TechCrunch Startup News
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Weavit’s new app wants to be a ‘Shazam for your thoughts’
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tom Brady’s buzzy celebrity NFT startup Autograph banks $170M from Silicon Valley’s top crypto investors
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nowsta takes in fresh capital to show some tech love for hourly workforces
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ancient8 secures $4M in seed to democratize social and financial access in the metaverse
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
First EV mass transit bus by Swedish-Kenyan startup Opibus begins operation amidst plans for regional launch by 2023
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Space startup Wyvern raises $4.5M and joins YC’s latest cohort
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spendesk is the fifth French startup to reach unicorn status this month
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Warehouse robotics system Exotec raises $335 million
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Juro draws $23M into its browser-based contract automation platform
London-based legaltech startup Juro has grabbed $23 million in Series B funding for its browser-based contract automation platform. In total the startup has raised $31.5M since being founded back in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Payment orchestration platform Gr4vy pulls in another $15M in a Series A extension
Retailers often build their own “orchestration” platforms for payment processing and routing, but these can be complex to maintain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meet Paysail, the startup making B2B payments faster using crypto
Companies use invoices to pay for many of their major costs, ranging from materials to contract work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tiger Global backs Accrue Savings’ ‘save now, pay later’ approach to consumer purchases
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Shield bags $15M Series A to address surging demand for its AI-powered communication compliance platform
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.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Assemble scores $5M seed to bring order and equity to compensation
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Headspace Health acquires AI-powered mental health and wellness company Sayana
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Flush with new capital, Foxtrot’s ‘convenience store of the future’ is coming to a location near you
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Arcade launches ‘try before you buy’ demo capabilities with $2.5M in new capital
The company's technology makes it easier for companies to create demonstration videos, called “arcades,” that walk people through how their tools work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Career Karma lands $40M to evolve into an edtech employee benefit
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Parrot, a tool for digitizing Mexico’s restaurants, takes in $9.5M
ParrotConnect is a point-of-sale software for restaurants enabling them to digitize and take advantage of the home delivery boom to accelerate growth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
FanDuel founder and Sequoia bet on Spanish-language fantasy sports app Draftea
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Startups at CES showed that age-tech can help everyone
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Zuddl raises $13M for its simple but powerful virtual events platform
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Doosan announces $33.7M raise, as it introduces a robotic camera system at CES
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
New pet tech at CES treats dogs and cats like the complex beings they are
There’s always fun tech for pet owners at CES, and 2022 is no different. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
DriveU.auto to power remote piloting of EasyMile’s autonomous shuttles, Coco’s sidewalk robots
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Refinery Ventures’ second fund aimed at getting startups to Series A
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Smart contact lens startup Mojo Vision partners with Adidas and other sports brands
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Smarter Health gets $5.15M SGD to reduce healthcare costs in Southeast Asia
Organizing information from providers, insurers and patients not only takes a lot of time, but increases private healthcare costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AIMMO bags $12M Series A to advance data labeling technology
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Southeast Asian startups to watch in 2022
As someone who covers Southeast Asia startups and funding stories, the best word I can think of to describe 2021 is “whoa!” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Voyant raises $15M to scale production of its tiny, inexpensive lidar tech
The future of lidar is uncertain unless, as Voyant hopes to do, its price and size are reduced to fractions of their current values. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tech-led biofuel startup Koko Networks launches new consumer goods business in Kenya
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TuSimple completes its first driverless autonomous truck run on public roads
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
India’s GlobalBees joins unicorn club for its Thrasio-like house of brands
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nigerian edtech startup Teesas secures $1.6 million in pre-seed round, to launch tutor marketplace, expand in East, Southern, Francophone Africa in 2022
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Indian neobank Jupiter raises $86 million to launch lending and wealth management services
Industry veteran Jitendra Gupta’s consumer-focused neobank 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Automation Anywhere expands into process discovery with FortressIQ acquisition
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Skio raises $3.7M to help brands on Shopify sell subscriptions
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
With $36 million Series C, Brazil’s Ambar hopes to make civil construction more efficient
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok rival Triller to go public via merger with SeaChange International
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ampla raises $40M Series A for its business of providing credit to commerce brands
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Airtable acqui-hires Walrus.ai’s founding team
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rocket Companies buys Truebill for $1.275B
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Melbourne-based edtech startup Vivi raises $20M to accelerate overseas expansion in race to reach 1M classrooms
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
GDevelop wants to make game development accessible
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tiger Global backs fintech CreditBook in first Pakistan investment
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Z Fellows wants to give you $10K to launch a crypto startup
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? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Taxdoo raises $64M to expand from tax compliance to a wider set of financial tools for e-commerce companies
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Quo.com raises $7.2M seed round led by SignalFire to broaden access to mortgages
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices