Blog

After TechCrunch broke the news yesterday that Coursera was planning to file its S-1 today, the edtech company officially dropped the document Friday evening. Coursera was last valued at $2.4...

Dan Siroker’s new startup Scribe automates Zoom note-taking

Optimizely co-founder Dan Siroker said the idea for his new startup Scribe goes back to a couple of personal experiences — and although Scribe’s first product is focused on Zoom,...

Eco raises $26M in a16z-led round to scale its digital cryptocurrency platform

‍Eco, which has built out a digital global cryptocurrency platform, announced Friday that it has raised $26 million in a funding round led by a16z Crypto. Founded in 2018, the...

The technology selloff is getting to be somewhat material

Tech stocks are getting hammered today, with previously high-flying shares of software companies taking even more damage. For a sector that has enjoyed a year in the sun, recent trading...

YC-backed Pangea discusses growth, fundraising ahead of demo day

Pangea, a marketplace startup that wants to connect college freelancers and companies in need of digital help, is seeing its growth rate accelerate as it races toward the impending Y...

Understanding how investors value growth in 2021

We’re not digging into another IPO filing today. You can read all about AppLovin’s filing here, or ThredUp’s document here. This morning, instead, we’re talking about an old favorite: software...

SoftBank makes mountains of cash off of human laziness

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It...

Indonesian logistics startup SiCepat raises $170 million Series B

SiCepat, an end-to-end logistics startup in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $170 million Series B funding round. Founded in 2014 to provide last-mile deliveries for small merchants, the...

Backed by Blossom, Creandum and Index, grocery delivery and dark store startup Dija launches in London

Dija, the London-based grocery delivery startup, is officially launching today and confirming that it raised £20 million in seed funding in December — a round that we first reported was...

Flourish, a startup that aims to help banks engage and retain customers, raises $1.5M

It’s not uncommon these days to hear of U.S.-based investors backing Latin American startups. But it’s not every day that we hear of Latin American VCs investing in U.S.-based startups....

With $19M A round, Halo Dx combines data streams to better diagnose cancers, dementia and more

Healthcare is one of the most complex industries out there, creating frustration on the consumer side but also the opportunity for huge improvements from, in a way, rather simple methods....

Social commerce startup Elenas raises $6M and plans for international expansion

Colombian startup Elenas says it’s helping tens of thousands of women make money by selling products online. And today, it announced that it has raised $6 million in Series A...

Luxury air travel startup Aero raises $20M

Aero, a startup backed by Garrett Camp’s startup studio Expa, has raised $20 million in Series A funding — right as CEO Uma Subramanian said demand for air travel is...

Square buys majority of Tidal, adds Jay Z to its board in bid to shake up the artist economy

This morning Square, a fintech company that serves both individuals and companies, announced that it has purchased a majority stake in Tidal, a music streaming service. The deal, worth some...

Hopin confirms $400M raise at $5.65B valuation

This morning Hopin, a virtual events platform and video-focused software service, announced that it has closed a $400 million Series C. The new capital values Hopin at $5.65 billion. Both...

Countingup closes £9.1M for its business current account with built-in accounting features

Countingup, the U.K. fintech offering a business current account with built-in accounting features, has closed £9.1 million in Series A investment. Leading the round is Framework Venture Partners, with participation...

Payfazz invests $30M in Xfers as the two Southeast Asian fintechs form Fazz Financial Group

Payfazz and Xfers, two startups that want to increase financial inclusion in Southeast Asia, announced today they have joined forces to create a new holding entity called Fazz Financial Group....

Bottomless closes $4.5M Series A to scale its subscription coffee business

As a devoted coffee drinker I was enthused by the idea of Bottomless. The Y Combinator-backed startup sends its users coffee as they run low so that they never run...

After 200% ARR growth in 2020, CourseKey raises $9M to digitize trade schools

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced educational institutions to go virtual, many were scrambling to develop online or blended curriculums. That struggle was particularly challenging for trade schools, many...

