TechCrunch Startup News

Zopa, the 15-year-old peer-to-peer lending company, is announcing that it has been awarded its full U.K. bank licence, as it gears up to launch a fixed-term savings account, followed by a credit card. Dubbed “Zopa Bank,” the new challenger bank will sit alongside its existing peer-to-peer lending business, under Zopa Group, creating what the veteran fintech […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The countdown clock is running, and you have just four days left to score the lowest price on passes to TC Early Stage 2020, which takes place on July 21-22. We’ve packed this two-day virtual event with more than 50 workshops covering essential topics that every early-stage founder needs to master. Take advantage of the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the chip game, more is usually better and to that end, Ampere announced the next chip on its product roadmap today, the Altra Max, a 128 core processor, the company says is designed specifically to handle cloud native, containerized workloads. What’s more, the company has designed the chip, so that it will fit in […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With more companies moving workers home, making sure your systems are up and running has become more important than ever. ServiceNow, which includes an IT Help Desk component in its product catalogue recognizes that help desks have been bombarded during the pandemic. To help stop configuration problems before they start, the company acquired Sweagle today, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HashiCorp is well known in the developer community for offering a slew of open source tools to help build and manage modern applications. Today the company announced a new cloud platform and plans to eventually offer managed versions of those tools, starting with Consul a tool for connecting and securing services across platforms. HashiCorp CEO […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

DoorDash has confirmed that it is raising “approximately $400 million” in a Series H round of funding. Earlier today, Axios reported that the company was looking for roughly $400 million round at a post-money valuation of $16 billion. DoorDash clarified in a statement provided to TechCrunch that the valuation is slightly under the $16 billion […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The TechCrunch List will publish the most recommended “first check” writers across 22 different categories ranging from D2C & e-commerce brands to space, and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Three years ago almost to the day, Intercom announced that it was bringing former Intuit exec Karen Peacock on board as COO. Today, she got promoted to CEO, effective July 1st. Current CEO and company co-founder Eoghan McCabe will become Chairman. As it turns out, these moves aren’t a coincidence. McCabe had been actively thinking […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In another up for technology shares, software companies saw their values reach new heights today. The days trading comes after a selloff last week eased some of technology companies’ rebounds from their COVID-19 lows; stocks in tech companies have more than made up for their early-year declines in mid-2020, with the Nasdaq reaching 10,000 points […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This morning Upgrade, a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation. The Upgrade round slots neatly into a few trends TechCrunch has noted in recent quarters, including fintech startups raising at new, higher valuations, and some startups seeing […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Looking for a way to get your early-stage startup the massive attention it deserves? Of course, you are. One of the best ways to get in front of thousands of influencers is by exhibiting in Startup Alley during Disrupt 2020. An even better way is to exhibit for free. Take the first step and apply […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

DeepSource, a member of the Winter 2020 Y Combinator cohort, announced a $2.6 million seed investment today. The company is building a solution to help developers automate static code analysis to find certain errors before going through human code review. 645 Ventures led the round with help from Y Combinator, FundersClub, Pioneer Fund, Liquid 2 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reebelo, a Singapore-based marketplace for refurbished electronics, announced it has raised a seed round of $1.25 million led by June Fund, with participation from Antler. The new funding will be used for hiring, especially marketing and operations positions for customer service as the company scales. Reebelo currently operates in Singapore, but plans to expand across […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startups need money. State and local governments need startups and the employment growth they offer. It should be obvious that the two groups can work together and make each other happy. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Each year, governments spend tens of billions of dollars on economic development incentives designed to attract […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces,” said Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, which has surged to the top of the New York Times best sellers list in paperback nonfiction, two and a half years after its initial January 2018 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reports this morning indicate that Uber, the American ride-hailing giant with a global footprint, will lose out on its attempt to buy Grubhub, an American food ordering and delivery service. Uber competes with Grubhub domestically with its Uber Eats service; a tie-up between the two could have given Uber suffocating market share in the United […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

APIs provide a way to build connections to a set of disparate applications and data sources, and can help simplify a lot of the complex integration issues companies face. Postman has built an enterprise API platform and today it got rewarded with a $150 million Series C investment on a whopping $2 billion valuation — […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Companies increasingly recognize that one of the greatest stresses for their employees is financial wellness. Even at innovative tech startups, people typically bump up against the limits of how much they know about wealth management pretty fast. But providing financial education to a workforce, which has become increasingly common, is largely useless as most employees […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the digital health space and so it’s also no surprise that a lot of the startups in this area are currently getting funded. Conversa Health, a Portland, Oregon-based startup that provides a virtual care and communication platform for personalized healthcare, is among these startups. The company […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When TechCrunch last checked in with the Y Combinator-backed Vendr in October, the company had just raised $2 million, and was crowing about its profitability. Profitable seed-stage companies aren’t super common, so the startup stood out. Today Vendr is back with more news, namely that it has raised $4 million more, this time led by […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the huge challenges companies like enterprise SaaS vendors face with new customers is getting customer data into their service. It’s a problem that Flatfile founders faced first hand in their jobs, and they decided to solve it. Today, the company announced a healthy $7.6 million seed investment to expand on that vision. The […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been a big period of positive change for Yugabyte, makers of the open source, cloud native YugabyteDB database. Just last month they brought on former Pivotal CEO Bill Cook as CEO, and today the company announced it has closed a $30 million Series B. 8VC and strategic investor WiPro led the round with participation […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The TechCrunch crew has worked to keep tabs on this year’s startup accelerator classes. Conventional wisdom in startup land states that great companies are founded during more trying economic times. Well, a recession was declared yesterday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. We should, therefore, see some breakout startups in the next few years. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A startup called Portobel is working to help food producers shift their businesses so that they can support direct-to-consumer deliveries. Portobel is backed by Heroic Ventures and led by Ranjith Kumaran, founder or co-founder of file-sharing company Hightail (acquired by OpenText) and loyalty startup PunchTab (acquired by Walmart Labs). Kumaran told me that he and his […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A few days ago, the French government detailed different measures as part of its support plan for startups. France already announced a $4.3 billion (€4 billion) plan back in March. The new announcements are more about refining and adding some additional measures. The French government wanted to act quickly when it made its initial announcement […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Like many parents, Zigazoo founder Zak Ringelstein worries about his children’s screen time. His worries only grew when COVID-19 led to school shutdowns and kids came home to a world of remote learning. Now, as lockdowns extend, Ringelstein is learning to embrace screen time as a way to sneak education and entertainment into his kids’ […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Searchable.ai is an early-stage startup in the alpha phase of testing its initial product, but it has an idea compelling enough to attract investment, even during a pandemic. Today the company announced an additional $4 million in seed capital to continue building its AI-driven search solution. Susquehanna International Group and Omicron Media co-led the round […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Electric-bike maker Cowboy has released a new iteration of its bike, the Cowboy 3. It’s a relatively small update that should make the experience better for newcomers. The first orders will be delivered at the end of July and the Cowboy 3 is now slightly more expensive at €2,290 or £1,990 ($2,500). The bike still […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Spotinst rebranded to Spot in March, it seemed big changes were afoot for the startup, which originally helped companies find and manage cheap infrastructure known as spot instances (hence its original name). We had no idea how big at the time. Today, NetApp announced plans to acquire the startup. The companies did not share […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There is just as much capital ready to deploy, and just as much investor interest, as there was earlier this year, but founders are still adjusting to new market conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lili, a startup building banking products to meet the needs of freelance workers, is announcing that it has raised $10 million in seed funding. The startup takes its name from its founders, CEO Lilac Bar David and CTO Liran Zelkha, who previously founded Israeli challenger bank Pepper. Bar David told me that while many neobanks have […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Overjet, a startup focused on using AI to help dentists and insurance companies understand dental scans, today announced that it has raised $7.85 million in what it describes as a seed round. According to Overjet’s CEO Wardah Inam (an MIT PhD in electrical engineering and computer science), the company raised the funds from Crosslink Capital, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Cisco bought AppDynamics in 2017 for $3.7 billion just before the IPO, the company sent a clear signal it wanted to move beyond its pure network hardware roots into the software monitoring side of the equation. Yesterday afternoon the company announced it intends to buy another monitoring company, this time snagging internet monitoring solution […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When this editor first met Jeremy Conrad, it was in 2014, at the 8,000-square-foot former fish factory that was home to Lemnos, a hardware-focused venture firm that Conrad had cofounded three years earlier. Conrad —Â who as a mechanical engineering undergrad at MIT worked on self driving cars, drones and satellites — was still excited […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fintech’s funding boom for the past decade has led to a flurry of new consumer startups tackling a wide range of money-related issues, from saving apps to investing platforms. Should you download Robinhood, Stash, Public, Acorns, or Truebill? The fintech craze creates confusion for consumers when it comes to figuring out which startup is the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Vast monoculture farms outstripped the ability of bee populations to pollinate them naturally long ago, but the techniques that have arisen to fill that gap are neither precise nor modern. Israeli startup BeeHero aims to change that by treating hives both as living things and IoT devices, tracking health and pollination progress practically in real […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We may be in the thick of a pandemic with all of the economic fallout that comes from that, but certain aspects of technology don’t change no matter the external factors. Storage is one of them. In fact, we are generating more digital stuff than ever, and Wasabi, a Boston-based startup that has figured out […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gogoro, the mobility company best known for its SmartScooters, revealed details about its new ebike brand Eeyo today. Eeyo will launch with two lightweight models, both powered by the SmartWheel, a self-contained hub designed by the company that integrates motors, batteries, sensors and smart connectivity technology. Eeyo is the first product that Gogoro will introduce […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Austin Soldner and Michael Schaecher, the co-founders of the new sunglasses brand Futuremood, met at the newly formed San Francisco research and development lab created by the high end audio tech developer Bose. The two were tasked with working on Bose’s sunglasses wearable and bonded over a shared interest in sneakers and fashion. Over many […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Student loans are both a trillion-dollar debt category and also one of the most popular mini-verticals out there in fintech startup investing right now. There are dozens if not hundreds of companies in the space, and they all mostly do one of two things: either they help students think through their student loan options before […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As AI has grown from niche to mission-critical technology, the companies that enable it have multiplied and in many cases prospered. A good example of that success is DefinedCrowd, which has gone from the Disrupt stage to globe-spanning AI toolkit to the Fortune 500 in just a couple years. The company just raised a new […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tax-advantaged benefits, like flexible spending accounts, can save employees in the United States thousands of dollars annually, and reduce the amount of payroll taxes companies pay. But those benefits are often underutilized, simply because they can be confusing to navigate. Benepass wants to make the process easier with a mobile app that centralizes all of […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The novel coronavirus disease has reminded millions that handwashing is a great way to avoid preventable diseases. Christine Schindler, the CEO and co-founder of PathSpot, has been preparing for the past three months for the past three years. “I’ve been obsessed with handwashing,” Schindler said, who has a background in biomedical engineering and public health. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Statespace has today raised a $15 million Series A financing round led by Khosla, with partner Samir Kaul joining the board. Existing investors, such as FirstMark Capital, Lux and Expa, also participated in the round, as well as newcomer June Fund. Statespace launched out of stealth in 2017 with a product called Aim Lab, which […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Search-as-a-service startup Algolia is announcing some changes at the helm of the startup. Co-founder and CEO Nicolas Dessaigne is transitioning to a non-operational role at the company. He’ll still be a board member, but Bernadette Nixon is joining the company to take on the CEO position. Algolia is building a search engine API. The company […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can eVTOL vehicles be green? Specifically, can eVTOL vehicles be more energy-efficient than cars? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I spoke to Robert Ross, CEO and co-founder at FireHydrant last week, we had a technology adventure. First the audio wasn’t working correctly on Zoom, then Google Meet. Finally we used cell phones to complete the interview. It was like a case study in what FireHydrant is designed to do — help companies manage […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Argent is launching the first public version of its Ethereum wallet for iOS and Android. The company has been available as a limited beta for a few months with a few thousand users. But it has already raised a seed and a Series A round with notable investors, such as Paradigm, Index Ventures, Creandum and […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Notion, a popular note-taking and wiki-creation app, revamped their personal pricing plans today stripping many of the user limitations from the free tier, bringing it on par with the functionality offered by the $5 per month paid plan of yore. The company’s previous free tier had a fairly low usage limit (1,000 “blocks,” which are […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices