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If the rise of direct-to-consumer businesses has been one of the big e-commerce trends of the last decade, then the growth of startups raising huge rounds to consolidate D2C players,...

Female-led startups dominate Catalyst Fund’s inclusive fintech 2021 cohort

Catalyst Fund, a global accelerator managed by BFA Global, announced the 8th cohort for its Inclusive Fintech Program today. The accelerator, backed by the JP Morgan Chase and Bill &...

Nigeria’s Cowrywise raises $3M pre-Series A to scale its wealth management platform

Cowrywise, a Nigerian fintech startup that offers digital wealth management and financial planning solutions, has raised $3 million in pre-Series A funding. Quona Capital led the round as Tsadik Foundation,...

Levity is a ‘no-code’ AI tool to let anyone create workflow automations

Levity, which has been operating in stealth (until now), is the latest no-code company to throw its wares into the ring, having picked up $1.7M in pre-seed funding led by...

Squarespace files privately to go public

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,...

How trading apps are responding to the GameStop fustercluck

The furor surrounding GameStop and its stock price has consumed social media, business television, and the hopes and dreams of many retail investors. It has even convinced some folks that...

SAP is buying Berlin business process automation startup Signavio

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...

Stilt, a financial services provider for immigrants, raises $100 million debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank

Stilt founders Priyank Singh and Rohit Mittal Stilt, a provider of financial services for immigrants in the United States, announced today it has raised a $100 million warehouse facility from...

Lynk, a “knowledge-as-a-service” platform with more than 840,000 experts, raises $24 million

Lynk co-founder and chief executive officer Peggy Choi Lynk, a “knowledge-as-a-service” platform that connects clients with over 840,000 experts in a wide range of fields, announced today it has raised...

LottieFiles, a platform for the animation format, lands $9 million Series A led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund

LottieFiles, a platform for JSON-based Lottie animations, has raised a Series A of $9 million. The round was led by M12, Microsoft’s venture capital arm, with participation from returning investor...

Playvox scores $25M Series A and acquires Australian startup Agyle Time

It’s not every day you see a Latin American startup funded by a U.S. venture capital firm based in the midwest. Playvox, a Colombian startup that wants to bring a...

Gardin raises $1.2M pre-seed to use ‘optical phenotyping’ tech to improve food production

Gardin, a ‘deep tech’ hardware and software startup developing optical phenotyping technology and analytics to optimise food production, has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding. Leading the round is LDV...

‘Anti-superficial’ dating app S’More raises $2.1M

S’More, a dating app that’s focused on helping users find more meaningful relationships, announced today that it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding. S’More (short for “something more”) ensures...

Mealco raises $7M to launch new delivery-centric restaurants

Mealco, a startup promising to help chefs launch new restaurants designed around delivery, is announcing that it has raised $7 million in seed funding. It’s probably not news to anyone...

Club Feast raises $3.5M to help restaurants deliver meals that only cost $5.99

Club Feast, a startup with a more affordable approach to meal delivery, is announcing that it has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst. The company was...

Does a $27 or $29 billion valuation make sense for Databricks?

Late last week, independent journalist Eric Newcomer reported that Databricks is raising new capital at a valuation of “about $27 billion.” A few days later, another publication chimed in, saying that...

Ex-Uber team raises $6M seed for geospatial analytics platform Unfolded.ai

Years ago, Uber had a problem. With millions of users and tens of thousands of drivers scattered across a widening expanse of the globe, the fast-growing mobility startup wanted to...

Fast raises $102M as the online checkout wars continue to attract huge investment

This morning Fast, a startup that provides online checkout and identity products, announced that it has closed a $102 million Series B. The new funding event was led by Stripe,...

Stacker raises $1.7M to help nocoders build apps from spreadsheets

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...

Bloomreach raises $150M on $900M valuation and acquires Exponea

Bloomreach, an API company that helps eCommerce customers with search and web site creation, announced a $150 million investment today from Sixth Street Growth. Today’s funding values the company at...

Rhino raises $95M to scale its rental deposit replacing insurance product

Rhino today announced that it has raised $95 million, an investment that values the startup at just under $500 million. Tiger Global led the round, an investment that Rhino described...

CrediBook gets $1.5 million to help Indonesian retail wholesalers digitize their finances

CrediBook, a startup that helps Indonesian retail wholesalers digitize the financial side of their operations, has raised $1.5 million in pre-Series A funding led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from...

Atomico promotes SaaS and enterprise-focussed investor Ben Blume to partner

Atomico, the European venture capital fund that typically invests at Series A and Series B, has made a number of internal promotions, including making SaaS and enterprise-focussed investor Ben Blume...

Unpacking Chamath Palihapitiya’s SPAC deals for Latch and Sunlight Financial

This morning, investor and SPAC raconteur Chamath Palihapitiya announced two new blank-check deals involving Latch and Sunlight Financial. Latch, an enterprise SaaS company that makes keyless entry systems, has raised $152...

Equity Monday: Clubhouse, Taboola, and why the SPAC wave will get worse

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...

Wolt closes $530M round to continue expanding beyond restaurant delivery

Wolt, the Helsinki-based online ordering and delivery company that initially focused on restaurants but has since expanded to other verticals, has raised $530 million in new funding. The round was...

Taboola is going public via SPAC

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...

Sano Genetics, a startup helping with Long Covid research, raises £2.5M in seed funding

Sano Genetics, a startup with a broad mission to support personalised medicine research by increasing participation in clinical trials, has raised £2.5 million in seed funding. The round is led...

Alma raises $59.4 million for its Klarna-like payment option

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...

How VCs and founders see 2021 differently

Jan 23, 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. Click here if...

Drupal’s journey from dorm-room project to billion-dollar exit

Jan 22, 2021

Twenty years ago Drupal and Acquia founder Dries Buytaert was a college student at the University of Antwerp. He wanted to put his burgeoning programming skills to work by building...

How VCs invested in Asia and Europe in 2020

Jan 22, 2021

Wrapping our look at how the venture capital asset class invested in 2020, today we’re taking a peek at Europe’s impressive year, and Asia’s slightly less invigorating set of results....

Blobr, the ‘no-code’ company turning APIs into products, raises €1.2M pre-seed

Jan 22, 2021

Blobr, a Paris-based startup operating in the no-code space with tech to make it easier for companies to expose and monetise their existing APIs, has raised €1.2 million in pre-seed...

The only take about the future of media is that media is the future

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we — Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace — had more than a little to noodle over,...

Hot IPOs hang onto gains as investors keep betting on tech

This morning, while checking the latest price for shares of recent IPO Poshmark, I noticed that they were down from their first-day results. The company’s pricing was more than strong,...

Cloud infrastructure startup CloudNatix gets $4.5 million seed round led by DNX Ventures

CloudNatix founder and chief executive officer Rohit Seth CloudNatix, a startup that provides infrastructure for businesses with multiple cloud and on-premise operations, announced it has raised $4.5 million in seed...

TripActions raises $155M at $5B valuation as corporate travel recovers from pandemic lows

This morning TripActions, a software company whose tools help businesses book and manage corporate travel, announced a new $155 million investment. Three investors led the round: prior investor Andreessen Horowitz,...

Soci raises $80M for its localized marketing platform

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...

Creative Fabrica, a platform for digital crafting resources, lands $7 million Series A

Roemie Hillenaar and Anca Stefan, the co-founders of Creative Fabrica Creative Fabrica is best known as a marketplace for digital files, like fonts, graphics and machine embroidery designs, created for...

Porsche and Axel Springer increase investment into their APX accelerator to €55M

Berlin-based early-stage fund APX today announced that its two investors, European publisher Axel Springer and sports car maker Porsche, have increased their investment in the fund to a total of...

Softr scores $2.2M seed for its no-code website and web app platform powered by Airtable

No-code — software that lets you accomplish tasks that previously required coding skills — is an increasingly hot space, even if the basic premise has been promised and not fully...

Accounting automation startup Geroges raises $42.4 million and rebrands to Indy

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...

Digital securities platform iSTOX closes $50 million Series A to make private equity accessible to more investors

Oi Yee Choo, chief commercial officer of digital securities platform iSTOX iSTOX, a digital securities platform that wants to make private equity investment more accessible, has added new investors from...

Genflow nabs $11M investment from BGF

Genflow, a London an0d LA-based brand building agency that offers an e-commerce and mobile tech platform to let influencers start companies, has raised $11 million in funding. Leading the round...

Fintech startups and unicorns had a stellar Q4 2020

The fourth quarter of 2020 was as busy as you imagined, with super late-stage startups reaching new valuation thresholds at a record pace, and total venture capital funding in the...

Cannabis marketing startup Fyllo acquires DataOwl

Fyllo has acquired DataOwl, a company offering marketing and loyalty tools for cannabis retailers. Fyllo said it already works with 320 cannabis retailers across 25 states (plus Puerto Rico and...

HiPeople picks up $3M seed to automate reference checks

HiPeople, a HR tech startup based in Berlin that wants to automate the reference checking process, has raised $3 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Mattias Ljungman’s Moonfire,...

Landbot closes $8M Series A for its ‘no code’ chatbot builder

Barcelona-based Landbot, a ‘no-code’ chatbot builder, has bagged a $8M Series A led by the Spanish-Israeli VC firm Swanlaab, alongside support from Spain’s innovation-focused public agency, CDTI. Previous investors Nauta...

Podchaser raises $4M to build a comprehensive podcast database

Podchaser, a startup building what it calls “IMDB for podcasts,” recently announced that it has raised $4 million in a funding round led by Greycroft. In other words, it’s a...

A first look at Qualtrics’ IPO pricing

Earlier today, Qualtrics dropped a new S-1 filing, this time detailing its proposed IPO pricing. That means we can now get a good look at how much the company may...

Citrix is acquiring Wrike from Vista for $2.25B

Citrix announced today that it plans to acquire Wrike, a SaaS project management platform, from Vista Equity Partners for $2.25 billion. Vista bought the company just two years ago. Citrix,...

Skyqraft raises $2.2M seed for its powerline issue detection system

Skyqraft, the Swedish startup using AI and drones for electricity powerline inspection, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding, capital it will use to further develop its technology and expand...

LeoCare raises $18.1 million for its insurance products designed to fit in a mobile app

French startup LeoCare has raised a €15 million funding round. Felix Capital, Ventech and Daphni are participating in today’s funding round. The company is selling a portfolio of insurance products...

Singapore-based Volopay raises $2.1 million seed round to build a “financial control center” for businesses

Jan 18, 2021

Volopay, a Singapore-based startup building a “financial control center” for businesses, announced today it has raised $2.1 million in seed funding. The round was led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen,...

Cryptocat author gets insanely fast backing to build P2P tech for social media

Jan 18, 2021

The idea for Capsule started with a tweet about reinventing social media. A day later cryptography researcher, Nadim Kobeissi — best known for authoring the open source E2E encrypted desktop...

No one knows what anything is worth

Jan 16, 2021

Checkout wants to be Rapyd and Fast

Jan 16, 2021

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back on this lovely Saturday with a bonus episode! Again! There is enough...

Group Nine’s SPAC goes public

Group Nine Media revealed last month that it was forming a SPAC (short for special purpose acquisition corporation) in order to raise money for acquisitions. The company has now moved...

Bumble files to go public

The dating and networking service Bumble has filed to go public. The company, launched by a former co-founder of the IAC-owned Tinder, plans to list its share on the Nasdaq stock...

Corporate credit card platform Moss raises $25.5 million

German startup Moss has raised a $25.5 million (€21 million) funding round led by Valar Ventures. Existing investors Cherry Ventures and Global Founders Capital are also participating. Moss provides credit...

Rapid growth in 2020 reveals OKR software market’s untapped potential

Last year, a number of startups building OKR-focused software raised lots of venture capital, drawing TechCrunch’s attention. Why is everyone making software that measures objectives and key results? we wondered...

A theory about the current IPO market

As expected, shares of Poshmark exploded this morning, blasting over 130% higher in afternoon trading from the company’s above-range IPO price of $42. The enormous and noisy debut of Poshmark...

Medium acquires social book reading app Glose

Medium is acquiring Paris-based startup Glose for an undisclosed amount. Glose has been building iOS, Android and web apps that let you buy, download and read books on your devices....

Mosaic raises $18.5M Series A from GC to rebuild the CFO software stack

CFOs are the supposed omniscient owners of a company. While the CEO sets strategy, messages, and builds culture, the CFO needs to know everything that it is going on in...

Plaid CEO touts new ‘clarity’ after failed Visa acquisition

Yesterday, we spoke with Plaid CEO and co-founder Zach Perret after news broke that Visa no longer plans to buy his company for $5.3 billion. The deal was heralded in...

X1 Card raises $12 million for its credit card with limits based on your income

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....

Grab Financial Group raises $300 million Series A led by Hanhwa Asset Management

Grab Financial Group said today it has raised more than $300 million in Series A funding, led by South Korean firm Hanhwa Asset Management, with participation from K3 Ventures, GGV...

Tokyo-based SODA, which runs Japan’s largest sneaker resell platform, lands $22 million led by SoftBank Ventures Asia

Tokyo-based SODA, which runs sneaker reselling platform SNKRDUNK, has raised a $22 million Series B led by SoftBank Ventures Asia. Investors also included basepartners, Colopl Next, THE GUILD and other...

Venture capitalists react to Visa-Plaid deal meltdown

Congratulations, you’re no longer selling your company for billions of dollars! As strange as it sounds, that’s the leading perspective from venture capitalists concerning Plaid, now that its much-touted sale...

Affirm doubles after starting to trade despite strong IPO pricing

Today shares of Affirm, a buy-now-pay-later unicorn, started trading above $90 per share, far above its $49 per-share IPO price, a figure that was already miles above the company’s early...

E-commerce optimization startup Tradeswell raises $15.5M

After launching in October, Tradeswell is announcing today that it has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding. Co-founder and CEO Paul Palmieri previously led digital ad company Millennial Media...

Iziwork raises $43 million for its temporary work platform

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...

Wall Street hugs Affirm as it starts life as a public company

And we’re off to the races! Last night, Affirm priced its IPO above its raised range at $49 per share, a sign that the public markets remain hungry for new...

Webflow raises $140M, pushing its valuation to $2.1 billion

This morning Webflow, a software company that helps businesses build no-code websites, announced that it has raised a $140 million Series B. The round, led by returning investors Accel and...

Business trip platform TravelPerk buys YC-backed rival NexTravel

Barcelona-based TravelPerk has scooped up US-based rival NexTravel as the pandemic drives consolidation in one of the sector’s hardest hit by COVID-19. It’s not disclosing how much it’s shelling out...

Visa will not acquire Plaid after running into regulatory wall

Visa and Plaid called off their agreement this afternoon, ending the consumer credit giant’s takeover of the data-focused fintech API startup. The deal, valued at $5.3 billion at the time...

Techstars names Maëlle Gavet CEO as the accelerator group looks to expand

This morning Techstars, a network of startup accelerators and a venture capital fund, announced that Maëlle Gavet is its new CEO. Former CEO and co-founder David Brown will stay on...

‘Brand tech’ company You & Mr. Jones adds $60M to its Series B

You & Mr. Jones announced today that it has added $60 million in new funding from Merian Chrysalis, bringing the Series B round announced in December to a total of...

2021: A SPAC odyssey

There are a number of ways to take a private company public: You can pursue a traditional IPO, sell a chunk of shares at a set price and start trading....

Zipmex, which aspires to build the Asia Pacific region’s largest digital assets exchange, raises $6 million led by Jump Capital