After 200% ARR growth in 2020, CourseKey raises $9M to digitize trade schools

First impressions of AppLovin’s IPO filing

AppLovin released its S-1 filing yesterday, bringing the Palo Alto-based mobile app-focused software company a step closer to joining the public markets. The business results detailed in the document are generally...

First impressions of AppLovin’s IPO filing

$100 million for mealworms

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numberhttps://twitter.com/cgates123s behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down and focus on a...

Minu, a Mexico City-based, pay-on-demand startup, lands a $14M Series A

Many of the startups raising capital in Mexico are focused on financial inclusion, aiming to level the playing field in a country that is largely unbanked and has a burgeoning...

Oscar Health prices IPO at $39 and secures a $9.5B valuation

Late last night Oscar Health, a tech-enabled medical insurance provider, priced its IPO at $39 per share. The final price came in $1 per share above its raised IPO guidance;...

Indonesian supply chain startup Advotics raises $2.75M led by East Ventures

The rapid growth of e-commerce in Indonesia, especially during the pandemic, is placing increasing demands on its supply chain infrastructure. But the country’s logistics industry is highly fragmented, with companies...

Sequoia Capital India’s Surge invests $2M in sales engagement platform Outplay

Outplay’s team members on a video call Sales engagement platforms (SEP) help sales teams automate and track the large number of tasks they need to do each day as they...

Proptech startup States Title, now Doma, going public via SPAC in $3B deal

Real estate tech startup Doma, formerly known as States Title, announced Tuesday it will go public through a merger with SPAC Capitol Investment Corp. V in a deal valued at...

Retail Zipline raises $30M as it helps retailers adapt to the pandemic

When I first wrote about Retail Zipline in 2019, the startup was focused on building a communication platform that would help corporate decision-makers in retail communicate with individual stores. As...

Vestiaire Collective raises $216 million for its second-hand fashion platform

Vestiaire Collective announced a new funding round. The company has raised $216 million, or €178 million — it has reached a valuation above $1 billion, making it a unicorn. French fashion...

Oscar Health raises IPO price as Coupang releases bullish debut valuation

Investors appear excited to buy shares in impending public companies Oscar Health and Coupang. TechCrunch covered both extensively during their ramp toward the public markets, and more recently regarding their...

Indonesian payments infra startup Xendit raises $64.6M in Accel-led Series B

Fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, digital transformation is happening all over the world. And Southeast Asia is no exception. Indonesia’s Xendit, a startup focused on building digital payments infrastructure for...

EBay and Adevinta to sell UK sites Gumtree, Motors.co.uk and Shpock to get their $9.2B deal past regulators

After inking a $9.2 billion deal to merge their classifieds businesses last year, eBay and Norway’s Adevinta have announced a deal to sell off three popular web properties in the...

Beam raises $80M as the dental insurer looks to keep up rapid historical growth

This morning Beam, an insurtech startup that provides dental coverage to corporate employees, announced that it has closed an $80 million Series E. Mercato-affiliated Traverse led the investment, with Nationwide insurance...

Flink, the Berlin-based grocery delivery startup that operates its own ‘dark stores’, raises $52M

The on-demand grocery delivery industry in Europe (and beyond) continues to heat up amidst the pandemic, including a plethora of startups taking a vertical approach by operating their own delivery...

Humaans raises $5M seed to make it easier for companies to on-board and manage staff

Humaans, a London-based HR startup, has raised $5 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of its employee on-boarding and management platform. Backing the round is Y Combinator, Mattias...

Coupang may raise up to $3.6 billion in its IPO, at a potential valuation of $51 billion

According to an amended S-1 filing, South Korean e-commerce leader Coupang expects to price its initial public offering between $27 to $30 per share, potentially raising up to $3.6 billion....

Kaltura files to go public on the back of accelerating revenue growth, rising losses

Kaltura, a software company focused on providing video technology to other concerns, has filed to go public. The Kaltura S-1 filing only partially surprised. TechCrunch previously covered the company as...

BrioHR raises $1.3M ahead of Y Combinator’s demo day

As the next Y Combinator demo day approaches, more startups from the current Winter 2021 batch are showing up in our inboxes. One of the most interesting from the mix...

Martech company Zeta Global raises $222.5M in debt

Zeta Global, the marketing technology company founded by David A. Steinberg and former Apple CEO John Sculley, is announcing an additional $222.5 million in new debt financing. The company has...

As Coinbase looks to list, Robinhood rides the crypto boom

The impending Coinbase direct listing is a fintech debut to watch. The cryptocurrency-focused consumer trading concern is set to become a public company on the back of a strong 2020,...

Equity Monday: More venture money for Europe, and public companies blast off

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private...

Australia-based Employment Hero raises $45M AUD for its global expansion

Ben Thompson, co-founder and chief executive officer of human resources platform Employment Hero Businesses, and the tech platforms that support their operations, had to adapt quickly to the pandemic. Ben...

Klarna confirms new $31B valuation

Klarna, the Swedish buy now, pay later behemoth and upstart bank, has raised $1 billion in new funding at a post-money valuation of $31 billion. That sees the company retain...

How investors are valuing the pandemic

Feb 27, 2021

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading....

With $62.5M in debt financing, Road Runner Media puts digital ads behind commercial vehicles

If Southern California-based Road Runner Media succeeds, you’ll start seeing a lot more ads while you’re driving. That’s because the startup is placing digital screens on the back of technicians’...

Atlassian is acquiring Chartio to bring data visualization to the platform

The Atlassian platform is chock full of data about how a company operates and communicates. Atlassian launched a machine learning layer, which relies on data on the platform with the...

As BNPL startups raise, a look at Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay earnings

As the e-commerce market grows, startups are racing to help online retailers sell larger items to consumers with so-called “buy-now-pay-later” options. Via BNPL, consumers turn a one-time purchase into a...

First Boulevard raises $5M for its digital bank aimed at Black America

The murder of George Floyd last May ignited many things in the United States last year — one of which that was perhaps unexpected: a rise in the number of...

Why are we still dating LinkedIn in 2021?

DigitalOcean’s IPO filing shows a two-class cloud market

This morning DigitalOcean, a provider of cloud computing services to SMBs, filed to go public. The company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker...

Crypto company Anchorage raises $80 million after getting federal banking charter

Anchorage has raised an $80 million Series C funding round led by GIC, also known as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. Andreessen Horowitz, Blockchain Capital, Lux and Indico are also participating...

Stoke Space wants to take reusable rockets to new heights with $9M seed

Many launch providers think reusability is the best way to lower the cost and delay involved in getting to space. SpaceX and Rocket Lab have shown reusable first stages, which...

Foresite Capital raises $969 million fund to invest in healthcare startups across all stages of growth

Health and life science specialist investment firm Foresite Capital has raised a new fund, its fifth to date, totally $969 million in commitments from LPs. This is the firm’s largest...

Five takeaways from Coinbase’s S-1

The Coinbase S-1 is out! And hot damn, did the company have a good fourth quarter. TechCrunch has a first look at the company’s headline numbers. But in case you’ve...

Celebrity video platform Memmo raises $10M

Memmo.me, a startup allowing users to pay celebrities for personalized video messages, is announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding. “We’re really excited about our mission...

USV has been aggressively selling off shares in Coinbase in run up to IPO

Coinbase’s S-1 publicly dropped this morning with much anticipation. My colleague Alex Wilhelm has the high-level details, but there was one major wrinkle for the crypto trading darling: two of...

Lob raises $50M for its direct mail platform

Lob is a startup promising to help businesses deliver physical mail more quickly and affordably, and with more personalization. The company estimates that its platform has been used to deliver...

Coinbase files to go public in a key listing for the cryptocurrency category

This morning Coinbase, an American cryptocurrency exchange, released an S-1 filing ahead of its direct listing. The company’s public debut has been hotly anticipated thanks to recent activity amongst bitcoin...

Customer data platform Lexer raises $25.5M Series B for global expansion

Left to right: Lexer founders Dave Whittle, Aaron Wallis, Chris Brewer The massive shift to online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic means retailers need to analyze customer data quickly in...

Maze raises another $15 million for its user testing platform

Maze has closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Emergence Capital. The company lets you run user tests at scale so that you can get feedback before...

TreeCard raises $5.1M seed to plant trees as you spend

TreeCard, a U.K. yet-to-launch fintech offering a spending card made out of wood and the promise to fund reforesting via the interchange fees generated, has raised $5.1 million in seed...

Rainmaking launches Motion Ventures to boost innovation in the maritime industry

A new fund has launched, with backing from the Singaporean government, to support tech innovation for the maritime industry. Called Motion Ventures, it is targeting $30 million SGD (about $22.8...

Plant-based food startup Next Gen lands $10M seed round from investors including Temasek

Singapore is quickly turning into a hub for food-tech startups, partly because of government initiatives supporting the development of meat alternatives. One of the newest entrants is Next Gen, which...

The Equity podcast is growing

Equity is celebrating its fourth birthday in a few weeks and closed 2020 with its biggest quarter to date. To celebrate and say thank you to our wonderful listeners who...

Canva acquires background removal specialists Kaleido

Kaleido, makers of a drag-and-drop background removal service for images and video, have been acquired by up and coming digital design platform Canva. While the price and terms are not...

MealMe raises $900,000 for its food search engine

This morning MealMe.ai, a food search engine, announced that it has closed a $900,000 pre-seed round. Palm Drive Capital led the round, with participation from Slow Ventures and CP Ventures....

Select Star raises seed to automatically document datasets for data scientists

Back when I was a wee lad with a very security-compromised MySQL installation, I used to answer every web request with multiple “SELECT *” database requests — give me all...

VCs are chasing Hopin upwards of $5-6B valuation

Virtual events platform Hopin is hopin’ for a mega valuation. According to multiple sources who spoke with TechCrunch, the company, which was founded in mid-2019, is running around the fundraise...

Understanding Toast’s expected IPO through the lens of Olo’s 2020 results

Boston-based Toast has been on a roller coaster over the last year. From raising $400 million in February 2020 at a nearly $5 billion valuation, the company cut staff in...

Emotive raises $50M to make text marketing more conversational

While more businesses are turning to text messages as a marketing channel, Emotive CEO Brain Zatulove argued that most marketers are just treating it as another “newsletter blast.” “The reason...

Oscar Health’s initial IPO price is so high, it makes me want to swear

Amidst all the hype that Lemonade (IPO), Root (IPO), Metromile (SPAC-led debut) and other insurtech players have generated in the last year, it’s been easy to forget about Oscar Health....

The current narrative explaining why tech stocks are getting hammered

This morning the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index is off 2.34% after falling yesterday. Shares of Tesla are off more than 6% today, now mired in a bear-market correction after reaching...

Shippo raises $45M more at $495M valuation as ecommerce booms

This morning Shippo, a software company that provides shipping-related services to ecommerce companies, announced a new $45 million investment. The new capital values the startup at $495 million. TechCrunch is...

Wisetack raises $19M as its buy-now-pay-later service for IRL services scales

This morning Wisetack, a startup that provides buy-now-pay-later services to in-person business transactions, announced that is has closed a total of $19 million across two rounds, a seed investment and...

Furniture startup Burrow raises $25M

Burrow, a startup that first launched with a modular sofa, eventually aims to sell you furniture for every room in your home. Today, it’s announcing that it’s raised $25 million...

IronSource acquires video and playable ad platform Luna Labs

Mobile advertising company ironSource is announcing its second acquisition of the year — Luna Labs, a startup that that’s built a platform allowing app developers to create and manage video...

ErudiFi raises $5 million Series A to give students in Southeast Asia more education financing options

Based in Singapore, ErudiFi wants to help more students in Southeast Asia stay in school by giving them affordable financing options. The startup announced today it has raised a $5...

Katana raises $11M Series A to be the SaaS powering ‘manufacturing entrepreneurs’

Katana, an Estonian startup that has built manufacturing-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for SMBs, has raised $11 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is European venture capital...

If Coinbase is worth $100 billion, what’s a fair valuation for Stripe?

Mere days after we discussed Coinbase at $77 billion and Stripe at $115 billion in the private markets, those same semi-liquid exchanges have provided a new valuation for the cryptocurrency...

Equity Monday: Everyone is going public so what’s wrong with your startup?

Creatio raises $68M as the low-code space keeps attracting huge checks

This morning Creatio, a Boston-based software company, announced that it has raised $68 million. Volition Capital, a growth-equity fund, led the round. The deal was a minority investment in the...

Gophr, the U.K. last-mile delivery company, picks up £4M funding

Gophr, a U.K.-based last-mile delivery provider, has raised £4 million in funding, as it looks to invest in its product off the back of 300% revenue growth during the last...

Indonesian investment platform FUNDtastic lands $7.7 million Series A

Despite the market impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, retail investing is increasing in Indonesia, especially among people aged 18 to 30. Today, investment platform FUNDtastic announced it has raised a...

Can data fix healthcare?

Feb 20, 2021

With $20M A round, Promise brings financial flexibility to outdated government and utility payment systems

The last year has been one of financial hardship for billions, and among the specific hardships is the elementary one of paying for utilities, taxes and other government fees —...

A fraction of Robinhood’s users are driving its runaway growth

Yesterday’s House Financial Services Committee hearing about GameStop and Robinhood wasn’t great. Reuters has a good summary of one its few interesting bits, a scrap between the elected inquisitors and...

SailPoint is buying Saas management startup Intello

SailPoint, an identity management company that went public in 2017, announced it was going to be acquiring Intello today, an early stage SaaS management startup. The two companies did not...

Podimo, the podcast and short form audio subscription service, picks up €11.2M in new funding

Podimo, the Copenhagen-founded subscription service for short form audio stories and podcasts, has raised an additional €11.2 million in funding. The round is led by Chr. Augustinus investment fund, and...

Acast acquires podcasting startup RadioPublic

Podcast advertising company Acast is announcing that it has acquired RadioPublic, the startup that spun out of public radio marketplace PRX in 2016. At first, RadioPublic’s main product was a...

AccountsIQ scores €5.8M for its financial management software for multi-entity SMEs

AccountsIQ, a financial management software (FMS) startup founded by a team of chartered accountants (when accountants want to be entrepreneurs, you know startups are a thing), has raised €5.8 million...

SESO Labor is providing a way for migrant farmworkers to get legally protected work status in the US

As the Biden administration works to bring legislation to Congress to address the endemic problem of immigration reform in America, on the other side of the nation a small California...

A16z doesn’t invest, it manifests

Math learning app Photomath raises $23 million as it reaches 220 million downloads

Photomath, the popular mobile app that helps you solve equations, has raised a $23 million Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures. The app is a massive consumer success,...

Robinhood goes to Congress

Update: There’s an entire second session of this? My lord. Today the House Financial Services Committee dragged the CEO of Reddit, a Cato wonk, social media icon DeepFuckingValue, the CEO...

Paying $115B for Stripe or $77B for Coinbase might be quite rational

CoinDesk reported yesterday that crypto trading startup Coinbase is being valued at $77 billion on private exchanges. And Forbes reported that Stripe is being valued at $115 billion on secondary...

Logging startups are suddenly hot as CrowdStrike nabs Humio for $400M

A couple of weeks ago SentinelOne announced it was acquiring high-speed logging platform Scalyr for $155 million. Just this morning CrowdStrike struck next, announcing it was buying unlimited logging tool...

Pipe17 closes $8M to connect a range of e-commerce tools without any code required

This morning Pipe17, a software startup focused on the e-commerce market, announced that it has closed $8 million in funding. Pipe17’s service helps smaller e-commerce merchants connect their digital tools,...

Wholesale marketplace Abound raises $22.9M