Blog

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

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...

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

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. ...

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

Earth imaging is an increasingly crowded space, but Satellite Vu is taking a different approach by focusing on infrared and heat emissions, which are crucial for industry and climate change...

As UiPath closes above its final private valuation, CFO Ashim Gupta discusses his company’s path to market

After an upward revision, UiPath priced its IPO last night at $56 per share, a few dollars above its raised target range. The above-range price meant that the unicorn put...

Per Diem raises $2.3M to help local businesses build subscription programs

It might be time for neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops to start thinking about a subscription business — at least according to a new Y Combinator-backed startup called Per Diem....

Affect raises a seed round to grow its stimulant abuse recovery service

There are any number of seed rounds that cross our desks every day, a never-ending march of enterprise software, consumer apps, games, hardware, biotech, and sometimes even a space startup....

Creator+ raises $12M to build a film studio and streaming service focused on digital storytellers

In the words of co-founder and CEO Jonathan Shambroom, Creator+ is a new startup that will “finance, produce and distribute feature-length films from today’s top creators and emerging storytellers.” The...

Tribal Credit, which provides credit cards to startups in emerging markets, raises $34.3M

The B2B payments space has seen an explosion in demand, and investor interest, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses try to figure out how to pay each...

A cooling trend in public markets makes UiPath’s down-round IPO a win for the company

Robotic process automation (RPA) unicorn UiPath last night priced its IPO at $56 per share, above its raised price target range of $52 to $54. The company sold 9,416,384 shares...

Remote hiring startup Deel raises $156M at a $1.25B valuation after 20x growth in 2020

Many of the world’s organizations shifted to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But even as more people are vaccinated and offices are planning re-openings, it’s clear that for...

The rise of the next Coinbase, thanks to Coinbase

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 wanted to chat crypto. No,...

SoftBank bets big on a ‘digital Ellis Island’

Welcome Tech, which has built a digital platform aimed at immigrants and their families, has raised $35 million in a Series B funding round co-led by TTV Capital, Owl Ventures...

Discount grocery startup Misfits Market raises $200M

Misfits Market, a startup known for selling “ugly” fruits and vegetables at discount prices, announced this morning that it has raised $200 million in Series C funding. The company says...

Gogoro partners with India’s Hero MotoCorp, one of the world’s largest two-wheel vehicle makers

Electric scooters powered by Gogoro’s swappable, rechargeable batteries now account for nearly a quarter of monthly sales in Taiwan, its home market. But one of the most frequent questions co-founder...

BlaBlaCar raises $115 million to build all-in-one travel app

French startup BlaBlaCar has raised a new $115 million funding round (€97 million). While the company is better known for its long distance carpooling marketplace, BlaBlaCar has also added a...

Catch&Release raises $14M to help marketers find and license content from across the web

Catch&Release founder and CEO Analisa Goodin told me that she wants to help brands break free from the limitations of stock photography — and that her startup has raised $14...

Insurtech startups are leveraging rapid growth to raise big money

The investment landscape for insurtech startups is off to a hot start in Q2 2021. Since the end of the first quarter, we’ve seen several players in the broad startup...

Hustle Fund backs Fintor, which wants to make it easier to invest in real estate

Farshad Yousefi and Masoud Jalali used to drive through Palo Alto neighborhoods and marvel at the outrageous home prices. But the drives sparked an idea. They were not in a...

Gaming infrastructure startup Pragma raises $12M from Greylock, Mark Pincus and others

Pragma is building what it calls a “backend as a service,” providing ready-made infrastructure to developers of online, live service games. And it’s announcing today that it has raised $12...

After a decade of bootstrapping, Octopus Deploy raises $172.5M from Insight Partners

Octopus Deploy’s chief financial officer Sonia Stovell and chief executive officer Paul Stovell Founded almost a decade ago, Octopus Deploy has grown to serve 25,000 organizations, including Microsoft, NASA, Xero,...

Qapita, a developer of equity management software for startups, raises $5M led by MassMutual

Qapita’s co-founders. Fom left to right: Vamsee Mohan, Ravi Ravulaparthi and Lakshman Gupta Qapita, a Singapore-based fintech that provides capitalization table and employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) management software,...

European e-scooter and micromobility startup Dott raises $85 million

Dott has raised a new $85 million Series B funding round — this round is a mix of equity and asset-backed debt financing. Belgium-based investment company Sofina is leading the...

Singapore-based fintech STACS raises $3.6M to develop blockchain platforms for financial institutions

Singapore-based fintech Hashstacs Pte Ltd (STACS) announced today it has raised $3.6 million USD in pre-Series A funding. The company develops blockchain platforms that can work with financial institutions’ existing...

Indonesian edtech CoLearn gets $10M Series A led by Alpha Wave Incubation and GSV Ventures

A Zoom screenshot with CoLearn’s founding team: Marc Irawan, Abhay Saboo and Sandeep Devaram Indonesian startup CoLearn started as a chain of physical tutoring centers and was in the process...

Payhawk raises $20M to unify corporate cards, payments and expenses

Fintech startup Payhawk has raised a $20 million funding round. QED Investors is leading the round with existing investor Earlybird Digital East also participating. Payhawk is building a unified system...

Druva raises $147M at a valuation north of $2B as the cloud rush continues

Druva, a software company that sells cloud data backup services, announced today that it has closed a $147 million round of capital. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ),...

UiPath raises IPO range, still targets lower valuation than final private round

Robotic process automation unicorn UiPath is set to go public this week, concentrating our focus on its value. The well-known company was last valued on the private markets at $35...

European VC soars in Q1

A stunning first quarter in venture capital funding was not restricted to the United States; Europe also had one hell of a start to the year. According to data from...

Alan raises $220 million for its health insurance and healthcare super app

French startup Alan has raised a $220 million funding round at a $1.67 billion valuation (€185 million and €1.4 billion respectively). Coatue is leading the round with Dragoneer, Exor, and...

Knox Financial raises $10M to take the pain out of being a landlord

We’ve all heard the phrase “passive income” to describe how people can make money by owning rental properties. Many Americans would love to passively earn money, but the process of...

Mastercard is acquiring identity verification company Ekata for $850M

As online identity management grows in importance, Mastercard swooped in this morning and bought identity verification company Ekata for $850 million. Mastercard certainly sees the rapid digital transformation that is...

Equity Monday: Clubhouse, UiPath, and the crypto flash crash

Squarespace files for a direct listing on the NYSE

Today Squarespace, a well-known software-and-hosting provider for SMB websites, released its S-1 filing. The company is pursuing a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE. It will...

Soona raises $10.2M to make remote photo and video shoots easy

Soona, a startup aiming to satisfy the growing content needs of the e-commerce ecosystem, is announcing that it has raised $10.2 million in Series A funding led by Union Square...

Nelo raises $3M to grow ‘buy now, pay later’ in Mexico

Buy now, pay later is a way of paying for purchases via installment loans that generally have no interest. The concept has grown in popularity in recent years, especially in...

The IPO market is sending us mixed messages

If you only stayed up to date with the Coinbase direct listing this week, you’re forgiven. It was, after all, one heck of a flotation. But underneath the cryptocurrency exchange’s...

What we all missed in UiPath’s latest IPO filing

Robotic process automation platform UiPath filed its first S-1/A this week, setting an initial price range for its shares. The numbers were impressive, if slightly disappointing because what UiPath indicated in...

Do you need a SPAC therapist?

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...

E-commerce investor Upper90 raises $55M for equity investments

It might be strange to hear this from a firm that just raised a $55 million equity fund, but the team at Upper90 would like to remind you that equity...

Coinbase’s direct listing alters the landscape for fintech and crypto startups

Coinbase’s direct listing was a massive finance, startup and cryptocurrency event that impacted a host of public and private investors, early employees, and crypto-enthusiasts. Regardless of where one sits in...

Casa Blanca raises $2.6M to build the ‘Bumble for real estate’

Casa Blanca, which aims to develop a “Bumble-like app” for finding a home, has raised $2.6 million in seed funding. Co-founder and CEO Hannah Bomze got her real estate license...

IBM acquires Italy’s MyInvenio to integrate process mining directly into its suite of automation tools

Automation has become a big theme in enterprise IT, with organizations using RPA, no-code and low-code tools, and other technology to speed up work and bring more insights and analytics...

Altman brothers lead B2B payment startup Routable’s $30M Series B

We all know the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in a number of areas, particularly in the financial services space. Within financial services, there are few spaces hotter than...

Flipkart to acquire online travel firm Cleartrip

Flipkart said on Thursday it has agreed to acquire online travel firm Cleartrip as the Walmart-owned e-commerce firm looks to expand its offerings in the world’s second largest internet market....

Philippines ‘buy now, pay later’ startup Plentina raises $2.2M seed round

Plentina co-founders Kevin Gabayan and Earl Valencia E-wallets are rapidly gaining popularity in the Philippines, overtaking credit cards, which have a penetration rate of under 10%. Fintech startup Plentina is...

Cloud kitchen startup JustKitchen to go public on the TSX Venture Exchange

JustKitchen, a cloud kitchen startup, will start trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) Venture Exchange on Thursday morning. It is doing a direct listing of its common shares, having...

Daily Crunch: Coinbase goes public

Coinbase makes an impressive public debut, Dell spins out VMware and Ford announces a new hands-free driving system. This is your Daily Crunch for April 14, 2021. The big story:...

Creator monetization and CRM startup Pico raises $6.5M

Pico, a New York startup that helps online creators and media companies make money and manage their customer data, announced today that it has launched an upgraded platform and raised...

Coinbase opens at $381 per share, valuing the crypto exchange at nearly $100B

Today shares of Coinbase began to trade after the company executed a direct listing. From a reference price of $250, Coinbase shares opened at $381 today, a change of around...

Triller owner gets a new CEO with acquisition of Amplify.AI; also acquires livestreaming service FITE TV

Would be TikTok competitor Triller, operated by parent company TrillerNet, is gaining a new CEO, the company announced today. The short-form video app said it’s acquiring an A.I.-based customer engagement...

How Pilot charted a course of not raising too much money

A few weeks ago, we wrote about fintech Pilot raising a $100 million Series C that doubled the company’s valuation to $1.2 billion. Bezos Expeditions — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’...

Amira Learning raises $11M to put its AI-powered literacy tutor in post-COVID classrooms

School closures due to the pandemic have interrupted the learning processes of millions of kids, and without individual attention from teachers, reading skills in particular are taking a hit. Amira...

Inside the US’ epic first-quarter venture capital results

It’s no surprise that the venture capital market was incredibly active in the United States during the first quarter of 2021, but precisely how strong has only recently become clear....

Sunday raises $24 million seed round to build a fast restaurant checkout flow

Meet Sunday, a new startup that is going to attract some headlines as it has raised a $24 million seed round at a $140 million post-money valuation. That’s a lot...

Why expensive workout gear is actually cheap

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 wanted to dig into the Tonal EC-1,...

Slice raises $40M to power ordering and marketing for independent pizzerias

Slice, a startup that helps independent pizzerias build an online business, has raised another $40 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Cross Creek, with participation from...

Messaging app Wire raises $21 million

Wire, the end-to-end encrypted messaging app and service, has raised a $21 million Series B funding round led by UVC Partners. As the company said a couple of years ago,...

Vanadium ion battery startup Standard Energy raises $8.9M Series C from SoftBank Ventures Asia

Standard Energy, a vanadium ion battery developer, announced today it has raised a $8.9 million Series C from SoftBank Ventures Asia. The South Korea-based company says its batteries’ advantages over...

Coinbase sets direct listing reference price at $250/share, valuing the company at as much as $65B

Coinbase, the American cryptocurrency trading giant, has set a reference price for its direct listing at $250 per share. According to the company’s most recent SEC filing, it has a...

5 questions about Grab’s epic SPAC investor deck

As expected, Southeast Asian superapp Grab is going public via a SPAC. The combination, which TechCrunch discussed over the weekend, will value Grab on an equity basis at $39.6 billion...

Expect an even hotter AI venture capital market in the wake of the Microsoft-Nuance deal

Microsoft’s huge purchase of healthtech AI company Nuance led the technology news cycle this week. The $19.7 billion transaction is Microsoft’s second-largest to date, only beaten by its purchase of...

Hatch, a neobank for SMBs, launches with $20M in funding from investors like Kleiner Perkins, Foundation and Plaid’s founders

After his last startup, Framed Data, was acquired by Square, Thomson Nguyen began exploring new ideas. While an entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins, Nguyen interviewed hundreds of small business owners and...

Bandwango raises $3.1M to power tourism- and experience-focused deals

You might think that a startup whose primary customers are tourism bureaus would have had a pretty rough 2020, but CEO Monir Parikh said Bandwango‘s customer base more than doubled...

With a team that helped build the brain behind Alexa, HomeX raises $90M

HomeX, a home services platform for homeowners and service providers, has raised $90 million in a funding round led by New Mountain Capital. New Mountain Capital, a New York-based investment...

On-demand pediatrics app Biloba adds prescriptions and raises $1.7 million

French startup Biloba has raised a $1.7 million funding round (€1.4 million) a few months after launching its pediatrics app that lets you chat with a doctor whenever you have...

With two new funds, LocalGlobe has more latitude than ever

“You wanted me to record this?” asks Saul Klein, LocalGlobe founding partner. “Just in case you say anything interesting,” I quip back. “I won’t be doing most of the talking,...

Pine Labs acquires Southeast Asian startup Fave for $45 million

Pine Labs said on Tuesday it has acquired Southeast Asian startup Fave in a deal valued at $45 million as the Indian firm looks to strengthen its consumer-focused offerings in...

Vietnamese electric motorbike startup Dat Bike raises $2.6M led by Jungle Ventures

Son Nguyen, founder and chief executive officer of Dat Bike Dat Bike, a Vietnamese startup with ambitions to become the top electric motorbike company in Southeast Asia, has raised $2.6...

Binance Labs leads $1.6M seed round in DeFi startup MOUND, the developer of Pancake Bunny

Decentralized finance startup MOUND, known for its yield farming aggregator Pancake Bunny, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding led by Binance Labs. Other participants included IDEO CoLab, SparkLabs Korea...

UiPath’s first IPO pricing could be a warning to late-stage investors

A few months back, robotic process automation (RPA) unicorn UiPath raised a huge $750 million round at a valuation of around $35 billion. The capital came ahead of the company’s...

Equity Monday: Microsoft buys Nuance, Uber isn’t dead, and Austin has a new unicorn

Austin’s newest unicorn: The Zebra raises $150M after doubling revenue in 2020

The Zebra, an Austin-based company that operates an insurance comparison site, has raised $150 million in a Series D round that propels it into unicorn territory. Both the round size...

NGK Spark Plugs launches $100M corporate venture fund, will seek M&A opportunities