TechCrunch Startup News

Prague based Resistant AI has nabbed a $2.75M seed round. The security startup’s machine learning technology is designed to be deployed on top of AI systems used for financial decision making to protect customers in markets such as financial services and ecommerce from attacks such as targeted manipulation, adversarial machine learning and advanced fraud. The […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Machine learning has quickly gone from niche field to crucial component of innumerable software stacks, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The tools needed to create and manage it are enterprise-grade and often enterprise-only — but Determined AI aims to make them more accessible than ever by open-sourcing its entire AI infrastructure product. The company […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Fund, an early-stage investment firm with a memorably straightforward name, is looking beyond New York City as it starts investing its second fund. Founders Jenny Fielding (who’s also managing director at Techstars New York) and Scott Hartley (also co-founder and partner at Two Culture Capital) told me that in the past two years, they’ve […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Biloba, a French startup that wants to leverage tech to make it easier to keep your children healthy. The company recently launched a new mobile app that lets you chat with a doctor whenever you want between 8 AM and 8 PM. This way, if you have questions about your kids, you can get […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Continuing our week’s coverage of new venture funds, this morning let’s dig into Kickstart’s latest capital pool. Kickstart Seed Fund, based in Utah’s Salt Lake City, has raised a $110 million Fund V it announced this morning, its largest to date. The firm’s rise to investing prominence has largely coincided with Utah’s own emergence as a […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mojo Vision’s technology still felt early-stage when we met with them back at CES. But the demos we did see were enough to convince us that there really could be something to the California startup’s smart content lens technology. Clearly we weren’t alone in that. The company just announced that it has raised more than […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than 150 investors and entrepreneurs in India are funding dozens of projects in a bid to help millions better combat the COVID-19 epidemic and help the nation’s booming startup ecosystem withstand the economic devastation it has caused. The investors said they have contributed 1 billion Indian rupees — or $13 million — of their […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), has put together a new, $750 million fund to invest in both Europe and North America. The capital vehicle is larger than the group’s preceding European and North American funds combined. In 2019 OMERS Ventures announced a €300 million fund Europe-focused […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We weren’t alone in being impressed by Motiv. The startup helped flip the script on wearables by essentially cramming a fitness tracker’s worth of technology into a ring. This week, San Francisco ‘digital identity’ startup Proxy that it’s acquiring the company. The company’s site is littered in buzzwords, but Proxy specializes in digital key cards […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Divergent, the Los Angeles-based startup aiming to revolutionize vehicle manufacturing, has cut about one-third of its staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended startups and major corporations alike. The company, which employed about 160 people, laid off 57 workers, according to documents filed with the California Employment Development Department. Founder and CEO Kevin Czinger […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If we continue to view the USPS as simply a balance sheet and optimize for profitability in a vacuum, we ultimately stand to lose far more than we gain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today Opera Event, an influencer software service, announced that it closed a $5 million Series A. The Oakland-based startup raised the capital from new lead investor Antera, with prior investors Atlas Ventures, Everblue, and Konvoy Ventures coming along. According to Crunchbase data, Opera Event had raised at least $1.2 million before this new round. Opera […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today SingleOps, an Atlanta-based software startup, announced that it has raised $6 million in new capital. The startup’s service is built to support companies that deal with outdoor work like landscaping, tree care and lawn maintenance. It’s an example of the vertical SaaS trend that has come to the fore in recent years, with startups […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Online coding bootcamp Lambda School is the latest startup to announce layoffs, writing in a blog post that it’s made the “difficult decision” to cut 19 staff from roles across the company. The eight members of its executive team, including CEO and founder Austen Allred, are also taking a 15% pay cut, it said. Today […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Ovitz didn’t invent the idea of a talent agency, but one might argue that he perfected it. He founded the CAA in 1975, and grew it into the world’s leading talent agency, serving as chairman for 20 years. Now, Ovitz is investing in a brand new type of talent agency called Human Capital. Human […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Disruptor Beam, the mobile gaming startup behind Star Trek Timelines, has a new name and a new business. It’s now calling itself Beamable, and it’s selling a set of tools to help game developers add commerce and social functionality to their titles. The company’s direction became clear earlier this year when it sold Timelines to […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The pandemic may feel all-encompassing at the moment, but Confluent announced a $250 million Series E today, showing that major investment continues in spite of the dire economic situation at the moment. Today’s round follows last year’s $125 million Series D. At that point the company was valued a mere $2.5 billion. Investors obviously see […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

After mounting pressure from the U.K. tech startup ecosystem, and much debate, the British government today unveiled plans for a new “Future Fund” designed to ensure high-growth companies — namely, startups — across the U.K. receive enough investment to remain viable during the coronavirus crisis. Initially, the U.K. government is pledging a total of £250 […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Savvy, a healthcare cooperative, has just raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indie.vc. Established as a cooperative that shares profits with its users, Savvy connects patients with healthcare companies and other providers looking to better serve people through products and services. Patients can take paid gigs that include tasks like interviews, focus groups and […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Starting tomorrow, 777 supermarkets in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Nevada will begin stocking the Impossible Foods plant-based meat substitute. Fueling the increased distribution and a push to expand its product suite and geographic footprint domestically and internationally is a $500 million round of funding the company closed in March. Some of that money is […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This morning Everee, a Utah-based software as a service (SaaS) startup focused on payroll, announced that it has closed a $10 million Series A. The funding event was led by Origin Ventures and Signal Peak Ventures. Previously, Everee had raised a $3.7 million Seed round in mid-2019. The company is therefore as well capitalized as […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier today a grip of new data presented a sharply negative picture of the American economy. And this afternoon, news broke that a trio of well-known, heavily-backed unicorns were cutting staff. With stocks down as well, we’ve received negative signals from the private market, the public market and the economy as a whole in the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Disrupt San Francisco 2020, the OG of startup tech conferences, takes place at Moscone West on Sept. 14 – 16. It’s an event you don’t want to miss, and we’re here to tell early-stage founders one of the best ways to get the most out of the Disrupt experience. Apply to compete in Startup Battlefield […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The well-funded Japanese space startup Synspective has tapped launch provider Rocket Lab to take its first Earth observation satellite to orbit. Launch is planned for late 2020, and the company’s StriX–α craft will be the sole payload. Synspective was founded in 2018 and by mid-2019 had raised about $100 million, making it one of the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the coronavirus crisis continues, hiring data is emerging that paints a mixed picture for U.K. tech, which, in the preceding months and years has been stuck on a growth trajectory of up and to the right. That appears to have changed almost over night. According to numbers shared exclusively with TechCrunch from job sites […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Layoffs have struck the startup world swiftly, hurting hospitality and travel startups, as well as recruitment and scooter companies. New data shows that some of those layoffs, brought on by COVID-19, might be disproportionately impacting satellite campuses. By nature, satellite offices are secondary to a startup’s headquarters. Opening smaller offices is a strategic move when […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Frank, a New York-based student-facing startup, has raised $5 million in what the company described as an “interim strategic round” led by Chegg, a public edtech company. According to Frank founder and CEO Charlie Javice, previous investors Aleph and Marc Rowan took part in the round alongside new investor GingerBread Capital. The education funding-focused startup […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pangea.app, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup has raised a $400,000 pre-seed round, it told TechCrunch this week. The company’s new capital, raised as a post-money SAFE, comes from PJC, a Boston-based venture capital firm and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea.app raised money from angel investors. The company links “remote college freelancers,” per its website, to businesses […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instacart is adding more support roles to help its shoppers, customers, and retail partners, as the company faces unprecedented demand for its grocery delivery services due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders. Today Instacart announced that it has doubled its Care team, from 1,200 agents to 3,000 agents. Care team employees will work on answering […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Opportunity’s a hot currency, and every early-stage startup founder’s on the lookout for it. Anything and everything that can help bring the dream to fruition, right? You’ll find three days packed with opportunity at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2020Â on September 14-16. Care to know how you can super-size your Disrupt opportunity? We’ll get to that […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Domestic stocks rose today in the United States, with all major indices opening higher. TechCrunch has slowed its daily coverage of the US stock market as volatility has receded. We try to avoid covering the stock market too much, but there are days when doing so would be derelict. The value of public companies impacts […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Esports One is a startup betting that there’s a big opportunity in bringing a fantasy sports approach to the world of esports — particularly at a time when traditional pro sports are on pause. Co-founder and COO Sharon Winter told me that the company’s platform, which is leaving beta testing today, is the first “all-in-one […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Motherly CEO Jill Koziol admits that it was a tough pitch when she and her co-founder Liz Tenety first tried to get investors on-board in 2015. “We wanted to create a brand first and foremost,” Koziol told me. “We did not want to go and build a media company or a [direct-to-consumer] company or Facebook […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.K.’s fintech’s response to the coronavirus pandemic so far might best be described as “move fast, [and] make things,” as multiple and sometimes impromptu teams roll out financial technology solutions to help combat the crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This morning, Utah-based SaaS startup Podium announced that it has closed a $125 million Series C led by Y Combinator’s Continuity fund, with participation from Sapphire Ventures. Prior investors Alkeon, IVP, GV, Summit, Accel and Recruit Co. also took part in the funding event. The new capital values Podium at around $1.5 billion, and brings […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just a few months after closing a new $185 million fund to continue backing early-stage European startups, Blossom Capital, the VC firm founded by Ophelia Brown, is announcing a new angel investment program seeking to back European unicorn alumnus. Dubbed “Cultivate,” the new program looks to create a 30-strong angel network made up of founders […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch confirmed today that BounceX (the firm is rebranding this year) has executed layoffs and salary cuts in the wake of recent COVID-19-led economic disruptions. Many startups are undergoing staff cuts as the domestic and global economies slow, making individual reductions less newsworthy as the layoff tally rises. However, as BounceX is a company we’ve […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s clear that the people who can let go of their past plans and embrace the new environment ahead will thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bustle Digital Group, owner of a portfolio of digital media properties including Bustle itself, says it laid off two dozen staffers today. That includes eliminating the entire staff of The Outline, a culture site that it acquired a year ago. In a statement, a BDG spokesperson said the company will continue to host The Outline’s archives, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Computer vision techniques used for commercial purposes are turning out to be valuable tools for monitoring people's behavior during the present pandemic. Zensors, a startup that uses machine learning to track things like restaurant occupancy, lines, and so on, is making its platform available for free to airports and other places desperate to take systematic measures against infection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and the COVID-19 pandemic has surged event cancellations across the country. Tech workforces have found ways to stay productive: back-to-back Zoom calls, work-from-home happy hours and more Twitter threads than anyone asked for. But Jason Craparo, the founder of events platform Hio, wants to put organic, face-to-face networking […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco is known around the world as the place where the early-stage startup community gathers to learn and launch, connect and collaborate. We know COVID-19 has created challenges, but Disrupt SF is still on schedule (keep tabs on our updates here). Like startup founders everywhere, we quickly learn where, when and how […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even though this might seem to be the absolute worst time to try to round up funding for a restaurant-related startup, Allset is announcing that it’s raised an $8.25 million Series B. It was not, to be clear, an easy process. CEO Stas Matviyenko (who founded the company with COO Anna Polishchuk) admitted that when […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Substack is taking several steps to support the writers and publications using its newsletter platform. After all, just as writers and newsrooms are starting to build real businesses on Substack, the COVID-19 pandemic is dealing a huge financial blow to the media industry. In response, the startup says it will donate $100,000 in grants — […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There is a serious flaw in how businesses are funded, and it's the same discussion we had twenty and thirty years ago about who was at the table in managing businesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’re already entering into a healthcare crisis due to the global coronavirus pandemic, and creative solutions to address shortfalls in supplies, protective equipment and more are being developed to help where possible. A new startup, with a founding team including an emergency room doctor, a crisis response expert and a public health researcher is hoping […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are the landlords. Amidst the Coronavirus economic crisis, startups need a break from paying rent. They’re in a cash crunch. Revenue has stopped flowing in, capital markets like venture debt are hesitant, and startups and small-to-medium sized businessesf are at risk of either having to lay off huge numbers of employees […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Early this morning, Fast, a startup building platform-agnostic login and checkout services, announced that Stripe has led a $20 million investment into its business. Prior investors Index Ventures and Susa Ventures took part in the round. Susa previously participated in the company’s late-2019 round that Index led. Coming in late March, the new capital is […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices