Epic Games continues to spread the love… to consumers, at least. Following the launches of Fortnite Battle Royale on iOS earlier this year and Fortnite for the Nintendo Switch earlier this summer, Epic Games is now confirming that the Android version of the game will be available exclusively through the Fortnite website. Users can visit Fortnite.com and download the Fortnite Launcher, which will then allow them to load Fortnite Battle Royale onto their devices.

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Google Maps is no longer #flatearth Aug 06, 2018

Go to Google Maps and zoom out. Halfway out, the map’s perspective changes from a traditional flat map view to an interactive globe. Zoom all the way out and the Earth is presented as a globe with landmasses of the appropriate size. Greenland is no longer the size of Africa and all is right with the world. On flat maps, it’s impossible to represent land mass size on a relative scale.

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Cisco is buying Duo Security for $2.35B in cash Aug 03, 2018

Cisco today announced its intent to buy Ann Arbor, MI-based security firm, Duo Security. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco is paying $2.35 billion in cash and assumed equity awards for Duo. Duo Security was founded in 2010 by Dug Song and Jonathan Oberheide and went on to raise $121.M through several rounds of funding. The company has 700 employees with offices throughout the United States and in London, though the company has remained headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI.

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Skyline AI raises $18M Series A for its machine learning-based real estate investment tech Aug 02, 2018

Skyline AI founders Iri Amirav, Or Hiltch, Guy Zipori and Amir Leitersdorf A mere four months after coming out of stealth mode with $3 million in seed funding, real estate investment startup Skyline AI announced that it has raised an $18 million Series A. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, a returning investor, and TLV Partners, with participation from JLL Spark, a division of real estate investment management firm JLL.

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Fashionably AI Aug 02, 2018

This summer’s wedding season required me to buy a new suit. I vowed to be adventurous and buy a color I normally never would have considered. Alas, I opted for a little more movie-theater usher and a little less Jidenna. Had I known about it at the time, I probably would have used Eison Triple Thread, a company that specializes in creating made-to-order suits. Working with someone to create a suit can be a hard enough task.

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A pickaxe for the AI gold rush, Labelbox sells training data software Aug 01, 2018

Every artificial intelligence startup or corporate R&D lab has to reinvent the wheel when it comes to how humans annotate training data to teach algorithms what to look for. Whether it’s doctors assessing the size of cancer from a scan or drivers circling street signs in self-driving car footage, all this labeling has to happen somewhere. Often that means wasting six months and as much as a million dollars just developing a training data system.

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Tractable is applying AI to accident and disaster appraisal Jul 31, 2018

“Happy to spend 10 minutes on our vision and the journey we’re on, but then, really, 15 minutes on what we’ve got today, what it is we’ve achieved, what it is our AI does,” says Tractable co-founder and CEO Alexandre Dalyac when I video called him a couple of weeks ago. “You can probably speed up all of that,” I quip back.

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Fabric offers an alternative to Facebook sharing with a private timeline of personal moments Jul 31, 2018

Fabric, a personal journaling app that emerged from Y Combinator’s 2016 batch of startups, is relaunching itself as a Facebook alternative. The app is giving itself a makeover in the wake of Facebook’s closure of the Moves location tracker, by offering its own tool to record your activities, photos, memories and other moments shared with friends and family. But unlike on Facebook, everything in Fabric is private by default and data isn’t shared with marketers.

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Facebook’s debacle, $100M rounds and Slack links up with Atlassian Jul 30, 2018

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This was one hell of a week. Happily, we had our own Connie Loizos, Matthew Lynley, and Alex Wilhelm on hand, along with InitializedCapital’s Alexis Ohanian to pick over the mix. First up we had zero choice but to talk about Facebook. The social company’s epic repricing in the middle of the week blotted out the news sun.

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MentalHappy helps companies send custom care packages to employees going through a rough time Jul 27, 2018

For many people, their workplaces become like a second family. More companies are recognizing this with better benefits such as longer family leave and wellness programs. But when an employee needs to take a break or is going through a hard time, they can feel alienated–sometimes enough to seek a new job. MentalHappy wants to help them stay connected to their companies with care packages, called Cheerboxes, designed for people experiencing a major life event.

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Outlier raises $6.2 M Series A to change how companies use data Jul 27, 2018

Traditionally, companies have gathered data from a variety of sources, then used spreadsheets and dashboards to try and make sense of it all. Outlier wants to change that and deliver a handful of insights that matter most for your job, company and industry right to your inbox. Today the company announced a $6.2 million Series A to further develop that vision. The round was led by Ridge Ventures with assistance from 11.2 Capital, First Round Capital, Homebrew, Susa Ventures and SV Angel.

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Zbiotics says it’s bioengineered a hangover cure Jul 26, 2018

Y Combinator backedZbioticshas spend two years developing what they’re billing as theworld’s first genetically engineered probiotic. The startup’s initial product isn’t exactly world-changing but it might just save your day — given they’ve invented an elixir of ‘next day’ life: Aka a hangover cure.

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ClassPass works up $85 million Series D funding Jul 26, 2018

ClassPass today announced the close of an $85 million Series D financing round led by Temasek, the same firm that led the startup’s Series C financing. L Catterton, a private equity firm that has also invested in the likes of Peloton, Equinox, and Pure Barre, also participated in the round. As part of the deal, L Catterton’s Michael Farello will join the ClassPass board.

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HoneyLove looks to reinvent shapewear Jul 25, 2018

Betsie Larkin spent the first ten years of her professional career as an EDM artist. She released two solo albums, toured five continents and worked with the likes of Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten. But after being constantly frustrated by shapewear she wore under her stage outfits, she felt compelled to try her hand at a new industry. That’s how HoneyLove was born.

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YC-backed Send Reality makes 3D virtual walkthroughs for residential listings Jul 25, 2018

The fields of computer vision and VR are difficult. But a new company, Send Reality, is entering the race. The Y Combinator-backed company is looking to offer full 3D-modeling for virtual walkthroughs of real estate listings. Founder and CEO Andrew Chen said he was the kid back in middle school and high school that spent hours walking around the streets of Paris, NYC and SF on Google Streetview.

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Doughbies’ cookie crumbles in a cautionary tale of venture scale Jul 24, 2018

Doughbies should have been a bakery, not a venture-backed startup. Founded in the frothy days of 2013 and funded with $670,000 by investors including 500 Startups, Doughbies built a same-day cookie delivery service. But it was never destined to be capable of delivering the returns required by the VC model that depends on massive successes to cover the majority of bets that fail. The startup became the butt of jokes about how anything could get funding.

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While tech waffles on going public, biotech IPOs boom Jul 24, 2018

For people who make investment decisions based on revenues and projected earnings, biotech IPOs are kind of a non-starter. Not only are new market entrants universally unprofitable, most have zero revenue. Going public is mostly a means to raise money for clinical trials, with red ink expected for years to come. That pattern may be one reason the venture capital press,Crunchbase Newsincluded, tends to devote a disproportionately small portion of coverage to biotech IPOs.

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What should competitive Fortnite look like? Jul 23, 2018

Last weekend, Epic Games put forth its first true effort at official competitive Fortnite Battle Royale. It was a disaster. The private hosts used for the tournament were about as laggy as could be, with pro players getting eliminated simply because they couldn’t move. This tournament was for a total prize of $250K. That’s big money, and big frustration for pro players who were essentially eliminated by the whims of the server gods.

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Even raises $40m to transform the working class to the savings class Jul 23, 2018

The working class of the United States doesn’t get many breaks these days. It’s not just a function of low pay and long hours, but also the incredible uncertainty of income and expenses that makes surviving week-to-week so challenging. One in five Americans have a negative net wealth, even in an economy where the unemployment rate is the lowest in almost two decades.

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Sinemia drops prices for its movie ticket subscriptions, which now start a $3.99 per month Jul 20, 2018

Sinemia drops prices for its movie ticket subscriptions, which now start a $3.99 per month MoviePass competitor Sinemia is lowering prices on the already low-cost movie ticket subscription plans that it introduced earlier this year. Its monthly prices are being cut by $1 across-the-board. The cheapest plan now costs $3.99 per month, which gets you one standard movie ticket for that month. The priciest one, which covers three tickets (and includes 3D, 4D and IMAX screens), now costs $13.99 per month.

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PureSec exits stealth to secure serverless code Jul 20, 2018

PureSec, a startup out of Israel emerged from stealth today to provide a way to make serverless computing more secure. Serverless computing reduces programming to writing functions, so that when a certain event happens, it triggers an automated action. The cloud vendor takes care of the underlying infrastructure and developers just write the code. It may sound like Shangri La for tech, but in reality there are still security concerns.

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Y Combinator to give $10K to 100 grads of its online Startup School Jul 19, 2018

Y Combinator wants to lure more companies into the funnel for its accelerator whiledemocratizing free access to startup knowledge. It’s simultaneously moving up and down market to conquer the acceleration space, with both its recent Series A program for more mature startups, and $1 million in grants for high potential founders extra-early stage online course.

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Kik launches beta product after $100 million ICO Jul 19, 2018

Kik made waves last year after a successful $100 million ICO. Now the company has released its first beta product related to its Kin token. Called Kinit, it’s a simple wallet that enables users to earn, store, and spend its tokens. “Kinit is a fun, easy way to earn Kin, a new cryptocurrency made for your digital life.

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Ocean Solutions Accelerator names its first wave of conservation startups Jul 18, 2018

Early this year the Sustainable Oceans Alliance announced that it would be starting its own accelerator with a focus on conservation. The nonprofit has just announced the Ocean Solutions Accelerator’s first wave of startups: a particularly varied and international lineup that’s easy to root for. You may also remember that the SOA was one of the beneficiaries of the mysterious Pineapple Fund, administered by a mysterious cryptocurrency multimillionaire.

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Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman moves into Chairman role Jul 18, 2018

Scott Heiferman, Meetup CEO and cofounder, is today moving into the Chairman role at the community-building startup. Meetup launched in 2003 with a simple goal: to give communities an easy way to meet up in real life. Since, the company has grown to 40 million members, with 320,000 Meetup groups and around 12,000 Meetups per day around the world. Late last year, WeWork acquired Meetup for a reported $200 million. According to WeWork, thousands of Meetups were already happening in WeWork locations.

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Online learning platform Unacademy gets $21M Series C from Sequoia India, SAIF and Nexus Jul 17, 2018

Unacademy founders Roman Saini, Gaurav Munjal and Hemesh Singh Bangalore-based Unacademy will add more educators to its online learning platform, which claims to be India’s largest, after closing a $21 million Series C. The funding comes from Sequoia India, SAIF Partners and Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from Blume Ventures (all four firms are returning from Unacademy’s Series B last year).

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0x lets any app be the Craigslist of cryptocurrency Jul 17, 2018

Centralized crypto exchanges like Coinbase are easy but expensive because they introduce a middleman. Not-for-profit project 0x allows any developer to quickly build their own decentralized cryptocurrency exchange and decide their own fees. It acts like Craigslist, connecting traders without ever holding the tokens itself.

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Furniture startups skip the showroom and go straight to your door Jul 16, 2018

Holden Page Contributor Share on Twitter Holden Page is an editor and journalist at Crunchbase News. Startups making delivery and transport easier than ever are a hit with venture capitalists, so it’s not a surprise that young tech companies delivering home staples — living room sets, dining room tables, couches and more — are raising big dollars. From 2010 through 2017, venture investors haveoutfittedU.S.-based furniture startups with a little over $1.

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Facial recognition startup Kairos acquires Emotion Reader Jul 16, 2018

Kairos, the face recognition technology used for brand marketing, has announced the acquisition of EmotionReader. EmotionReader is a Limerick, Ireland-based startup that uses algorithms to analyze facial expressions around video content. The startup allows brands and marketers to measure viewers emotional response to video, analyze viewer response via an analytics dashboard, and make different decisions around media spend based on viewer response.

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Is insurance a rich enough game to disrupt? Jul 13, 2018

Martha Notaras Contributor Martha Notaras is a partner at XL Innovate. For the last decade, the largest technology companies have increasingly looked outside of tech to grow their operations. From automotive to retail to groceries, these companies use massive competitive advantages in the form of data, consumer relationships and software engineers to fundamentally change markets. Now, companies like Apple and Google and Amazon are eyeing innovation across the insurance landscape.

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Medical care scheduling startup Doctolib acquires MonDocteur Jul 13, 2018

What do you do when you’ve raised nearly $100 million and you want to grow as quickly as possible? In Doctolib’s case, the startup is acquiring its main competitor MonDocteur. Together, the two companies work with tens of thousands of doctors and get tens of millions of unique visitors every month. Doctolib has developed an online scheduling platform for all sorts of doctors, from your physician next door to the hospital in the big city.

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Xara Cloud is an easy to use design tool to help businesses create better looking content Jul 12, 2018

Xara Cloud is an easy to use design tool to help businesses create better looking content Xara is on a mission to help businesses create better looking content, and in turn save us all from having to consume visually unappealing marketing and comms material. The German startup has developed Xara Cloud, a design tool that resides in the cloud and attempts to bridge the gap between professional design and business content created by non-design professionals.

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Codefights becomes CodeSignal and launches a new ratings system for developers Jul 11, 2018

CodeFights started out as a competitive coding platform but has since morphed to focus more on interview prep and helping business recruit developers. To better reflect this focus, the service today announced that it is changing its name to CodeSignal. In addition to this, the company also today officially launched its Coding Score, a credit score-like ratings system for developers with scores that — just like today’s credit scores — range from 300 to 850.

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Box acquires Butter.ai to make search smarter Jul 11, 2018

Box announced today that it has acquired Butter.ai, a startup that helps customers search for content intelligently in the cloud. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Butter.AI team will be joining Box. Butter.AI was started by two ex-Evernote employees, Jack Hirsch and Adam Walz. The company was partly funded by Evernote founder and former CEO Phil Libin’s Turtle Studios.

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Shoe startups aren’t dragging their feet Jul 09, 2018

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Hydrate, intoxicate, caffeinate, repeat: Meet the startups pouring the future VCs serve up a large helping of cash to startups disrupting food Good thing Carrie Bradshaw, the shoe-loving heroine of Sex and the City, wasn’t a footwear venture capitalist. The high-heeled, high-priced and hard-to-walk-in pairs beloved by the TV icon are pretty much the least fundable concept in the shoe startup space lately.

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Joseph Lubin, Amanda Gutterman and Sam Cassatt from Consensys to speak at Disrupt SF Jul 09, 2018

There is perhaps no firm that has done as much to promote the adoption of Ethereum as the dominant cryptocurrency platform for actual product development as Consensys. Founded by Ethereum Foundation co-founder Joe Lubin, Consensys has emerged as an investor, accelerator, educator and product developer in its own right in little more than three years that it has been in existence.

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YC-backed Buttermilk brings easy-to-prepare Indian meals to your doorstep Jul 06, 2018

When Mitra Raman went off to college, all she wanted was a bowl of her mother’s homemade rasam. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Raman grew up eating traditional South Indian cuisine almost every day, but didn’t quite know how to make it just like mom when she left home. On her next visit back home, she told her mom she missed her cooking. And, being a mom, Mrs. Raman simply packed all the ingredients for rasam in a plastic bag and told her daughter to heat up some water and add it in.

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Airbnb tests earlier payouts for hosts Jul 04, 2018

Airbnb is testing a new payments feature for hosts, letting them get partially paid out at the time of booking. This feature isn’t rolling out to everyone just yet, as Airbnb says that this is just a preliminary test to gauge interest. Invited hosts simply opt-in to payout splitting to check out the feature. Here’s how it works: Normally, Airbnb hosts are paid 24 hours after their guest’s scheduled check-in time.

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Hydrate, intoxicate, caffeinate, repeat: Meet the startups pouring the future Jul 03, 2018

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor VCs serve up a large helping of cash to startups disrupting food US startups off to a strong M&A run in 2018 These days, it seems like everyone with extra cash has some kind of pricey drinking habit. It might be fine wine, craft beer or cocktails. Or it could come in the form of coconut water, cold-pressed juice or the latest frothy caffeinated concoction.

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Original Stitch’s new Bodygram will measure your body Jul 03, 2018

After years of teasing, Original Stitch has officially launched their Bodygram service and will be rolling it out this summer. The system can scan your body based on front and side photos and will create custom shirts with your own precise measurements. “Bodygram gives you full body measurements as accurate as taken by professional tailors from just two photos on your phone.

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Facebook is buying UK’s Bloombury AI to ramp up natural language tech in London Jul 02, 2018

Perhaps rightly, there has long been a perception that Google-owned Deepmind has been the most aggressive in hoovering up a lot of the U.K.’s best talent in artificial intelligence, but now Facebook appears to be turning its eye to the country. TechCrunch understands that the social network behemoth is acquiring London-based Bloomsbury AI, a startup that has built natural language processing (NLP) technology to help machines answer questions based on information gleaned from documents.

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Leena AI builds HR chat bots to answer policy questions automatically Jul 02, 2018

Say you have a job with a large company and you want to know how much vacation time you have left, or how to add your new baby to your healthcare. This usually involves emailing or calling HR and waiting for an answer, or it could even involve crossing multiple systems to get what you need. Leena AI, a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2018 class, wants to change that by building HR bots to answer question for employees instantly.

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Instead of points, Bumped gives equity in the companies you shop at Jun 29, 2018

What does brand loyalty even mean anymore? App downloads, points, stars, and other complex reward systems have not just spawned their own media empires trying to decipher them, they have failed at their most basic objective: building a stronger bond between a brand and its consumers. Bumped wants to reinvent the loyalty space by giving consumers shares of the companies they shop at.

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BigID scores $30 million Series B months after closing A round Jun 28, 2018

BigID announced a big $30 million Series B round today, which comes on the heels of closing their $14M A investment in January. It’s been a whirlwind year for the NYC data security startup as GDPR kicked in and companies came calling for their products. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners with participation from previous investors ClearSky Security, Comcast Ventures, Boldstart Ventures, Information Venture Partners and SAP.io.

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YC grad ZenProspect rebrands as Apollo, lands $7 M Series A Jun 27, 2018

ZenProspect, a startup that emerged from the Y Combinator Winter 2016 class to help companies use data and intelligence to increase sales, announced today that it was rebranding as Apollo. It also announced a $7 million Series A investment. The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners. Social Capital and Y Combinator also participated. Apparently Y Combinator liked what they saw enough to continue to invest in the company.

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Celonis scores $50 million Series B on $1B valuation Jun 26, 2018

In the age of digital transformation, it’s important to understand your business processes and find improvements quickly, but it’s not always easy to do without bringing in expensive consultants to help. Celonis, a New York City enterprise startup, created a sophisticated software solution to help solve this problem, and today it announced a $50 million Series B investment from Accel and 83North on a $1 billion valuation.

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Open source sustainability Jun 26, 2018

Open source sustainability has been nothing short of an oxymoron. Engineers around the world pour their sweat and frankly, their hearts into these passion projects that undergird all software in the modern internet economy. In exchange, they ask for nothing in return except for recognition and help in keeping their projects alive and improving them. It’s an incredible movement of decentralized voluntarism and represents humanity at its best.

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Are scooter startups really worth billions? Jun 25, 2018

It’s been hard to miss the scooter startup wars opening fresh, techno-fueled rifts in Valley society in recent months. Another flavor of ride-sharing steed which sprouted seemingly overnight to clutter up sidewalks — drawing rapid-fire ire from city regulators apparently far more forgiving of traffic congestion if it’s delivered in the traditional, car-shaped capsule.

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Sphero acquires a music education startup Jun 25, 2018

It’s hard to say precisely how Sphero’s pivot to education is going in these early stages, but it recently got an infusion of funding and is already out acquiring new startups. The BB-8 maker announced this morning that it’s picked up Specdrumsâ€‹ — the fellow Boulder, Co-based startup is a Kickstarter success story that lets users create music with an app connected ring.

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Urban Airship raises another $25M Jun 22, 2018

Urban Airship has raised $25 million in Series F funding. The company started out as a platform supporting push notifications, but has since expanded to include other marketing channels like email, SMS, mobile wallets and voice assistants. The goal is to be the platform managing messaging and unifying customer data across all these channels. Altogether, Urban Airship said it’s now delivered more than two trillion messages, doubling the number from a year ago.

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Why startups can’t afford to ignore customer retention Jun 20, 2018

Venture-backed companies must walk the line between fast growth and efficient growth. Even as VCs value high-quality revenue, companies are still held to a minimum growth rate. We think of this threshold as the “Mendoza Line,” a baseball term we’ve adapted to track the minimum growth needed to get access to venture funding. Above this line, startups are generally attractive to investors and even have a good chance for a strong exit.

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Lyft’s app code reveals unlaunched bike or scooter feature Jun 20, 2018

Lyft hasn’t acquired a bike-sharing startup or gotten a scooter permit yet, but it’s already preparing its app for them with a feature codenamed “last mile”. Code and screenshots dug out of Lyft’s Android app reveal a way to search a map for last mile vehicles, and scan a QR code or enter a pin to unlock them. These materials come to TechCrunch from Jane Manchun Wong, who’s recently established herself as a prolific app code investigator.

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SpeakSee makes it simple for a deaf person to join a group conversation Jun 19, 2018

There’s a great deal of activity in the fields of speech recognition and the “Internet of Things,” but one natural application of the two has gone relatively unpursued: helping the deaf and hard of hearing take part in everyday conversations. SpeakSee aims to do this (after crowdfunding, naturally) with a clever hardware design that minimizes setup friction and lets everyone communicate naturally.

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The long Cocky-gate nightmare is over Jun 19, 2018

I’ve been wanting to write about Cocky-gate for some time now but the story – a row between self-published authors that degenerated into ridiculousness – seems finally over and perhaps we can all get some perspective. The whole thing started in May when a self-published romance author, Faleena Hopkins, began attempting to enforce her copyright on books that contained “cocky” in the title.

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VCs serve up a large helping of cash to startups disrupting food Jun 18, 2018

Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Scaling startups are setting up secondary hubs in these cities Here is where CEOs of heavily funded startups went to school Here is what your daily menu might look like if recently funded startups have their way. You’ll start the day with a nice, lightly caffeinated cup ofcheese tea. Chase away yourhangoverwith a cold bottle of liver-boosting supplement.

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YC alum Modern Health, a startup focused on emotional wellbeing, gets $2.26M seed funding Jun 18, 2018

Modern Health founders Alyson Friedensohn and Erica Johnson About one year ago, a note from a CEO thanking his employee for using sick days to take care of her mental health went viral. It was a reminder to Alyson Friedensohn of what she wants to accomplish with Modern Health, the emotional health benefits startup she founded last year with neuroscientist Erica Johnson. “We want that to be normal.

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VR helps us remember Jun 15, 2018

Researchers at the University of Maryland have found that people remember information better if it is presented in VR vs. on a two dimensional personal computer. This means VR education could be an improvement on tablet or device-based learning.

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Meet Atoms, the minimalist startup shoes you’ll actually wear Jun 15, 2018

Step aside, Allbirds. Atoms come in quarter sizes you can mix-and-match. Emerging from stealth today in a TechCrunch exclusive, this shoe startup’s obsession with satisfaction allowed it to replace my Nikes. I’ve spent the last 2 months wearing Atoms every day. They’re the first sneaker classy looking enough for semi-formal occasions, but that I can comfortably walk or even hike in for hours.

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This AR guppy feeds on the spectrum of human emotion Jun 14, 2018

Indiecade always offers a nice respite from the wall of undulating human flesh and heat that is the rest of the E3 show floor. The loose confederation of independent developers often produces compelling and bizarre gaming experiences outside of the big studio system. TendAR is the most compelling example of this out of this year’s batch. It is, simply put, a pet fish that feeds on human emotions through augmented reality. I can’t really explain why this is a thing, but it is.

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N26 launches a revised metal card Jun 14, 2018

Fintech startup N26 is updating its N26 Metal product and launching it tomorrow. You might remember that the company first announced its premium card at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin in December 2017. Shortly after the conference, the card was available in early access for existing N26 Black customers. But the company had to go back to the drawing board and update the card design. N26 Metal customers had some complaints about the design of the card in particular.

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Beware ‘founder-friendly’ VCs — 3 steps founders should take to protect their companies Jun 13, 2018

In 2014, it seemed like pretty much anyone with a pulse and pitch deck was capable of raising huge amounts of capital from prestigious venture capital firms at sky-high valuations. Here we arefour years later and times have changed. VCs inked a little more than 3,100 deals in the last quarter of 2017, according to Crunchbase— about 500 fewer than the previous quarter.

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New technology can see your body through walls Jun 12, 2018

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has created a system that can see your body through walls, recreating your poses when you walk, sit, or simply stand still. It uses RF waves to sense where you are and then recreates your body as a simple stick figure. It’s called RF-Pose.

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By automating code compliance, UpCodes AI is “the spellcheck for buildings” Jun 12, 2018

For many architects, the hardest part of their job starts after they finish designing a building, when the onerous process of code compliance begins. Written to ensure the safety and accessibility of buildings, codes dictate everything from the height and depth of stairs and where railings end, to the amount of floor space in front of toilets and the height of windows.

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Workday acquires Rallyteam to fuel machine learning efforts Jun 11, 2018

Sometimes you acquire a company for the assets and sometimes you do it for the talent. Today Workday announced it was buying Rallyteam, a San Francisco startup that helps companies keep talented employees by matching them with more challenging opportunities in-house. The companies did not share the purchase price or the number of Rallyteam employees who would be joining Workday . In this case, Workday appears to be acquiring the talent.

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Self-driving robot delivery startup Starship Technologies raises $25 million Jun 11, 2018

The robots are here and one company, Starship Technologies, has raised $25 million to bring even more to the mainstream. This latest round of funding includes a follow-on investment from Matrix Partners and Morpheus Ventures. New investors include Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, Skype founding engineer Jaan Tallinn and others. These autonomous robots can carry items, like groceries or packages, within a two-mile radius.

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Devo scores $25 million and cool new name Jun 08, 2018

Logtrust is now known as Devo in one of the cooler name changes I’ve seen in a long time. Whether they intended to pay homage to the late 70s band is not clear, but investors probably didn’t care, as they gave the data operations startup a bushel of money today. The company now known as Devo announced a $25 million Series C round led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Kibo Ventures. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $71 million.

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Speech recognition triggers fun AR stickers in Panda’s video app Jun 08, 2018

Panda has built the next silly social feature Snapchat and Instagram will want to steal. Today the startup launches its video messaging app that fills the screen with augmented reality effects based on the words you speak. Say “Want to get pizza?” and a 3D pizza slice hovers by your mouth. Say “I wear my sunglasses at night” and suddenly you’re wearing AR shades with a moon hung above your head.

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The Uberization of telcos Jun 06, 2018

For the past decade, telecommunications companies around the globe have been grappling with falling average revenues per user equaling stagnant growth rates. While particularly mobile operators have enabled increasing prosperity in third-world countries, new ways of working and fueled entirely new markets, much of the wealth created has landed on the books of companies that we look upon with increasing discomfort: Google, Amazon, Alibaba, Tencent and others.

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Microsoft has acquired GitHub for $7.5B in Microsoft stock Jun 05, 2018

After a week of rumors, Microsoft today confirmed that it has acquired GitHub, the popular Git-based code sharing and collaboration service. The price of the acquisition was $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock. GitHub raised $350 millionand we know that the company was valued at about $2 billionin 2015. Former Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman (and now Microsoft corporate vice president) will become GitHub’s CEO.

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Scaling startups are setting up secondary hubs in these cities Jun 04, 2018

America’s mayors have spent the past nine months tripping over each other to curry favor with Amazon.com in its high-profile search for a second headquarters. More quietly, however, a similar story has been playing out in startup-land. Many of the most valuable venture-backed companies are venturing outside their high-cost headquarters and setting up secondary hubs in smaller cities. Where are they going? Nashville is pretty popular. So is Phoenix. Portland and Raleigh also are seeing some jobs.

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Bitcoin exchange abandons Poland even as the government invites it to a working group Jun 04, 2018

In a delightful bit of irony BitBay, a Central European exchange, has shut down operations in Poland even as it received an invitation by the Polish government to participate in a national blockchain working group. The news, which appeared in a Tweet, states that the group will assess regulations for cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and ICOs. “Our exchange has received an invitation from the PFSA to participate in the Blockchain Working Group.

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Weights & Biases raises $5M to build development tools for machine learning Jun 01, 2018

Machine learning is one of those buzzwords that nearly every tech company likes to throw around nowadays — but according to Lukas Biewald, it represents a genuinely new approach to programming. “Software has eaten alot of the world, and machine learning is eating software,” Biewald said.

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To become a public company, start operating like one early on Jun 01, 2018

After their long post-financial-crisis slump, European tech IPOs are starting to rebound. Tech companies raised more money on European public markets between 2015-17 (€5.3 billion) than in the previous seven years combined. With venture capital having boomed in that time, that trend is set to continue: There is a generation of well-funded, fast-growing technology companies now eyeing the public markets as the platform for continued rapid growth. The pipeline is healthy.

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Diamond dynasty DeBeers stoops to conquer with new line of man-made diamond jewelry May 31, 2018

They first launched nearly a decade ago with names like Diamond Foundry, Brilliant Earth, Mia Donnaand Pure Grown Diamonds, with millions of dollars in financing and a mission to reshape the diamond industry. They were startups that were going to popularize man-made diamonds for the masses in a way that would make the industry more sustainable and wring billions of dollars from the roughly $100 billion diamond market.

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Here’s where it’s cheaper to take an Uber than to own a car May 31, 2018

Here’s where it’s cheaper to take an Uber than to own a car Ride-sharing companies have long touted the cost benefits of their platforms. Well, depending on the city, it can be cheaper on a weekly basis to take an UberX or UberPOOL than it is to own a personal car, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers partner Mary Meeker’s 2018 annual internet trends report. In four of the five largest cities in the U.S., it is indeed cheaper to rely on Uber than it is to own a car.

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Snapchat preps Snapkit platform to bring camera, login to other apps May 30, 2018

Snapchat is secretly planning the launch of its first full-fledged developer platform, currently called Snapkit. The platform’s prototypes indicate it will let other apps offer a ‘login with Snapchat’ options, use the Bitmoji avatars it acquired, and host a version of Snap’s full-featured camera software that can share back to Snapchat.Multiple sources confirm Snap Inc is currently in talks with several app developers to integrate Snapkit.

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The well-funded startups driven to own the autonomous vehicle stack May 28, 2018

At some point in the future, while riding along in a car, a kid may ask their parent about a distant time in the past when people used steering wheels and pedals to control an automobile. Of course, the full realization of the “auto” part of the word — in the form of fully autonomous automobiles — is a long way off, but there are nonetheless companies trying to build that future today.

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Announcing the 15 companies competing in Startup Battlefield Europe May 28, 2018

TechCrunch scoured all of Europe to find the most innovative and disruptive early-stage startups to launch at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Europe 2018 at VivaTech. And today starting at 9:05 am CET on the TechCrunch homepage you can watch the pitches from the latest 15 Startup Battlefield companies. Each company will pitch for six minutes on the Pitch B stage at VivaTech, followed by a rigorous six-minute Q&A with esteemed judges from all over Europe.

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Meet the five finalists at Startup Battlefield Europe May 25, 2018

Fifteen companies just got off the stage at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield Europe at VivaTech in Paris. The TechCrunch team has taken feedback from our expert judges and narrowed the group down to five companies that will be competing in the finals on the VivaTech Main Stage at 6:15pm CET. (If you’re not at VivatTech, you can watch the finals live here on TechCrunch.

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And the winner of Startup Battlefield Europe at VivaTech is… Wingly May 25, 2018

And the winner of Startup Battlefield Europe at VivaTech is… Wingly With IOV as runner-up At the very beginning, there were 15 startups. After a morning of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner. Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition.

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Macron defends the European way of tech regulation May 24, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech at VivaTech in Paris, alternating between French and English. He defended a third way to regulate tech companies, which is different from the U.S. and from China. Macron thinks Europe should have a say when it comes to regulation — and it shouldn’t be just about privacy. Of course, he defended GDPR and online privacy, but he also talked about taxes, cyberbullying, the protection of independent workers and more.

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Ring’s Jamie Siminoff and Clinc’s Jason Mars to join us at Disrupt SF May 24, 2018

Disrupt SF is set to be the biggest tech conference that TechCrunch has ever hosted. So it only makes sense that we plan an agenda fit for the occasion. That’s why we’re absolutely thrilled to announce that Ring’s Jamie Siminoff will join us on stage for a fireside chat and Jason Mars from Clinc will be demo-ing first-of-its-kind technology on the Disrupt SF stage.

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Researchers recreate a brain, piece by piece May 23, 2018

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have created a method for growing and connecting single neurons using geometric patterns to route the neurons more precisely, cell by cell. The article, “Assembly and Connection of Micropatterned Single Neurons for Neuronal Network Formation,” appeared in Micromachines, a journal of molecular machinery. Thus far researchers have created simple brain matter using “in vitro cultures,” a process that grows neurons haphazardly in a clump.

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La Belle Vie wants to compete with Amazon Prime Now in Paris May 22, 2018

La Belle Vie wants to compete with Amazon Prime Now in Paris French startup La Belle Vie announced a new funding round of $6.5 million earlier this week (€5.5 million). Julien Mangeard, Thibaut Faurès Fustel de Coulanges, Louis Duclert, Kima Venturesand Shake-Up Factory participated in the founding round. Online grocery shopping is becoming quite competitive in Paris. You can order groceries from Amazon using Amazon Prime Now.

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Bail reform has a complex relationship with tech May 21, 2018

On any given day in the United States, more than 450,000 people are behind bars awaiting their constitutionally mandated fair trial. None of them have been convicted of a crime — they’ve been accused of committing a crime, but no formal ruling of guilt or innocence has been made. That means these hundreds of thousands of people are incarcerated simply because they don’t have the financial means to post bail.

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Gfycat starts rolling out 360 degree GIF content May 21, 2018

GIFs offer a way to compress a ton of information into a small amount of space, and while Gfycat has positioned itself as more of a short-form video centric platform, it’s going to take a step further to see what a step beyond a standard GIF looks like. The company today said it would be rolling out 360 degree GIF-like short form videos, which will allow users to plant themselves in the middle of what is effectively a looping video like a GIF.

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Parsable secures $40M investment to bring digital to industrial workers May 18, 2018

As we increasingly hear about automation, artificial intelligence and robots taking away industrial jobs, Parsable, a San Francisco-based startup sees a different reality, one with millions of workers who for the most part have been left behind when it comes to bringing digital transformation to their jobs. Parsable has developed a Connected Worker platform to help bring high tech solutions to deskless industrial workers who have been working mostly with paper-based processes.

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Boosted Boards founders launch heavy-duty scooter renter Skip May 18, 2018

All electric scooters are not created equal. I’ve found ones from Spin, Bird, and Lime to often be broken, shaky, or out of battery. But now the founders of Boosted Boards, which makes the steadiest and safest-feeling electric skateboards, are bringing their rugged hardware expertise to the scooter world. Today, they’re coming out of stealth with a supposedly stronger and longer-lasting dockless electric scooter rental startup called Skip.

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The SEC creates an educational “token” to stop scammers May 17, 2018

“Travel is expensive, but we are at the cusp of a revolution that will democratize travel and leisure for everyone,” reads the breathless white paper for HoweyCoins. “The Internet was the first part of the revolution. The other part is blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.” “I’m all about HoweyCoins – this thing is going to pop at the top!” writes @boxingchamp1934, an official celebrity backer of the token.

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Coinbase’s first investment, Compound, earns you interest on crypto May 17, 2018

Compound wants to let you borrow cryptocurrency, or lend it and earn an interest rate.Most cryptocurrency is shoved in a wallet or metaphorically hidden under a mattress, failing to generate interest the way traditionally banked assets do. But Compound wants to create liquid money markets for cryptocurrency by algorithmically setting interest rates, and letting you gamble by borrowing and then short-selling coins you think will sink.

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BrainQ raises $5.3M to treat neurological disorders with the help of AI May 16, 2018

BrainQ, an Israel-based startup that aims to help stroke victims and those with spinal cord injuries treat their injuries with the help of a personalized electromagnetic treatment protocol, today announced that it has raised a $5.3 million funding round on top of the $3.5 million the company previously raised. The company’s investors include Qure Ventures, crowdfunding platform OurCrowd.

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Lerer Hippeau raises a new $122M fund, plus $60M for follow-on investments May 16, 2018

Lerer Hippeau has raised two new funds — $122 million for a sixth fund devoted to seed stage investments, as well as $60 million for a “Select Fund” focused on later-stage deals. Managing Partner Eric Hippeau said both funds will be used to continue the firm’s existing strategy: “We continue to be seed-first investors and New York-first investors. We’re big believers in New York.

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Xage introduces fingerprinting to protect industrial IoT devices May 15, 2018

As old-school industries like oil and gas increasingly network entities like oil platforms, they become more vulnerable to hacking attacks that were impossible when they were stand-alone. That requires a new approach to security and Xage (prounounced Zage), a security startup that launched last year thinks it has the answer with a concept called ‘fingerprinting’ combined with the blockchain.

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Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank, now lets you pay ‘Nearby Friends’ May 11, 2018

Monzo, one of a plethora of U.K. fintech startups aiming to re-invent current account banking, has launched a new feature that makes it even more frictionless to transfer money to friends. Dubbed ‘Nearby Friends’, the new geolocation functionality uses Bluetooth to let you see anyone else that uses Monzo who is nearby so that you can initiate a payment without needing their phone number to be in your contact book first.

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Fantasmo is a decentralized map for robots and augmented reality May 10, 2018

“Whether forAR or robots, anytime you have software interacting with the world, itneeds a 3D model of the globe.We think that map will look a lot more like the decentralized internet than a version of Apple Maps or Google Maps.” That’s the idea behind new startup Fantasmo, according to co-founder JamesonDetweiler.

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On Fridays, HQ Trivia will let you see your friends’ answers during the game May 10, 2018

HQ, the live trivia game that is now seeing up to 2 million players per game, is introducing some new social features, including answer sharing with friends. The company has been testing this feature across a small group of users already, but on Friday the feature will roll out to all HQ users. Here’s how it works: Users can connect their address book to HQ and add their friends. Once they have added friends, they can see which of their friends are playing the game alongside them.

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Brazil’s tech startups begin to expand globally May 09, 2018

Startups in Brazil, Latin America’s largest entrepreneurial ecosystem, are no longer solely focused on Brazil as their only frontier to conquer. Based on conversations with founders and in tracking the news, dozens of startups born in Brazil have realized they can compete on a global scale and expand their companies quickly by exporting their business models to other regional markets around the world, including Canada, Colombia, Europe, Japan, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S.

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Gamalon scores $20 M led by Intel Capital May 09, 2018

Gamalon wants to change the game when it comes to understanding text-based customer communications. Instead of using neural networks to learn about vast corpuses of information, the startup takes a different approach, putting the text in a database and building decision trees to very rapidly train the data to arrive at the required information. Today, it announced a $20 million Series A investment led by Intel Capital. Other participants in the round included .

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The formula behind San Francisco’s startup success May 07, 2018

Why has San Francisco’s startup scene generated so many hugely valuable companies over the past decade? That’s the question we asked over the past few weeks while analyzing San Francisco startup funding, exit, and unicorn creation data. After all, it’s not as if founders of Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, Dropbox and Twitter had to get office space within a couple of miles of each other. We hadn’t thought our data-centric approach would yield a clear recipe for success.

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ICO services: Lots of barnacles but no whales May 03, 2018

Nearly every aspect of the current ICO market is pay-for-play or otherwise tainted. I do not paint the industry with such a broad brush lightly but this sort of chicanery hasn’t existed since the heyday of print media when journalists – myself included – took long, convoluted trips to distant headquarters where they enjoyed, as I wrote back in 2007, “suckling on the sweet teat of junket whoredom.

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Sling TV expands cloud DVR service to a bunch of new devices May 03, 2018

Sling TV expands cloud DVR service to a bunch of new devices Dish’s Sling TV service is expanding its Cloud DVR to a wide variety of new devices. Chrome browser, Chromecast, Xbox One, LG Smart TVs, and more recent models of Samsung Smart TVs (2016 and 2017 models) will all now support Sling TV’s Cloud DVR service.

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SoFi founder Mike Cagney is back with a new startup and $50 million in funding, too May 02, 2018

SoFi founder Mike Cagney is back with a new startup and $50 million in funding, too Mike Cagney, who was ousted last summer from the lending company he founded, is back with a new startup and a whole lot of funding from at least one of his previous investors.

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Hustle rallies $30M for grassroots texting tool Republicans can’t use May 02, 2018

Hustle 20X’d its annual revenue run rate in 15 months by denying clients that contradict its political views. It’s a curious, controversial, yet successful strategy for the startup whose app lets activists and marketers text thousands of potential supporters or customers one at a time. Compared to generic email blasts and robocalls, Hustle gets much higher conversion rates because people like connecting with a real human who can answer their follow-up questions.

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There’s something called Bacoin now May 01, 2018

To paraphrase a saying popularized by countless dorm room stoners: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you use the hype around decentralized crypto economies to sell bacon.” The latest example of this age-old adage comes to us from Oscar Meyer and involves their exciting new cryp-faux-currency, Bacoin. The currency can be redeemed for bacon and you “mine” it by sharing the good news of bacoin with your friends.

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From dorm room to Starbucks, Rip Van Wafels is bringing Euro-inspired snack to the masses Apr 30, 2018

Rip Pruisken waffled in college (we got that pun safely out of the way for now). He was a student in the Ivy League at Brown University, and had focused on academics for much of his life. His parents were physicists, and “I thought I would study some sort of cookie-cutter path of studying something that I would use post-college,” he explained. “I didn’t really consider entrepreneurship to be a viable option because I was still in that frame of mind.

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Aloe Bud is the adorable self-care app you’ve been waiting for Apr 30, 2018

The buzz or chime of a push notification on your phone is, at best, a distraction, and at worst, a source of stress and anxiety. A new app called Aloe Bud wants to make those push notifications into something more welcome: gentle reminders to take care of yourself and your own needs. With its configurable reminders, Aloe Bud will encourage you to take a break, drink water, move your body, rest, breathe, and more.

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The alternative to the four-hour workweek mindset Apr 27, 2018

Often when I attend a conference or a networking event I am surprised by how many people operate at the periphery of the tech industry. Social media gurus, SEO “ninjas,” bloggers, etc. It’s a coterie of tech “club promoters.” The hype men of the industry. “Hack your way to success.” “Meet the right people.” “Become a business superstar.” They’ve found their silver bullet.

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Drew Houston to upload his thoughts at TC Disrupt SF in September Apr 26, 2018

Drew Houston to upload his thoughts at TC Disrupt SF in September Dropbox is a critically important tool for more than 500 million people. The company launched back in 2007 and founder and CEO Drew Houston has spent the last decade growing Dropbox to the behemoth it is today. During that time, Houston has made some tough decisions. A few years ago, Houston decided to move the Dropbox infrastructure off of AWS.

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Bose acquires Andrew Mason’s walking tour startup, Detour Apr 25, 2018

Groupon founder Andrew Mason’s audio tour startup Detour has been sold to Bose. The acquisition, which involves only the software and tour content – not the team – was quietly announced on Detour’s blog a few days ago, followed by an email to customers. Bose, initially, seems like an unlikely acquirer for an app designed to help people discover a city through narrated walking tours.

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Etleap scores $1.5 million seed to transform how we ingest data Apr 25, 2018

Etleap is a play on words for a common set of data practices: extract, transform and load. The startup is trying to place these activities in a modern context, automating what they can and in general speeding up what has been a tedious and highly technical practice. Today, they announced a $1.5 million seed round. Investors include First Round Capital, SV Angel, Liquid2, BoxGroup and other unnamed investors. The startup launched five years ago as a Y Combinator company. It spent a good 2.

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In the NYC enterprise startup scene, security is job one Apr 24, 2018

While most people probably would not think of New York as a hotbed for enterprise startups of any kind, it is actually quite active. When you stop to consider that the world’s biggest banks and financial services companies are located there, it would certainly make sense for security startups to concentrate on such a huge potential market — and it turns out, that’s the case.

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BigID lands in the right place at the right time with GDPR Apr 24, 2018

Every startup needs a little skill and a little luck. BigID, a NYC-based data governance solution has been blessed with both. The company, which helps customers identify sensitive data in big data stores, launched at just about the same time that the EU announced the GDPR data privacy regulations. Today, the company is having trouble keeping up with the business.

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Pivotal CEO talks IPO and balancing life in Dell family of companies Apr 23, 2018

Pivotal has kind of a strange role for a company. On one hand its part of the EMC federation companies that Dell acquired in 2016 for a cool $67 billion, but it’s also an independently operated entity within that broader Dell family of companies — and that has to be a fine line to walk. Whatever the challenges, the company went public yesterday and joined VMware as a separately traded company within Dell.

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Funding Societies, a Southeast Asian lending platform, gets $25M Series B led by Softbank Ventures Korea Apr 23, 2018

Funding Societies co-founders Reynold Wijaya and Kelvin Teo. Funding Societies, a peer-to-peer lending platform in Southeast Asia, said today that it has raised a $25 million Series B led by Softbank Ventures Korea, the Japanese tech conglomerate’s early-stage venture capital unit.

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