TechCrunch Startup News
3,836 episodes — Page 38 of 77
Digital marketplace Clutch closes $1.2M pre-seed round led by Precursor Ventures
The duo aims to democratize the tools needed for everyone to become a content creator. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Employee benefits platform Ben raises $16M to cut HR admin
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This startup just raised $320M to make long-term care inside hospitals obsolete
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Braxia buys KetaMD to get into remote-delivered ketamine treatments
Braxia Scientific is a Toronto-based company that focuses on depression, suicidality and related mental health conditions. T Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sprig raises $30M to help companies gauge users’ reactions to products
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Emitrr raises $4 million to expand its automation offering for local businesses
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Innoviz lidar will be on all VW vehicles with automated driving capabilities
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bolt Mobility has vanished, leaving e-bikes, unanswered calls behind in several US cities
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hyundai Motor eyes acquisition of Korean lidar-free self-driving startup 42dot
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sports community platform Stadium Live raises $10M to expand its digital world for Gen Z
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Leapfin pulls together financial info across data siloes to simplify reporting
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Pony.ai forms autonomous truck JV with Sany Heavy Truck in China
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Switchboard creates virtual rooms to foster better collaboration
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cordial, which personalizes and automates cross-channel messaging campaigns, raises $50M
Cordial, a cross-channel marketing and data management platform, today announced that it closed a $50 million Series C funding round led by NewSpring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
RPA Supervisor lands cash to help companies manage their various RPA platforms
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Can a baby’s cry identify neurological disorders? Ubenwa says ‘yes’
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. Onu, CEO and co-founder, said he hopes Ubenwa will change the way physicians provide care to infants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Insightly helps engineering teams increase productivity and reduce burnout
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
World Fund joins $128M bet that quantum can deliver climate breakthroughs
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TomoCredit raises $22M at a $222M valuation toward its goal of making credit scores ‘obselete’
When Kristy Kim started TomoCredit in early 2019, she was on a mission to help international students more easily obtain credit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fairbanc provides BNPL for micro-merchants in Indonesia
“Buy now, pay later” (BNPL) startups have gained traction by targeting consumers, but BNPLs for businesses are also starting to take off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Agility’s next Digit robot will have a face and hands
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Observability startup Better Stack lands $18.86M in new cash
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
15Five, a pioneer in talent management HR tech, raises $52M to boost its own performance
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Casavo, an Opendoor-style proptech from Italy, raises $410M to expand its instant buyer platform across Europe
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Charles raises $20M to bring conversational commerce to WhatsApp in Europe
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Japanese e-commerce enabler AnyMind raises funding in equity, debt for acquisitions
The pandemic has triggered more demand for online shopping and fueled many smaller retailers to establish their own online offerings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
X1’s income-based credit card is finally available to the public
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This niche cryptographic technique could transform privacy in web3
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Canvas Medical, ‘the Tesla of EMRs,’ raises a $24 million Series B round
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Medusa’s open source e-commerce tool for JavaScript developers aims to take on Shopify
Medusa aims to offer APIs beyond the standard marketplaces ones for merchants to build more advanced features like fulfillment, subscriptions or a wholesale channel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meet the all-electric RV startup steered by Tesla alumni
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kindly Health makes hormonal health care more approachable
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Deci lands $25M for tech that makes AI models more efficient
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
DeltaStream secures cash to build real-time streaming databases
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Uprise banks $1.4M to be a ‘family office’ for Gen Z
Uprise takes in a user’s full financial picture, including overlooked aspects like employer benefits, and offers recommendations on where to funnel money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Scale Computing secures $55M to help companies manage edge infrastructure
Edge computing is seeing an explosion of interest as enterprises process more data at the edge of their networks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Despite layoffs, there’s still a talent crunch in Southeast Asia
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
For businesses seeking low-code fintech infrastructure options, there’s a Quiltt for that
Company founders pivoted when customers wanted their fintech data engine over their budgeting app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Casper king Philip Krim is getting into the insurance business
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Six reasons to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Crypto gaming firm Cauldron raises $6.6M to build ‘Pixar of web3’
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Wonderbelly is taking on Tums
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Finli puts service-based business payment management in the palm of your hand
Finli’s platform was developed so owners could send invoices, look up customer information and check on payment status in between gigs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
IBM acquires Databand to bolster its data observability stack
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. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Maolac pours new funding into superfood mimicking breast milk health benefits
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI-powered photo stock startup Wirestock lands partnership with Getty Images
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Black Swan analyzes social media to predict which products will be successful
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Short video app Triller confidentially files to go public
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Visby Medical tests positive for a Series E extension at $1B+ valuation
Medical diagnostics company Visby Medical raised $100 million in a Series E round earlier this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Promoted grabs more funding to help e-commerce marketplaces achieve profitability
For many marketplaces, those search, recommendation and ad functions are typically siloed, but Promoted has them all under one umbrella. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices