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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...

Canopy raises $15M Series A after posting 4.5x customer growth in H1 2021

Canopy Servicing announced this morning it recently closed a $15 million Series A. The startup sells software to fintechs and others, allowing customers to create loan programs and service the...

LawVu, a cloud-based platform for in-house legal teams, raises $17M NZD from Insight Partners

In-house legal teams play a critical role in companies, but a lot of them don’t have the same kind of technology as their counterparts in sales or finance. Instead, they...

Two months after its Series A, Pintu gets $35M in new funding led by Lightspeed

Just two months after its last funding announcement, Indonesian crypto assets platform Pintu has closed a $35 million Series A+. The new round was led by Lightspeed Ventures, with participation...

Venture capital probably isn’t dead

Venture capitalists are chatting this week about a recent piece from The Information titled “The End of Venture Capital as We Know It.” As with nearly everything you read, the...

Australia’s v2Food aims to expand its plant-based meats to Europe and Asia with €45M raise

V2Food is one of many new contenders in the alternative protein space, founded in Australia but now setting its sights on Europe, Asia and beyond. It has a few key...

A lot of cash and little love: An insurtech story

Hippo began to trade earlier this week after completing its SPAC combination. The home-focused U.S. neoinsurance provider initially stuck close to its $10 per-share pre-combination price before plummeting yesterday during...

Bulk payments startup Comma raises $6M Seed round led by Octopus and Connect

UK-based open banking bulk payment startup Comma has raised £4.34 million ($6m) in a Seed round of funding led by Octopus Ventures and Connect Ventures. They were joined by investors...

Best Buy investing millions in Brown Venture Group, a firm exclusively backing BIPOC founders

Last summer, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Best Buy committed to “do better” when it came to supporting communities of color. As part of the retail giant’s self-proclaimed...

Do bronze medals ever make sense for unicorns?

Last week, Deliveroo made news when it announced it was preparing to leave the Spanish market. The recently-listed Deliveroo couched its explanation in market terms, noting its market position in...

Allocations sees a world where myriad, smaller private equity funds are the norm

This morning Allocations, a fintech startup building software to help smaller private equity funds form and operate, announced that it has raised a $4 million round at a $100 million...

Octane raises $52M at a $900M+ valuation to help people finance large recreational purchases

Most of the time when people get loans, it’s for big life purchases such as a house or a car. But not every big purchase is a necessity. Some are...

Early Affirm employees raise $70M for SentiLink, an identity verification startup

SentiLink, an identity verification technology startup, has raised $70 million in a Series B funding round led by Craft Ventures. Felicis Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and NYCA also participated in...

Dataiku gets $400M at a $4.6B valuation, led by Tiger Global

Data science platform Dataiku announced today it has raised a $400 million Series E, bringing its valuation to $4.6 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from...

Human Interest raises $200M at a $1B valuation, plans for an IPO

Less than six months after raising $55 million in a Series C round of funding, SMB 401(k) provider Human Interest today announced it has raised $200 million in a round...

Neobanks’ moves toward profitability could be the path to public markets

The global venture capital bet on neobanks is massive. London-based Starling Bank has raised more than $900 million, per Crunchbase. The same data source indicates that Chime has raised $1.5...

Reserve Trust raises $30.5M to become the ‘Stripe for B2B payments’

Reserve Trust, a Denver-based financial services provider, has raised $30.5 million in a Series A round led by QED Investors. FinTech Collective, Ardent Venture Partners, Flywire CEO Mike Massaro and...

Robinhood is now a stonk

Update: Trading of Robinhood shares has been halted due to volatility, reports indicate. The company’s stock paused at $65.60 on Robinhood itself. Yahoo Finance has a higher $77.03 price on...

Apax to combine three social impact software companies in deal valued at $2B

Who says there is no big money in software aimed at helping people? Private equity firm Apax Funds announced this morning that it is combining three social impact firms to...

Vietnamese on-demand e-commerce platform Loship raises $12M at a valuation of $100M

Loship, the Vietnamese on-demand e-commerce platform that started as a reviews app, announced today it has raised $12 million in pre-Series C funding, bringing its valuation to $100 million. The...

Brazilian digital auto marketplace InstaCarro revs up with $23M in funding

InstaCarro, a digital marketplace that connects used car sellers to dealers in Brazil, has raised $23 million in a Series B round of funding. Notably, U.S.-based firms co-led the investment,...

How public markets can help address venture capital’s limitations

British venture capital firm Draper Esprit recently moved its listing from the AIM to the main board in London, the LSE. The investing group also moved its secondary listing from...

Marvell nabs Innovium for $1.1B as it delves deeper into cloud ethernet switches

Marvell announced this morning it has reached an agreement to acquire Innovium for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal. The startup, which raised over $400 million according to Crunchbase data,...

Why Draper Esprit doubled down on its status as a publicly listed VC

We cover a lot of venture capital news here at TechCrunch. New funds, partner changes, the funding rounds themselves — the list is long. Lately, we’ve had to touch on...

Revery gets $2M to improve mental health with mobile gaming techniques

In “Macbeth,” Shakespeare described sleep as the “chief nourisher in life’s feast.” But like his titular character, many adults aren’t sleeping well. Revery wants to help with an app that...

Planted raises another $21M to expand its growing plant-based meat empire (and add schnitzel)

Swiss alternative protein company Planted has raised its second round of the year, a CHF 19M (about $21M at present) “pre-B” fundraise that will help it continue its growth and...

MGA Thermal raises $8M AUD led by Main Sequence for its modular energy storage blocks

MGA Thermal co-founders Erich Kisi and Alex Post. Image Credits: MGA Thermal MGA Thermal wants to help utility companies transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources with shoebox-sized thermal...

Salesforce steps into RPA buying Servicetrace and teaming it with Mulesoft

Over the last couple of years, Robotic Process Automation or RPA has been red hot with tons of investor activity and M&A from companies like SAP, IBM and ServiceNow. UIPath...

Why Square is shelling out $29B to snag BNPL player Afterpay

Shares of Square are up this morning after the company announced its second-quarter earnings and that it will buy Afterpay, an Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) player in a...

The tale of two edtech IPOs

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Last week, Natasha and Alex jumped on Twitter Spaces to discuss the tale of two...

BoxGroup closes on $255M across two funds to back startups at their earliest stages

BoxGroup has quietly, yet diligently, been funding companies at the early stage for over a decade. The 11-year-old firm in fact was the first investor in Plaid, a fintech company...

Singapore-based Nektar.ai gets $6M to help B2B sales team collaborate more effectively

Nektar.ai founders Aravind Ravi Sulekha and Abhijeet Vijayvergiya Organizing information about prospective deals is a challenging task for B2B sales teams, since salespeople usually rely on multiple tools (email, Zoom,...

Indian online insurer PolicyBazaar files for IPO, seeks to raise over $800 million

Indian online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar has filed for an initial public offering in which it is seeking to raise $809 million, becoming the fourth startup in the past two months...

5 lessons from Duolingo’s bellwether edtech IPO of the year

Jul 31, 2021

Duolingo landed onto the public markets this week, rallying excitement and attention for the edtech sector and its founder cohort. The language learning business’ stock price soared when it began...

Robinhood’s CFO says it was ready to go public

Jul 30, 2021

Robinhood priced at $38 per share this week, opened flat and closed its first day’s trading yesterday worth $34.82 per share, or a bit more than 8% underwater. The company...

Chilean fintech Xepelin secures $230M in debt and equity from Kaszek, high-profile angels

Jul 30, 2021

Chilean startup Xepelin, which has created a financial services platform for SMEs in Latin America, has secured $30 million in equity and $200 million in credit facilities. LatAm venture fund...

Growth is not enough

Jul 30, 2021

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We were a smaller team this week, with Natasha and Alex together with Grace and Chris to...

Robinhood’s stock drops 8% in its first day’s trading

Robinhood priced its public offering at $38 per share last night, the low end of its IPO range. The company was worth around $32 billion at that price. But once...

Why Latin American venture capital is breaking records this year

Today we’re wrapping our multi-week exploration of the global venture capital market’s second-quarter performance. We’ve gone around the world, working to better understand the geyser of cash flowing into today’s...

Colombia’s Merqueo bags $50M to expand its online grocery delivery service across Latin America

Merqueo, which operates a full-stack, on-demand delivery service in Latin America, has landed $50 million in a Series C round of funding. IDC Ventures, Digital Bridge and IDB Invest co-led...

Acrew Capital, Jeff Bezos back Colombia-based proptech La Haus’ $100M debt, equity round

La Haus, which has developed an online real estate marketplace operating in Mexico and Colombia, has secured $100 million in additional funding, including $50 million in equity and $50 million...

Student labor marketplace Pangea closes $2M seed round

Pangea, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup that connects youthful talent and businesses in need of freelance labor, announced this morning that it has closed an oversubscribed $2 million seed round....

GGV Capital gave this real estate startup founder a term sheet 48 hours after meeting

Realm, which aims to help homeowners maximize the value of their property with its data platform, has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by GGV Capital. Existing backers...

Employee engagement platform Culture Amp raises $100M at a $1.5B valuation

Culture Amp was founded in 2009 to let companies conduct anonymous employee surveys, but since then, its focus has expanded to helping employers turn the data they collect into action....

Japanese sneaker platform SODA raises $56.4M, accquires rival Monokabu

Just half a year after leading SODA’s Series B, SoftBank Ventures Asia is raising its bet on the Tokyo-based sneaker resell platform. The early-stage venture capital arm of SoftBank Group...

INKR draws in $3.1M to make more comics accessible to worldwide audiences

Digital comics platform INKR’s team INKR is a digital comics platform that crosses cultural and language divides, enabling creators to reach global audiences with its proprietary localization technology. Previously bootstrapped,...

Duolingo’s IPO pricing is great news for edtech startups

While the Chinese technology market digests a new regulatory landscape impacting the country’s edtech market in a sharply negative manner, U.S. education technology companies have something to cheer about: Duolingo’s...

QuotaPath raises $21.3M in Insight Partners-led round to help sales teams better track commissions

QuotaPath, which has developed a commission-tracking solution for sales and revenue teams, has raised $21.3 million in a Series A funding round led by Insight Partners. Existing backers ATX Ventures,...

China’s regulatory crackdown is good news for startups aligned with CCP goals

Watching the Chinese technology sector over the last week has been a fascinating exercise. The Chinese government took on entire industries like edtech while also coming down on individual companies...

Search API startup Algolia raises $150 million at $2.25 billion valuation

Algolia has raised a $150 million Series D funding round at a post-money valuation of $2.25 billion. Compared to the Series C round from October 2019, the company’s valuation has...

Contentful raises $175M at a $3B valuation from Tiger for its content delivery service

Contentful this morning announced a $175 million Series F round of capital, led by Tiger Global, valuing the unicorn at around $3 billion. Contentful, formerly known as a UI-free content...

Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital leads $20M investment in Brazilian healthcare startup Pipo Saude

Pipo Saude, a startup that developed a platform that sells and manages healthcare benefits for Brazilian companies, has raised $20 million in a Series A round of funding. Joshua Kushner’s...

Shikho, an edtech startup focused on Bangladesh’s students, gets $1.3M seed

In Bangladesh, students often rely on after school learning centers for study help or test preparation, but many of the best ones are concentrated in major cities. Edtech startup Shikho...

Monte Carlo’s Barr Moses will join us at TC Sessions: SaaS

Monte Carlo’s Barr Moses joins the data panel at TC Sessions: SaaS. See you there! As the clock ticks down on TechCrunch’s upcoming SaaS-focused event, we’re excited to announce that...

African startups join global funding boom as fintech shines

The Exchange is on a trip around the world, poking our heads into various startup markets to better understand how different geographies are faring during a historic boom in venture...

No-code Bubble raises $100M to make technical co-founders obsolete

Among Silicon Valley circles, a fun parlor game is to ask to what extent world GDP levels are held back by a lack of computer science and technical training. How...

Crypto infra startup Fireblocks raises $310M, triples valuation to $2.2B

Fireblocks, an infrastructure provider for digital assets, has raised $310 million in a Series D round of funding that tripled the company’s valuation to $2.2 billion in just over five...

Accel doubles down on 1Password, which just raised $100M more at a $2B valuation

Toronto-based 1Password is one of those rare companies that is a) profitable and b) transparent enough to share financials. And today, the company announced that it raised $100 million in...

iAngels raises $55 million, anchored by the European Investment Fund, for first institutional fund

iAngels, the private investment platform founded and helmed by Mor Assia and Shelly Hod Moyal, has today announced the close of its first institutional fund. The firm has raised $55.5...

Rocketium raises $3.2M to help creative teams create massive marketing campaigns

In between A/B testing, customizing targeted ads and formatting for different digital platforms, some design teams are tasked with campaigns that include thousands of images, videos and other visual content....

Indonesia-based grocery app HappyFresh reaps $65M led by Naver Financial and Gafina

HappyFresh, the on-demand grocery app based in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $65 million Series D. The round was led by Naver Financial Corporation and Gafina B.V., with...

Freightify lands $2.5M to make rate management easier for freight forwarders

Freight forwarders often keep track of rates on spreadsheets they email to customers, but the pandemic has made that difficult because prices are constantly fluctuating. Freightify, a startup that refers...

Duolingo boosts IPO price target in boon to edtech startups

U.S. edtech company Duolingo released a revised IPO price range this morning, boosting its potential per-share value to $100 after initially targeting a range that topped out at $95 per...

How to prepare for M&A, your most likely exit avenue

Ben Boissevain Contributor Share on Twitter Ben Boissevain has 30 years of corporate finance experience at firms including White & Case and Barclays Bank, and 20 years of experience in...

Glyphic Biotechnologies raises $6M to accelerate protein sequencing by orders of magnitude

The whole human proteome may be free to browse thanks to DeepMind, but at the bleeding edge of biotech new proteins are made and tested every day, a complex and...

As China shakes up regulations, tech companies suffer

The Exchange spent a little time on Friday ruminating on the impact of then-rumored regulation in China targeting its edtech sector. News that the Chinese government intended to crack down...

Equity Monday: China boosts pressure on its tech sector as Duolingo’s IPO looks to raise a few more bucks

Mark Cuban-backed Eterneva raises $10M to turn your loved one’s ashes into diamonds

The loss of a loved one is perhaps one of the most traumatic things a person can experience. When it comes to memorializing someone after their death, most people think...

Sproutl is an online marketplace for gardeners founded by former Farfetch executives

Meet Sproutl, a marketplace for gardeners living in the U.K. The startup founded by former Farfetch executives has raised a $9 million seed round. It wants to make gardening more...

China Roundup: Kai-Fu Lee’s first Europe bet, WeRide buys a truck startup

Jul 24, 2021

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. Despite...

Mint’s first PM raises millions for Monarch, an Accel-backed money management platform

Jul 23, 2021

Monarch, a subscription-based platform that aims to help consumers “plan and manage” their financial lives, has raised $4.8 million in seed funding. Accel led the round, which also included participation...

China’s expected edtech clampdown may chill a key startup sector

Jul 23, 2021

News that China’s government may force domestic tutoring-focused companies to go nonprofit is taking a huge bite out of the value of several technology companies. Bloomberg notes that the value...

Duolingo’s bellwether IPO

Jul 23, 2021

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We were smaller team this week, with Natasha and Alex together with Chris to sort...

VOCHI raises additional $2.4 million for its computer vision-powered video editing app

VOCHI, a Belarus-based startup behind a clever computer vision-based video editing app used by online creators, has raised an additional $2.4 million in a “late-seed” round that follows the company’s...

Canada’s startup market booms alongside hot global VC investment

Continuing our global look into the torrid pace of venture capital investment in the second quarter, today we turn to Canada. While many markets have posted impressive results, like the...

Indonesian B2B marketplace GudangAda raises more than $100M in new funding

GudangAda founder and chief executive officer Stevensang GudangAda, a Jakarta-based marketplace that brings wholesalers closer to retail stores and other buyers, announced it has closed a Series B of more...

Indonesia “sea-to-table” platform Aruna hooks $35M led by Prosus and East Ventures Growth Fund

When Aruna’s founders first met at university, they wanted to find a way to use their studies in information technology to help family members who were running small fisheries. Indonesia...

What Robinhood’s warnings about crypto trading say about Coinbase’s near-term future

Is the trading boom of 2020 and 2021 slowing? That’s a question The Exchange has had on its mind since Robinhood released its latest IPO filing. The popular U.S. consumer-focused...

Spendesk raises $118 million for its corporate spend management service

French startup Spendesk has announced earlier today that it has raised a $118 million funding round (€100 million) led by General Atlantic. Overall, the company has raised $189 million (€160...

Epic Games acquires Sketchfab, a 3D model sharing platform

New York-based startup Sketchfab has been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine. Sketchfab has been building a platform to upload, download, view, share, sell and...

Spreadsheet.com wants to put apps in your spreadsheets

An old rule of thumb for building a startup is to find a group of professionals who use spreadsheets to do their work and then build an app to replace...

Valoreo raises $30M more to acquire e-commerce brands across LatAm

Just over five months after securing $50 million in debt & equity, Valoreo has closed on a $30 million Series A funding round. Mexico City-based Valoreo aims to invest in,...

Byju’s acquires reading platform Epic for $500 million in US expansion push

Byju’s said on Wednesday it has acquired California-headquartered reading platform Epic for $500 million, the latest in a series of moves from India’s most valuable startup as it deepens its...

Austin-based Fetch Package secures $60M in equity & debt after tripling ARR in 2020

Fetch Package, a last-mile package delivery company for apartment communities, has raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding and closed on a $10 million venture debt facility....

Yapily raises $51 million for its open banking API by focusing on infrastructure

Fintech startup Yapily has raised a $51 million Series B funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. The company has been working on a single, unified open banking API for several...

Pivot Bio rakes in $430M round D as modified microbes prove their worth in agriculture

Pivot Bio makes fertilizer — but not directly. Its modified microorganisms are added to soil and they product nitrogen that would otherwise have had to be trucked in and dumped...

The European VC market is so hot it may skip its summer holiday

The startup market is having a moment around the world, but few regions can brag as much as Europe when it comes to venture capital investment. Yes, the United States...

Titan, a platform aimed at the ‘everyday investor,’ valued at $450M as a16z leads $58M Series B

Titan, a startup that is building a retail investment management platform aimed at the new generation of “everyday investors,” has closed on $58 million in a Series B round led...

Sundae closes on $80M for residential real estate marketplace

Sundae, a residential real estate marketplace that pairs sellers of dated or damaged property with potential buyers, has raised $80 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Fifth...

Employment Hero gets $140M AUD Series E led by Insight Partners, grows valuation to $800M AUD

Employment Hero co-founders Ben Thompson and Dave Tong Four months after announcing its last round, Employment Hero has closed another $140 million AUD (about $103 million USD) in funding. The...

Mural raises $50M Series C after tripling its ARR in the last year

This morning Mural, a startup that builds digital collaboration software with a focus on visual presentation, announced that it has closed a $50 million Series C. The new capital, co-led...

Duolingo’s IPO could cast golden halo on edtech startups

Edtech giant Duolingo set an initial price range for its impending IPO today. The unicorn expects to price in its public debut at $85 to $95 per share, selling 3,700,000...

The Zoom-Five9 deal is a big bet for the video conferencing company

Zoom, a well-known video conferencing company, will buy Five9, a company that sells software allowing users to reach customers across platforms, and record notes on their interactions. As TechCrunch noted...

Colombian on-demand delivery startup Rappi raises ‘over’ $500M at a $5.25B valuation

Rappi, a Colombian on-demand delivery startup, has raised “over” $500 million at a $5.25 billion valuation in a Series G round led by T. Rowe Price, the company announced late...

LeagueApps raises $15M to be the ‘operating system’ for youth sports organizations

Youth sports are an integral part of our communities, bringing families together and helping kids all over gain confidence and skills. Most of us don’t think about all the work...

Robinhood targets IPO valuation up to $35B amid warning that crypto incomes are slipping

Robinhood released an S-1/A filing detailing its first IPO price range this morning. The company first filed to go public in early July after raising billions earlier in the year....

Recapped lands $6 million for collaborative sales software that gets the customer in the mix

Recapped, a startup building collaborative sales software, announced the close of a $6.3 million seed round today. The deal was led by Charles River Ventures. Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, CoFound, AirAngels,...

Equity Monday: Zoom buys Five9 as Robinhood sets IPO price range

Carlyle to acquire live broadcasting and streaming tech outfit LiveU for over $400M, say sources