Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. So far, 2020 has proven to be a year of surprises and disappointments. Over the past month, we’ve seen companies like Toast go from raising huge new rounds this year at heightened valuations to layoffs
Month: April 2020
WhatsApp is imposing additional restriction on how frequently a message can be shared on its platform in its latest effort to curtail the spread of misinformation. The Facebook -owned instant messaging service said today that any message that has been forwarded five or more times will now face a new limit that will prevent a
With more folks working at home than ever, and many on machines outside the purview of IT and security teams, it’s becoming increasingly imperative to find creative ways to protect them from harm. Today, Box announced it was adding automated malware detection tools to Box Shield, the security product it announced last year. Aaron Levie,
The U.K.’s fintech’s response to the coronavirus pandemic so far might best be described as “move fast, [and] make things,” as multiple and sometimes impromptu teams roll out financial technology solutions to help combat the crisis. Last month, I reported on “Covid Credit,” a project that saw dozens of volunteers from the wider U.K. fintech
Neat, a Hong Kong-based fintech startup, announced today that it has raised a $11 million Series A to help small businesses do cross-border banking. The round was led by Pacific Century Group, with participation from Visa and MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia, and returning investors Dymon Asia Ventures, Linear Capital and Sagamore Investments. Neat also announced
MyBuddy.ai, a startup that develops virtual tools to help kids learn English, announced today that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from LETA Capital. The capital will be used to expand into new markets and develop new features including mini-classes about health. The San Francisco-based company’s app features a AI-based virtual tutor called
Voice-based social networks and gaming as a new form of identity were amongst the top emerging trends in consumer social startups, according to an Extra Crunch survey of top social tech investors. Meanwhile, anonymity and dating apps with a superfluous twist were spaces where investors were most pessimistic. Extra Crunch assembled a list of the
The Cloud Foundry Foundation (CFF), the home of the Cloud Foundry open-source developer platform, today announced that its executive director Abby Kearns is stepping down from her role to pursue an executive role elsewhere. If you’ve followed the development of the CFF for a while, it won’t come as a surprise that its current CTO,
A group of European privacy experts has proposed a decentralized system for Bluetooth-based COVID-19 contacts tracing which they argue offers greater protection against abuse and misuse of people’s data than apps which pull data into centralized pots. The protocol — which they’re calling Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP-PPT) — has been designed by around 25
Tyto Care, the provider of a home health diagnostic device and telemedicine consultation app, said it has raised $50 million in a new round of funding. The round was led by Insight Partners, Olive Tree Ventures, and Qualcomm Ventures, according to a statement, and brings the startup’s total capital raised to more than $105 million.
Airbnb turns to private equity for new funding, WhatsApp takes new steps to fight disinformation and another potential COVID-19 vaccine enters human trials. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 7, 2020. 1. Airbnb turns to private equity to raise $1 billion Airbnb said Monday that it has raised $1 billion in debt and equity from
Today, Facebook quietly released a new app for couples. Called Tuned, the new release is a multimedia messaging app designed to help significant others communicate. The app is available for download in the U.S. and Canada, app analytics firm Sensor Tower tells us. Tuned was developed and released by Facebook’s New Product Experimentation (NPE) team.
WorkClout, a graduate of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 cohort, announced today that it has shifted its focus from manufacturing automation to manufacturing performance support and has raised a $2.3 million seed round. The funding was led by Spider Capital with participation from Y Combinator, Liquid 2, Soma Capital, Pioneer Fund, Mehta Ventures and several
Over the last several years, delivery services have become a key component of how retailers, or anyone selling or distributing products and services, do business. Now, with a global health pandemic in full swing keeping people indoors (and away from physical storefronts), delivery has become an essential must-have if you want your business to stay
Sony has revealed the design of the PlayStation 5‘s controller – a follow-on to its popular DualShock line that takes on a new name for a new generation: DualSense. The DualSense controller is kitted out in black and white, and looks like a futuristic, plastic armor-plated robot companion more than a gamepad in some ways.
Securitization is a critical function of the modern financial system. Banks “package” individual loans, say a mortgage or an auto loan, into a group with similar characteristics and sell them to other investors. That gets the debt off the originator’s balance sheet so that they can offer more loans, while also offering private investors alternative
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. We’ve dug into churn twice in the last week from an expert and data-based perspective. We’ve also spent a good amount of time talking to venture capitalists about how they are approaching today’s turbulent market.
Last year, The Information reported that CNN was working on a new digital news service to compete with the likes of Apple and Facebook. Today, some of those plans are taking shape. The Turner-owned news broadcaster has acquired Canopy, an all-purpose content personalisation that uses human curation, on-device machine learning and differential privacy to help
CircleCI, an early adherent to the notion of continuous delivery when it launched in 2011, announced a $100 million Series E investment today. It comes on top of a $56 million round last July. The round was led by IVP and Sapphire Ventures. Under the terms of the deal, Cack Wilhelm will be joining the CircleCI
The latest confirmation of the online tracking industry’s continued flouting of EU privacy laws which — at least on paper — are supposed to protect citizens from consent-less digital surveillance comes by via Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC). The watchdog did a sweep survey of around 40 popular websites last year — covering sectors including
Quibi launches its mobile streaming service, Apple sources 20 million protective masks and Red Hat announces a new CEO. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 6, 2020. 1. Quibi launches its mobile streaming service in the middle of the quarantine era The much-hyped mobile app promising to deliver “quick bites” of video entertainment is finally
DeHaat, an online platform that offers full-stack agricultural services to farmers, has raised $12 million as it looks to scale its network across India. The Series A financial round for the eight-year-old Patna and Gurgaon-based startup was led by Sequoia Capital India. Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, and existing investors Omnivore and AgFunder, also participated
Foursquare, the 10-year-old location platform based in New York City, has today announced its plan to merge with Factual. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The merged company will keep the Foursquare moniker, and Foursquare CEO David Shim will remain at the helm, with Factual’s founder and now-former CEO Gil Elbaz joining Foursquare
Starting today, some U.S. Facebook users will see a new pop-up on the app asking them to complete a survey about COVID-19. The survey, from Carnegie Mellon University’s Delphi epidemiological research center, is one of many new symptom mapping projects that seek to anticipate where the next wave of the virus will hit as COVID-19
Just a few months after closing a new $185 million fund to continue backing early-stage European startups, Blossom Capital, the VC firm founded by Ophelia Brown, is announcing a new angel investment program seeking to back European unicorn alumnus. Dubbed “Cultivate,” the new program looks to create a 30-strong angel network made up of founders
It has the simplest name but the sort of shadowy overtones that national security writers lust after. Team Telecom, a mostly informal working committee of the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice (along with affiliated agencies) has for years been quietly tasked with evaluating and maintaining the security of America telecom infrastructure in concert
“Our real focus is on democratizing mental healthcare,” says SonderMind co-founder chief executive, Mark Frank. His company, founded back in 2017, is having a moment. With the restrictions and economic stresses caused by the government’s efforts to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S., demand for mental health services is soaring. And
TechCrunch confirmed today that BounceX (the firm is rebranding this year) has executed layoffs and salary cuts in the wake of recent COVID-19-led economic disruptions. Many startups are undergoing staff cuts as the domestic and global economies slow, making individual reductions less newsworthy as the layoff tally rises. However, as BounceX is a company we’ve
Social distancing requirements amid the COVID-19 pandemic may have canceled kids’ birthday parties, but parents are finding new ways to take the celebrations online. While video chat apps like Zoom, Google Hangouts or FaceTime are an option for gathering kids together in the virtual space, there’s still the challenge of what to do once there.
When Ginni Rometty indicated that she was stepping down as IBM CEO at the end of January, the company announced that Arvind Krishna would be taking over, while Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst would become president. To fill his role, Red Hat announced today that long-time executive Paul Cormier has been named president and CEO.