TechCrunch Startup News
3,808 episodes — Page 48 of 77
Serverless Stack raises $1M for open-source application framework
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
i80 Group has quietly committed $1B in credit to the fintech and proptech worlds
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mural raises $50M Series C after tripling its ARR in the last year
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spendesk raises $118 million for its corporate spend management service
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Okendo raises $5.3M to help D2C brands ween themselves off of Big Tech customer data
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Little Spoon scoops up $44M to grow its children’s nutrition delivery service
The quest to disrupt the traditional baby food aisle continues as more of today’s parents seek out nutritional food for their children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Metal 3D printing company Fabric8Labs raises $19M
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
CityRow raises $12M for connected rowing machines and studios
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
LeagueApps raises $15M to be the ‘operating system’ for youth sports organizations
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rise Gardens grows with $9M Series A to help anyone be an indoor farmer
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Taste intelligence startup Halla closes $4.5M Series A1 to predict which grocery items shoppers will buy
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lightyear nabs $13M Series A as online network procurement takes shape
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Shopmonkey raises $75M Series C to help auto repair shops streamline their business
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Gourmey is a cell-based poultry startup working on lab-grown foie gras
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cadoo gets $1.5M to gamify fitness with betting challenges
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Looking Glass launches second-gen holographic displays
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sourcegraph raises $125M Series D on $2.6B valuation for universal code search tool
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mighty Buildings lands $22M to create ‘sustainable and affordable’ 3D-printed homes
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
VU raises $12M to remove cybersecurity friction from digital experiences
Pretty soon, people won’t have to provide a fingerprint or a driver’s license to prove their identity — if VU has its way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dovetail, the venture studio that has worked with startups like Afterpay, is raising a new fund
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cloud security platform Netskope boosts valuation to $7.5B following $300M raise
Netskope, focused on Secure Access Service Edge architecture, announced Friday a $300 million investment round on a post-money valuation of $7.5 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
r2c raises $27M to scale its security-focused code analysis service
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rootly nabs $3.2M seed to build SRE incident management solution inside Slack
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Younited Credit raises $170 million for its data-driven credit offering
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
WellSaid attracts $10M A round for higher quality synthetic speech
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lacuna raises $16 million in Series A to help cities manage mobility via digital twin
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Satellite operator Planet to go public in $2.8B SPAC merger
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Didi app pulled from app stores in China after suspension order
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
E-commerce logistics startup Locad gets $4.5M seed round led by Sequoia Capital India
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tinybird turns raw data into realtime API at scale
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Edtech startup Microverse raises $12.5M to bring income share agreements to the developing world
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Singularity 6 raises $30M to fund upcoming fantasy ‘community simulation’ MMO
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Demand Curve: Email marketing tactics that convert subscribers into customers
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Codat raises $40M from Tiger for its SMB-focused API service
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rocket startup Gilmour Space raises $46M Series C to take small launch vehicle to orbit
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Relativity Space will open a 1 million square foot factory to scale Terran R production
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Zoom to acquire German startup to bring real-time translation to meetings
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley steps back from the company
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Real estate tech startup Side raises $50M more at a $2B valuation as it preps for an IPO
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
PayMaya owner Voyager Innovation raises $167M from KKR, Tencent and IFC, to launch digital bank in the Philippines
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mercuryo raises $7.5M for crypto-focused cross-border payments after crossing $50M in ARR
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Circle wants to help companies access DeFi lending markets with new API
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Env0 lands $17M Series A as infrastrucure as code control plane gains traction
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Revolut revenue grew by 57% in 2020
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Autonomous trucking startup Embark to go public in $5.2B SPAC deal
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
These Forge cofounders just raised $5 million to work on a new, still-stealth investing startup
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Vantage raises $4M to help businesses understand their AWS costs
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fintech veteran Jitendra Gupta is ready for his new inning — now he is going after banks in India
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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Uber to become the sole owner of grocery delivery startup Cornershop
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Vietnamese financial services app MFast gets $1.5M pre-Series A led by Do Ventures
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. Launched in 2019 by fintech company Digipay, MFast says it has been used by 600,000 people to date. It […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices