TechCrunch Startup News

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Squarespace announced this afternoon that it is going public. 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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices