TechCrunch Startup News
3,836 episodes — Page 43 of 77
Republic’s metaverse real estate arm spins off, rebrands as Everyrealm
Over $500 million worth of real estate was sold on the top four metaverse platforms in 2021, data shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Shift5 raises $50M to defend transport networks from cyberattacks
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cooks Venture, the chicken company with big dreams, eats up $50M
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Silvr wants to bring revenue-based financing to Europe
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Endgame grabs another cash infusion as product-led growth momentum builds
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bumble makes its first acquisition with deal for French Gen Z dating app, Fruitz
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
GM Ventures invests in startup building fast charge-capable battery tech
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Over 500 mobile apps are now using the term ‘metaverse’ to attract new users
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
No plastic clamshells here: Zero Grocery aims to eliminate unnecessary plastic in grocery delivery
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Scale AI gets into the synthetic data game
Scale AI’s path to becoming a $7.3 billion company was paved in real data from images, text, voice and video. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Waldo raises $15 million for its automated mobile testing service
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Whose Your Landlord raises $2.1M for its rental review and data service
Whose Your Landlord,1 or WYL, announced a $2.1 million seed round today led by Black Operator Ventures, better known as BlackOps Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Framework looks to expand repairability beyond the laptop
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jellyfish aims to ‘do for engineering what Salesforce did for sales’
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
VendorPM raises $6M to scale its marketplace for property managers and service vendors
VendorPM, a Toronto-based marketplace that connects property managers with reputable vendors, has raised $6 million in seed funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dashworks is a search engine for your company’s sprawling internal knowledge
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rise is a new calendar app with a scheduling engine for teams
Meet Rise, a new startup working on a calendar app that is specifically designed for team work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
bloss, which connects expectant parents with experts, raises £1M pre-seed led by Antler
bloss is a UK startup that connects would-be or existing parents to pre-vetted parenting experts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After QuizUp and Trivia Royale, Thor Fridriksson’s next act is a mobile MMO
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Singapore-based edtech Cialfo gets $40M led by Square Peg and SEEK
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Identity verification provider Veriff raises $100M Series C co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Atrium grabs fresh capital to help sales teams meet their quota
Is sales management having a “Money Ball moment?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Electric Sheep raises $21.5M to make off-the-shelf lawnmowers autonomous
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Wandelbots raises another $84 million to teach robots without code
Dresden, Germany-based Wandelbots has raised a healthy sum in the years since it appeared on our Disrupt Berlin stage, way back in 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mark Cuban on his online pharmacy: ‘Our KPI is how much we can reduce the stress of our patients’
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cana Technology raises glass to new capital as it readies beverage printer for market
Cana focused on identifying the basic set of ingredients, basically deconstructing beverages to figure out what makes it taste like a certain drink. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AccuWeather acquires air pollution startup Plume Labs
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Metalenz PolarEyes upgrades digital sensing with polarized light
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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