Andrew Gershfeld Contributor Andrew Gershfeld is a partner at Boston-based Flint Capital, an investment company supporting entrepreneurs from Israel, Europe and the U.S. at an early stage of their business. Around May 2020, nearly everything moved online, and investment pitches were among the first to do so. The entire milieu around startup funding shifted overnight.
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Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is introducing several new features and shortcuts to its Messenger app. Most notably, the company is adding a new Slack-like “@everyone” functionality that will notify all participants in a chat about a new message. Meta notes that the new feature is perfect for group reminders, get-togethers or when you’re asking
Furniture is one of the largest waste categories in the U.S., generating more than twelve million tons of waste in landfills every year, according to 2018 data by the Environmental Protection Agency. Kaiyo, an online marketplace for second-hand furniture, says it has helped the impact by keeping nearly three million pounds out of landfills since its
Liberty Strategic Capital, the private equity firm launched last year by former treasury secretary Steven T. Mnuchin, announced today that it is acquiring a majority stake in mobile security startup Zimperium for $525 million. With Zimperium, the firm takes a dive into mobile security, which Mnuchin sees at the front line of cyber security today.
Weaver, a London-based marketplace and SaaS contract negotiation platform for matching homeowners/architects planning major home renovation projects with vetted contractors, has closed a $4 million seed round to expand nationally. The round was led by European VC btov Partners, with participation from FJ Labs, Enterprise Fund (a syndicate of former Atlassian & Docker executives) and
The adoption of buy now, pay later (BNPL) in Nigeria as a payment option both online and at the point of sale is expected to record a CAGR of 20% from 2021 to 2028, per this report. BNPL’s growth is further highlighted as GMV is predicted to increase from $204 million to over $1 billion
Having reliable transportation is at the top of any gig worker’s list, but in Latin America, that’s not always easy to secure. Chile-based Migrante is working to change that. Initially starting in Venezuela, now with $30 million in Series A funding and $80 million in a debt facility, it is moving into both Colombia and
TikTok is testing a new “watch history” feature with some users to allow them to find videos that appeared on their “For You” page that they didn’t have a chance to save. Given the constant stream of content on TikTok, accidentally refreshing your “For You” page and losing a video before you’ve had a chance
Celonis, the process mapping startup, has been on a nice run the last several years, forging significant partnerships with IBM and ServiceNow, while announcing a $1 billion Series D last June on a massive $11 billion valuation. With that kind of capitalization, the company decided to expand its reach today when it announced the acquisition
Mobile dominates the world of gaming, with smartphone and tablet games generating $93.2 billion in revenues in 2021, more than console ($50.4 billion) and PC ($36.7 billion) combined according to gaming market research firm Newzoo. And that’s before you consider the thousands of popular apps out there that are not strictly games but rely heavily
Meet the Devialet Dione, a brand new speaker from high-end speaker manufacturer Devialet. With this new product, the company is entering a new market — home cinema sound systems. The Devialet Dione is an all-in-one soundbar compatible with Dolby Atmos 5.1.2 and it costs $2,400 (€2,190). “We are at the high end of the market
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Monday, March 28, 2022! Alas, I knew this day was coming, and here it is. Christine and Haje are taking over my bits of Daily
Singapore-headquartered esports startup Ampverse has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Falcon Capital. The company says this is the largest Series A raised by an esports organization in Southeast Asia, based on data from PitchBook and other third-party platforms. The round will be used to expand in Indonesia and the Philippines, acquire
Instagram is testing a new feature that will make it easier for users to discover and support social causes directly through hashtags, the company announced on Monday. Now, when you search for specific hashtags associated with certain social movements, you’ll have the option to support them through new options. Once you get get to a
The lowly breaker panel has been around for a century without getting much love, and along comes Span. The company is making a compelling bid for better, smarter electrical panels, and just got a $90 million top-up to continue its evolution. The company is solving the challenges of electrification and micro-grid balancing, ensuring that the
Hello and welcome back to Found, the podcasts where we tell the stories behind the startups. This week Darrell and Jordan talked with Laura Crabtree, the co-founder and CEO of Space SaaS company, Epsilon3 which helps companies run their complex engineering, testing, and operational procedures. Here’s a sneek peak into what they get into in
Sourceful, an Index Ventures backed supply chain transparency startup, has fast-fuelled with a $20 million Series A around half a year after it announced a $12.2M seed round. The latest raise is once again led by Index, with Coatue and Eka Ventures also participating. The 2020-founded startup works with brands to shrink the environmental damage
Apple’s latest earnings report found the hardware giant exceeding expectations amid the ongoing chip shortage. All told, the company marked a 9% growth in iPhone sales, as most of the rest of the market contracted. When it comes to navigating the supply chain, there’s a lot to be said for the leverage that comes with
Evaluating and keeping an eye on the suppliers to your business is crucial, and fantastically complicated. Contingent leaps to the rescue, armed with a freshly printed $8.2 million check from investors. The SaaS platform helps companies procure more strategically and better manage supply chain risk and compliance. “The typical questionnaire process to onboard suppliers is
We know that running a company is hectic, so we are giving Austin founders a couple extra days to apply to pitch at TechCrunch Live on April 6 at 11:30 am PT / 2:30 pm ET. The Austin tech scene is thriving and we are here for it. In addition to great panels, we also
Elon Musk tweeted this weekend that he is “giving serious thought” to building his own social media platform. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” the billionaire serial entrepreneur who is CEO of Tesla and Space X tweeted. “What should be
Mobility mavens, do you have your sights set on attending TC Sessions: Mobility 2022 but buying your pass keeps slipping down your to-do list? Well, listen up. This is the last week that you can save a very tidy $300 on the price of admission. Early-bird pricing disappears promptly at 11:59 p.m. (PT) on Friday,
Erol Toker Contributor Erol Toker is the CEO/founder of Truly.co, a Salesforce native bot platform bringing together AI, no-code rulesets and automation workers in highly customizable ways. The media is abuzz with articles telling us how to improve B2B sales, but at the same time, we also see headlines like “The end of B2B sales.”
The drip-feed of penalty fines for Apple in the Netherlands after an antitrust order about payment tech for dating apps has hit the maximum possible (for now) — reaching €50 million (~$55M) after the regulator issued a tenth consecutive weekly penalty of €5M for ongoing non-compliance. But the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is
Figuring out what’s going on in the brain is generally considered to be somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible. One major challenge is that the best ways to do so are room-sized machines relegated to hospitals — but brain.space is hoping that its portable, powerful, and most importantly user-friendly EEG helmet (plus $8.5M in funding)
Spotify acquired podcast discovery platform Podz last summer for roughly $49.4 million, per a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, to help accelerate the streamer’s extensive investments in podcasts. Now, Spotify is testing a feature that leverages the startup’s technology to help users find new podcasts they may like, the company confirmed. Podz had originally attempted
Football or soccer, the latter commonly used in the US, is the most popular and watched sport globally with over five billion football fans according to its apex governing body, FIFA. While the World Cup, its pinnacle event of football and arguably the world’s most popular sporting event, shows the popularity of the sport in
Zepto, an Australian real-time account-to-account (A2A) merchant payments platform, said Monday it has raised a $25 million AUD Series A (about 18.8 million USD) co-led by AirTree Ventures and Decade Partners. The instant payment platform lets merchants make, manage and receive secure payments by connecting directly from the payer’s bank to a merchant’s bank. The
The Family co-founder and CEO Alice Zagury has announced in a blog post that the French startup accelerator is suing Oussama Ammar for multiple claims — breach of trust, forgery and use of forgery. More specifically, Capital first reported that The Family suspects Ammar of diverting €3 million that were supposed to be invested in several
It’s consolidation time in the freelancer marketplace industry. French startup Malt is acquiring Comatch, a competing marketplace focused on consultants and industry experts. Comatch originally started in Germany, which means that Malt is also doubling down on the German market with this acquisition. Terms of the deal are undisclosed but it involves a mix of