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This morning Metafy, a distributed startup building a marketplace to match gamers with instructors, announced that it has closed an additional $5.5 million to its $3.15 million seed round. Call...

How much product room will fintech giants leave for startups?

I was going to wait until after Square reported its Q1 results today to dig into the world of fintech earnings and what they might mean for startups, but something...

Lightmatter’s photonic AI ambitions light up an $80M B round

AI is fundamental to many products and services today, but its hunger for data and computing cycles is bottomless. Lightmatter plans to leapfrog Moore’s law with its ultra-fast photonic chips...

Figure raises $7.5M to help startup employees better understand their compensation

The topic of compensation has historically been a delicate one that has left many people — especially startup employees — wondering just what drives what can feel like random decisions...

Oculii looks to supercharge radar for autonomy with $55M round B

Autonomous vehicles rely on many sensors to perceive the world around them, and while cameras and lidar get a lot of the attention, good old radar is an important piece...

From bootstrapped to a $2.1B valuation, ReCharge raises $227M for subscription management platform

ReCharge, a provider of subscription management software for e-commerce, announced today that it has raised $227 million in a Series B growth round at a $2.1 billion valuation. Summit Partners,...

ifeel, another well-being platform that blends self-care tools with 1-2-1 therapy, scores $6.6M

If the pandemic has been good for anything it’s been good for the therapy business and for startups targeting mental health, with VCs kept very busy signing checks. To wit,...

Una Brands launches with $40M to roll up brands on multiple Asia-Pacific e-commerce platforms

Una Brands’ co-founders (from left to right): Tobias Heusch, Kiran Tanna and Kushal Patel One of the biggest funding trends of the past year is companies that consolidate small e-commerce...

Beyond the fanfare and SEC warnings, SPACs are here to stay

Matt Johnson Contributor Share on Twitter Matt Johnson is CEO and co-founder of QC Ware, a quantum computing software company. Matt was a managing director in private equity at Apollo...

Despite gains, gender diversity in VC funding struggled in 2020

People have been discussing the importance of expanding opportunities for women in venture capital and startup entrepreneurship for decades. And for some time it appeared that progress was being made...

Text Blaze raises $3.3M for its speed-writing automation service

Text Blaze, which was a part of the recent Winter 2021 Y Combinator accelerator batch, announced that it has closed a $3.3 million seed round. The company’s investment was led...

How 4 New Jersey pools turned into a startup that just raised $10M

As the oldest of 12 children, Bunim Laskin spent much of his teen years looking for ways to help keep his siblings entertained. Noticing that a neighbor’s pool was often...

The morality and efficacy of going public earlier

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Chris dug into the world of the IPO....

With backers like Tiger Global, LatAm crypto exchange Bitso raises $250M at a $2.2B valuation

Bitso, a regulated crypto exchange in Latin America, announced today it has raised $250 million in a Series C round of funding that values the company at $2.2 billion. Tiger...

StudySmarter books $15M for a global ‘personalized learning’ push

More money for the edtech boom: Munich-based StudySmarter, which makes digital tools to help learners of all ages swat up — styling itself as a ‘lifelong learning platform’ — has...

Fewcents raises $1.6M to help publishers take payments for individual articles, videos and podcasts

Fewcents co-founders Dushyant Khare and Abhishek Dadoo Many publishers are focused on converting visitors to subscribers, but there’s another important bracket: people who want to view a premium article...

Brex, Ramp tout their view of the future as Divvy is said to consider a sale to Bill.com

Earlier today recent dog-parent Alex Konrad and fellow Forbes staffer Eliza Haverstock broke the news that Divvy, a Utah-based corporate spend unicorn, is considering selling itself to Bill.com for a...

As Q2’s lull fades, unicorn IPOs are revving up

The public markets give, and the public markets take away. Earlier this morning, enterprise cloud storage and productivity company Box got into a more public spat with some of its...

Personalized nutrition startup Zoe closes out Series B at $53M

Personalized nutrition startup Zoe — named not for a person but after the Greek word for ‘life’ — has topped up its Series B round with $20M, bringing the total...

HoneyBook raises $155M at $1B+ valuation to help SMBs, freelancers manage their businesses

HoneyBook, which has built out a client experience and financial management platform for service-based small businesses and freelancers, announced today that it has raised $155 million in a Series D...

Twitter acquires distraction-free reading service Scroll to beef up its subscription product

Twitter this morning announced it’s acquiring Scroll, a subscription service that offers readers a better way to read through long-form content on the web, by removing ads and other website...

Persona lands $50M for identity verification after seeing 10x YoY revenue growth

The identity verification space has been heating up for a while and the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated demand with more people transacting online. Persona, a startup focused on creating...

alt.bank, Brazil’s latest fintech targeting the unbanked, raises $5.5M

It looks like everyone and their mother is trying to reinvent the Brazilian banking system. Earlier this year we wrote about Nubank’s $400 million Series G, last month there was...

WorkBoard raises $75M as the OKR-focused startup bets on a growing economy, changes to business culture

This morning WorkBoard, a software startup that sells software designed to help other companies plan, announced that it has raised a $75 million Series D. Softbank Group led the investment,...

Sony announces investment and partnership with Discord to bring the chat app to PlayStation

Sony and Discord have announced a partnership that will integrate the latter’s popular gaming-focused chat app with PlayStation’s own built-in social tools. It’s a big move and a fairly surprising...

Will fintech unicorn Flywire’s proposed IPO reach escape velocity?

It’s a big morning for fintech startups today: Flywire, a Boston-based magnet for venture capital, has filed to go public. Flywire is a global payments company that attracted more than...

Equity Monday: TechCrunch goes Yahoo while welding robots raise $56M

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 market...

Gatheround raises millions from Homebrew, Bloomberg and Stripe’s COO to help remote workers connect

Remote work is no longer a new topic, as much of the world has now been doing it for a year or more because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies —...

Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup with plans to become a global F&B company, closes $13M Series A

Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup that wants to become a global food and beverage company, has raised a $13 million Series A. The round was led by returning investor...

Big Tech is now worth so much we’ve forgotten to be shocked by the numbers

May 1, 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. If...

Y Combinator-backed Uiflow wants to accelerate no-code enterprise app creation

TechCrunch recently caught up with recent Y Combinator graduate Uiflow, a startup that is building a no-code enterprise app creation service. If you are thinking wait, don’t a number of companies...

Optimism reigns at consumer trading services as fintech VC spikes and Robinhood IPO looms

With the Coinbase direct listing behind us and the Robinhood IPO ahead, it’s a heady time for consumer-focused trading apps. Mix in the impending SPAC-led debut of eToro, general bullishness in...

The second shot is kicking in

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First and foremost, Equity was nominated for a Webby for “Best Technology Podcast”!...

Developer-focused video platform Mux achieves unicorn status with $105M funding

Barely more than eight months after announcing a $37 million funding round, Mux has another $105 million. The Series D was led by Coatue and values the company at more...

IBM is acquiring cloud app management firm Turbonomic, valued at $963M in 2019

IBM today made another acquisition to deepen its reach into providing enterprises with AI-based services to manage their networks and workloads. It announced that it is acquiring Turbonomic, a company...

Fintech startups set VC records as the 2021 fundraising market continues to impress

While waiting for full first-quarter venture capital results for fintech startups to drop, we knew that they were going to be outsized. The Exchange previously explored the pace at which...

Firstbase raises $13M to make remote work suck less

The chance that I am ever willing to commute on a regular basis again in the future is zero. It’s too inefficient. And while workers and employers are somewhat split...

MoviePass co-founder’s PreShow Interactive raises $3M to expand into gaming

PreShow Interactive is giving gamers a new way to earn in-game currency in exchange for watching ads — a concept that’s become familiar in mobile games but hasn’t really made...

Zynga and Rollic acquire the hyper-casual game studio behind High Heels

Last year, Zynga bought hyper-casual game maker Rollic. Today, Rollic is a Zynga subsidiary, and it’s announcing the acquisition of another game studio called Uncosoft. Like Rollic, Uncosoft develops hyper-casual...

Vivid Money raises $73 million to build a European financial super app

German startup Vivid Money has raised a new $73 million Series B funding round (€60 million) led by Greenoaks with existing investor Ribbit Capital also participating. Following today’s funding round,...

TravelPerk raises $160M in equity and debt after a year of derailed business trips

The pandemic has hammered the travel sector over the past 12 months so you’d be forgiven for feeling a bit of pre-COVID-19 déjà vu at this news: Business trip booking...

Paxos raises $300 million to build a cryptocurrency infrastructure giant

Paxos has raised a $300 million Series D funding round led by Oak HC/FT. With today’s funding the round, the company is now valued at $2.4 billion. The company has...

Taster grabs $37 million for its native online restaurants

French startup Taster has raised a $37 million Series B funding round from Octopus Venture, Battery Ventures, LocalGlobe, HeartCore, Rakuten, GFC and Founders Future. The company operates dozens of restaurants...

Super, an Indonesian hyperlocal social commerce startup, raises $28M led by SoftBank Ventures Asia

Super’s founding team on Mount Bromo in East Java In Indonesia, daily necessities often cost more in smaller cities and rural areas. Super co-founder and chief executive officer Steven Wongsoredjo...

The SPAC boom isn’t just here to stay, it’s changing consumer tech

Mike Murphy Contributor Mike Murphy is the founder and CEO of Rosecliff Ventures, a New York City-based investment firm focused on venture capital and private equity opportunities. Consumer technology is...

Zomato juice: Indian unicorn’s proposed IPO could drive regional startup liquidity

The IPO parade that has continued in 2021 is not a strictly domestic affair. Other countries are getting in on the unicorn liquidity rush. This week, India-based food-delivery unicorn Zomato...

Splitwise raises $20M Series A to help everyone in the world divvy expenses

This morning Splitwise, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup announced that it has closed a $20 million Series A. The company builds consumer fintech software that helps users split expenses. But...

Alchemy raises $80M at a $505M valuation to be the ‘AWS for blockchain’

Blockchain developer platform Alchemy announced today it has raised $80 million in a Series B round of funding led by Coatue and Addition, Lee Fixel’s new fund. The company previously raised...

In a room with no smart speaker, Alexa can’t hear you scream

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Danny and Chris dove into the world of...

Kaia Health grabs $75M on surging interest in its virtual therapies for chronic pain and COPD

New York headquartered Kaia Health, which offers AI-assisted digital therapies via a mobile app for chronic pain related to musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders and for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), has...

OpenClassrooms raises $80 million for its online education platform

French startup OpenClassrooms has raised an $80 million Series C funding round led by Lumos Capital Group. The company operates an online education platform in French and English. Users can...

MD Ally connects telehealth alternatives right into 911 calls

Every day in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people will dial 911 to seek help. Some of those calls are serious and require immediate emergency attention, but the...

MessageBird acquires SparkPost for $600M using $800M Series C extension

MessageBird, a communications platform out of the Netherlands, had a busy day today with two huge announcements. For starters, the company got an $800 million extension on its $200 million...

Armed with $160M in funding, LatAm’s Merama enters the e-commerce land grab

Merama, a five-month old e-commerce startup focused on Latin America, announced today that it has raised $60 million in seed and Series A funding and $100 million in debt. The...

Wunderite raises $3M to build software for indie insurance agencies

This morning Wunderite, a Boston-based software startup, announced that it has raised $3 million in an early-stage round led by Spark Capital. Wunderite builds and sells software designed to help...

Israel’s electric powertrain maker IRP Systems raises a $31M Series C funding

IRP Systems, a maker of innovative electric powertrains for electric vehicles, has raised a $31m Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $57m. The financing was led by Clal...

Stripe acquires TaxJar to add cloud-based, automated sales tax tools into its payments platform

Stripe, the privately-held payments company now valued at $95 billion, has made an acquisition to expand the range of tools (and services) that it provides to online businesses. It has...

What can the OKR software sector tell us about startup growth more generally?

In the never-ending stream of venture capital funding rounds, from time to time, a group of startups working on the same problem will raise money nearly in unison. So it...

Language learning startup Toucan raises $4.5M

Toucan, a startup that helps users learn a new language while they browse the web, is announcing that it has raised an additional $4.5 million in seed funding. As I...

Kids-focused fintech Greenlight raises $260M in a16z-led Series D, nearly doubles valuation to $2.3B

Greenlight, the fintech company that pitches parents on kid-friendly bank accounts, has raised $260 million in a Series D funding round that nearly doubles its valuation to $2.3 billion. The...

Vista Equity takes minority stake in Canada’s Vena with $242M investment

Vena, a Canadian company focused on the Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software space, has raised $242 million in Series C funding from Vista Equity Partners. As part of the financing,...

Family tracking app Life360 to acquire wearable location device Jiobit for $37M

Popular family tracking app Life360 is investing in hardware. The company this morning announced the $37 million acquisition of Chicago-based Jiobit, the maker of a wearable location device designed for...

Teen banking service Step raises $100M Series C, announces Steph Curry’s investment

Step, the digital banking service aimed at teens and endorsed by TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, announced this morning the close of a $100 million round of Series C funding after...

Location data analytics startup Placer.ai raises $50M Series B

It’s been a very tough year for Placer.ai’s core customer segments of retail and commercial real estate, to put it mildly. But the foot traffic and location analytics startup saw...

Canada’s newest unicorn: Clio raises $110M at a $1.6B valuation for legal tech

Clio, a software company that helps law practices run more efficiently with its cloud-based technology, announced Tuesday it has raised a $110 million Series E round co-led by T. Rowe...

Property management startup Guesty raises $50M and acquires competitor Your Porter

Guesty, which has created property management software for hosts on short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, is announcing that it has raised $50 million in Series D funding. “In...

Kry closes $312M Series D after use of its telehealth tools grows 100% yoy

Swedish digital health startup Kry, which offers a telehealth service (and software tools) to connect clinicians with patients for remote consultations, last raised just before the pandemic hit in Western...

How Brex more than doubled its valuation in a year

Brex, a fintech company that provides corporate cards and spend-management software to businesses, announced earlier today that it closed a $425 million Series D round of capital at a valuation...

Weav raises $4.3M to knit together a universal API for commerce platforms

Weav, which is building a universal API for commerce platforms, is emerging from stealth today with $4.3 million in funding from a bevy of investors, and a partnership with Brex....

To be frank, I do not know how to value Honest Company

The Honest Company, a heavily venture-backed consumer goods company, announced an IPO price range this morning, telling investors that it expects to sell shares in its debut at $14 to...

Equity Monday: Social media crackdowns, earnings, and a funding deluge

Founded by Australia’s national science agency, Main Sequence launches $250M AUD deep tech fund

Main Sequence’s team (top row from left to right) Viringa Crawter, Bill Bartee, Mike Nicholls, Phil Morle; (bottom row from left to right) Stella Xu, Mike Zimmerman and Jen Baxter...

Mighty Networks raises $50M to build a creator economy for the masses

Mighty Networks, a platform designed to give creators and brands a dedicated place to start and grow communities, has closed on $50 million in a Series B funding round led...

Robo-advisor StashAway gets $25M Series D led by Sequoia Capital India

Apr 25, 2021

Investment app StashAway has raised a $25 million Series D led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from returning investors Eight Roads Ventures and Square Peg. After regulatory approvals for...

Building a creator-focused OS

Apr 24, 2021

Two investors weigh in: Is your SPAC just a PIPE dream?

Hope Cochran Contributor Hope Cochran is an investor at Madrona Venture Group, where she invests in early stage Fintech and ML/AI Applications for the business environment. Ishani Ummat Contributor Share...

Introvoke raises $2.7M to power online events that can be embedded anywhere

While there’s been plenty of attention and money lavished on virtual event platforms over the past year, Introvoke co-founder and CEO Oana Manolache predicted that we’re only at the beginning...

After going public, once-hot startups are riding a valuation roller coaster

To close out the week, a short meditation on value, or, more precisely, how assets are valued in today’s markets. Do you recall the pre-direct-listing hype Coinbase enjoyed? After reporting its...

No one is talking about remote work from space

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First and foremost, Equity was nominated a Webby for “Best Technology Podcast”!!! Drop...

Semiconductor specialist Alphawave IP plans $4.5B London IPO and move to UK HQ

Alphawave IP is a global semiconductor IP company that focuses on the way semiconductors communicate — something which is going to be crucial as 5G data networks roll out and...

To sell or not to sell: Lessons from a bootstrapped CEO

Glen Rabie Contributor Share on Twitter Glen Rabie is co-founder and CEO of Yellowfin, a global analytics and BI software vendor. The clock begins ticking on a startup the day...

Fraud prevention platform Sift raises $50M at over $1B valuation, eyes acquisitions

With the increase of digital transacting over the past year, cybercriminals have been having a field day. In 2020, complaints of suspected internet crime surged by 61%, to 791,790, according...

E-commerce tracking platform AfterShip raises $66M led by Tiger Global

AfterShip launched in 2012 to help online sellers track packages across different carriers, but since then it has built a suite of data analytics tools covering almost every step of...

Brazil’s Loft adds $100M to its accounts, $700M to its valuation in a single month

Nearly exactly one month ago, digital real estate platform Loft announced it had closed on $425 million in Series D funding led by New York-based D1 Capital Partners. The round included...

How are VCs handling diligence in a world where deals open and close in days, not months?

The global venture capital market had a cracking start to the year. Coming off a 2020 high, VC totals in the United States, in Europe, and among competitive verticals like...

Satellite imagery startup Albedo closes $10M seed round

While most startups today are creating software, not every upstart enterprise is taking a code-only approach to building a business. Some of today’s most ambitious startups are aiming quite a...

Applied XL raises $1.5M to build ‘editorial algorithms’ that track real-time data

AppliedXL, a startup creating machine learning tools with what it describes as a journalistic lens, is announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. Emerging from the Newlab...

MasterClass co-founder’s Outlier.org raises $30M for affordable, virtual college courses

Outlier.org — a startup offering intro-level college courses online and at a relatively affordable price — is announcing that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding. The startup...

Newly-christened Percent wants to make it easier to securitize corporate debt

Debt is the new equity. As founders run around trying to fend off prying VCs from their cap tables, they are increasingly turning to debt products like revenue-based securities in...

Queenly raises $2.3M for its dress marketplace

One of our favorite companies from the most recently Y Combinator batch has closed a seed round. This morning Queenly announced that it has closed a $2.262 million round, following...

Forget the piggy bank, Till Financial’s kids’ spend management app gets Gates’ backing

Today’s children and teens want more power and control over their spending. And while there are a number of financial services and apps out there aimed at helping this demographic...

SmartNews’ COVID-19 vaccine alert reaches 1M users in Japan a week after launching

SmartNews’ Vaccine Alert and Map features for its Japanese app SmartNews announced today that its tools to help Japanese users find nearby COVID-19 vaccine bookings have reached more than one...

Satellite Vu’s $5M seed round will fuel the launch of its thermal imaging satellites