Barcelona-based gaming video platform Gamestry has snatched up $5 million in seed funding, led by Goodwater Capital, Target Global and Kibo Ventures — turning investors’ heads with a 175x growth rate over the past 12 months. While the (for now) Spanish-language gaming video platform launched a few years back, in 2018, last year the founders
Month: September 2021
Berlin-based Mobius Labs has closed a €5.2 million (~$6.1M) funding round off the back of increased demand for its computer vision training platform. The Series A investment is led by Ventech VC, along with Atlantic Labs, APEX Ventures, Space Capital, Lunar Ventures plus some additional angel investors. The startup offers an SDK that lets the
Homage, the caregiving-focused startup, has raised a $30 million Series C led by Sheares Healthcare Group, which is wholly-owned by investment firm Temasek. Other participants included new investors DG Daiwa Ventures and Sagana Capital, and returning backers East Ventures (Growth), HealthXCapital, SeedPlus, Trihill Capital and Alternate Ventures. The new funding will be used to develop
Quantum Machines, an Israeli startup that is building the classical hardware and software infrastructure to help run quantum machines, announced a $50 million Series B investment today. Today’s round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners with help from Exor, Claridge Israel, Samsung NEXT, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, LP, as well as TLV Partners,
Factorial, a startup out of Barcelona that has built a platform that lets SMBs run human resources functions with the same kind of tools that typically are used by much bigger companies, is today announcing some funding to bulk up its own position: the company has raised $80 million, funding that it will be using
Today, Amazon Web Services is a mainstay in the cloud infrastructure services market, a $60 billion juggernaut of a business. But in 2008, it was still new, working to keep its head above water and handle growing demand for its cloud servers. In fact, 15 years ago last week, the company launched Amazon EC2 in
Jun.25 — Africa’s biggest company by market cap reported a 72 percent increase in full-year earnings. Naspers credits classified advertising and its e-commerce business for the boost. Naspers also happens to be one of the biggest, if under-the-radar, tech investors in the world…and has long relied on its 31 percent stake in Chinese giant Tencent
Cheese is one of those foods that when you like it, you actually love it. It’s also one of the most difficult foods to make from something other than milk. Stockeld Dreamery not only took that task on, it has a product to show for it. The Stockholm-based company announced Thursday its Series A round
Everything is switching from offline to online mode, spurred by the pandemic, and that also has turned around things for the creative economy. Creative professionals continue to look for ways to monetize their talents and knowledge through online education platforms like Class 101 that bring stable incomes and improve opportunities. Class 101, a Seoul-based online
HomeLight, which operates a real estate technology platform, announced today that it has secured $100 million in a Series D round of funding and $263 million in debt financing. Return backer Zeev Ventures led the equity round, which also included participation from Group 11, Stereo Capital, Menlo Ventures and Lydia Jett of the SoftBank Vision
Market research and insights are often underutilized assets for enterprises but it’s usually too hard to find content and there’s a lot of duplication, or information isn’t used well. Swedish startup Stravito says it can centralize internal and external data sources and create something more akin to a ‘Spotify or Netflix’ for these kinds of
Aug.05 — Novavax CEO Stanley Erck discusses his biotech company’s deal to send 200 million doses of the Covid vaccine to the EU even though the drug is not approved for use yet. He speaks with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.”
The ongoing fintech revolution continues to level the playing field where legacy companies have historically dominated startups. To compete with retail banks, many newcomers are offering customers credit and debit cards; developer-friendly APIs make issuance relatively easy, and tools for managing processes like KYC are available off the shelf. To learn more about the low
Challenger bank Point has raised a $46.5 million Series B funding round. The company offers an account associated with a debit card. And the startup positions itself as a premium debit card company and tries to offer credit card rewards with debit cards. Existing investor Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures is investing more money in the
TechnologyOne, an Australian SaaS enterprise, has agreed to acquire UK-based higher education software provider Scientia for £12 million /$16.6 million in cash. TechnologyOne claims to have 75% of Higher Education institutions in Australia using its software, while Scientia claims 50% market share in the UK. The acquisition includes an initial payment of £6m and further payments. Adrian
Joe Devon Contributor Joe Devon is the co-founder of Diamond, a digital agency that builds accessible experiences. He is also a co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day and chair of the GAAD Foundation. The world of accessibility has experienced a tipping point thanks to the pandemic, which drove people of all abilities to do more
First, some housekeeping: Thanks to our new corporate parents, TechCrunch has the day off tomorrow, so consider this the last chapter of The Exchange for this week. (The newsletter will go out Saturday as always.) Also, Alex is off next week. Anna is taking on next week’s newsletter and may have a column or two
Back in July, YASA (formerly Yokeless And Segmented Armature), a British electric motor startup with a revolutionary ‘axial-flux’ motor, was acquired by Mercedes-Benz. The acquisition didn’t exactly garner enormous press attention, as scant other details were announced. But YASA is likely to be an entity worth watching. Founded in 2009 after being spun out of
Allen Miller Contributor Allen Miller is a principal at Oak HC/FT based in San Francisco. He invests in early- and growth-stage companies, with a particular focus on fintech. More posts by this contributor Amid the IPO gold rush, how should we value fintech startups? The last decade in real estate, and a peek into the
Panorama Education, which has built out a K-12 education software platform, has raised $60 million in a Series C round of funding led by General Atlantic. Existing backers Owl Ventures, Emerson Collective, Uncork Capital, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Tao Capital Partners also participated in the financing, which brings the Boston-based company’s total raised since
TheCut, a technology platform designed to handle back-end operations for barbers, raised $4.5 million in new funding. Nextgen Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Elevate Ventures, Singh Capital and Leadout Capital. The latest funding gives theCut $5.35 million in total funding since the company was founded in 2016, founder Obi Omile Jr.
Kalepa, an insurance underwriting platform based out of New York, has raised a $14 million Series A funding round led by Inspired Capital, with participation from previous investor IA Ventures. Also participating was Gokul Rajaram of Doordash, Coinbase, and formerly of Google, Jackie Reses, formerly of Square, and Henry Ward of Carta. Founded by Paul
A startup called Playbyte wants to become the TikTok for games. The company’s newly launched iOS app offers tools that allow users to make and share simple games on their phone, as well as a vertically scrollable, fullscreen feed where you can play the games created by others. Also like TikTok, the feed becomes more
Feeding babies can take many different forms, and is also an area where parents can feel less supported as they navigate this new milestone in their lives. Enter SimpliFed, an Ithaca, New York-based company providing virtual lactation and a baby feeding support platform. The startup announced Friday that it raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding led
Last summer, Jeeves was participating in Y Combinator’s summer batch as a fledgling fintech. This June, the startup emerged from stealth with $31 million in equity and $100 million in debt financing. Today, the company, which is building an “all-in-one expense management platform” for global startups, is announcing that it has raised a $57 million
Getting inside the mind of customers is a challenge as behaviors and demands shift, but Clootrack believes it has cracked the code in helping brands figure out how to do that. It announced $4 million in Series A funding, led by Inventus Capital India, and included existing investors Unicorn India Ventures, IAN Fund and Salamander
In Europe and the US we are very much getting used to groceries being delivered within 15 minutes, with a huge battleground of startups in the space. Startups across Europe and the US have raised no less than $3.1 billion in the last quarter alone for grocery deliveries within 10 or 20-minute delivery promises. But
Pixalate raised $18.1 million in growth capital for its fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics platform that monitors connected television and mobile advertising. Western Technology Investment and Javelin Venture Partners led the latest funding round, which brings Pixalate’s total funding to $22.7 million to date. This includes a $4.6 million Series A round raised back
Shahar Keinan Contributor Pek Lum Contributor Pek Lum, co-founder and CEO at Auransa, has more than 20 years of genomics and drug discovery experience and is the chief architect behind Auransa’s technology. Startups devoted to reproductive and women’s health are on the rise. However, most of them deal with women’s fertility: birth control, ovulation and
Sunday, an insurtech startup based in Bangkok, announced it has raised a $45 million Series B. Investors include Tencent, SCB 10X, Vertex Growth, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, Quona Capital, Aflac Ventures and Z Venture Capital. The company says the round was oversubscribed, and that it doubled its revenue growth in 2020. Founded in