Indonesia-based startup GoTo Group announced today it has secured more than $1.3 billion in the first close of its pre-IPO funding. The latest round was led by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), with participation from Avanda Investment Management, Fidelity International, Google, Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB), Primavera Capital, SeaTown Master Fund, Temasek, Tencent and Ward Ferry.
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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 our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche down to a single topic. Today we spoke about the revolution within agriculture otherwise known as vertical farming. Alex and Natasha spoke to Hardware
Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron sought to reassure users Wednesday that the company doesn’t have impending plans to shift its business toward NFTs. In a tweet earlier this week, Citron shared an image of crypto wallet MetaMask integrated into Discord’s user interface with the text “probably nothing” — shorthand language in the NFT space
Berlin-based Hive announced $34 million in new investment Wednesday as it continues developing its technology that provides direct-to-consumer brands an alternative way to manage operations. The company was founded by Oskar Ziegler, Franz Purucker and Leo von Kleist in July 2020 to offer software and operational services, including transparent cost structures, special features and sustainable
As investors continue to pour billions into super speedy on-demand grocery delivery — trying to dislodge the dominance of traditional supermarket giants via a hyper convenience lever (whipping up some local opposition to their 24/7 dark stores and delivery methods in the process) — other entrepreneurs are spotting opportunities to slow things down a little.
Every year, tons of food ends up in landfills because of cosmetic issues (they won’t look nice in stores) or inefficiencies in the supply chain. Singapore-based TreeDots, which says it is the first food surplus marketplace in Asia, wants to help. The company is focused on creating a vertically integrated supply chain with a B2B
After spending more than a decade building out its expense management platform, Expensify went public today, listing on the Nasdaq under the ticker “EXFY.” Early returns have been positive, as the company revised its original listing price up — and still saw its shares rise 40% on its first day of trading. We’ve written a
Twitter and ViacomCBS today announced a sizable global deal that will see the social media platform streaming digital content from across the ViacomCBS portfolio of news, sports and entertainment brands — including content from live events, TV shows and other franchises. In addition, ViacomCBS-owned streaming service Paramount+ will host three “Twitter Watch Parties” designed to
People subscribe to music, so why wouldn’t they subscribe to carbon offsetting to alleviate their conscience about the climate crisis? That’s partly the thinking behind U.K. startup Ecologi, which uses the funds to plant 1 million trees every 10 days in places like Africa and Latin America, as well as doing things like protecting peatlands
Smart building technology company Brivo reached an agreement to go public via special purpose acquisition with Crown PropTech Acquisitions. The SPAC deal values Brivo at $808 million. Once the merger closes in early 2022, the combined company will operate as Brivo and is expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the
Blackshark.ai, the Austrian startup behind the digital globe you fly over in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator, has raised a $20M round A to develop and scale its replica-Earth tech. The potential applications for a planetary “digital twin” are many and various, and the company has a head start even on mapping giants like Google. The world
Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced today the comapny has begun testing a new feature this week called “Take a Break” which will allow users to remind themselves to take a break from using the app after either 10, 20 or 30 minutes, depending on their preferences. As an opt-in feature, however, the reminders may have
Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: Options for founder moving
Cacheflow this morning announced its exit from stealth and a seed round worth $6 million. The startup is a wager that the software buying experience of today is antiquated — and a rising source of frustration. So, Cacheflow is building a hybrid buying service and financing solution to make it simpler. On the money side
YouTube today announced its decision to make the “dislike” count on videos private across its platform. The decision is likely to be controversial given the extent that it impacts the public’s visibility into a video’s reception. But YouTube believes the change will better protect its creators from harassment and reduce the threat of what it
The sales process can be chaotic, with data flowing in from a variety of sources and a number of people involved. Salesforce bought Slack for more than $27 billion last year because it recognized it could be the glue that holds this together. Momentum, an early-stage startup, wants to build on that relationship by being
Google’s challenge to a 2017 EU antitrust finding against its shopping comparison service (Google Shopping) has been largely dismissed by the General Court of the European Union. It’s an important win for the Commission’s antitrust division, which — in recent years — has brought a string of enforcements against big tech, including multiple decisions against
Microsoft is making its play for the new shape of classrooms with a pared-down version of Windows 11 and a set of inexpensive laptops from the Surface brand and several other manufacturers. It’s clear they’ve got Google’s popular Chromebooks in their sights, and their partners seem to be hedging their bets as well. Before all
For many small businesses, trying to manage their employees’ Apple devices and keep them up-to-date is a huge challenge. These businesses tend to lack sophisticated IT departments, and when devices break down or users have questions, they are often left to figure out things on their own using Apple’s consumer support tools. Recognizing this issue,
Elon Musk asked on Twitter whether he should sell 10% of his stake in Tesla Inc., and a majority of his social media followers said they’d support such a sale. Su Keenan reports on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia.” ——– Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg Watch the latest full episodes of “Bloomberg
Investor interest in African fintech continues to grab headlines with large fundraises. Today, Africa’s largest digital payments network MFS Africa joins the fray. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it has raised $100 million in Series C financing — split between $70 million equity and $30 million debt. Private equity fund AfricInvest FIVE co-led the Series
Fashion commerce firm Nykaa rose as much as 89% on its Indian market debut Wednesday, gaining a valuation of $13 billion in the nation’s first women-led unicorn listing. Shares of FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which operates the Nykaa brand, opened at 2,018 ($27.2) Indian rupees and went as high as 2,129, up from its initial public
Kenyan edtech startup Craydel, a platform for comparing colleges, course options and tuition fees, has secured $1 million in a pre-seed round that will go toward improving its search and recommendation technology and enhancing its online resources. The round was led by Enza Capital, a private venture fund that invests in early-stage tech startups across
You can’t raise more than $370 million on a good idea alone. But you can raise a seed round worth a few million from Aileen Lee with that and a few other critical ingredients. Guild Education CEO Rachel Carlson did just that. Aileen Lee, founder and managing partner of Cowboy Ventures, led a $2 million
Meet Amenitiz, a Barcelona-based startup that describes its products as the operating system for independent hoteliers, B&Bs and cottages. In more technical terms, Amenitiz has been building a vertical software-as-a-service product that combines everything you need to run a hotel. The company just raised a $7.5 million (€6.5 million) seed round led by Point Nine.
There are dozens of devices out there that are eager to beat your muscles to within an inch of their tense little lives. They all have one thing in common: They’re a lot more powerful and have more endurance than the nimble fingers of a massage therapist. A trained and skilled therapist still has the
Disrupting the traditional MBA may be the most tried, tested and tweaked edtech startup pitch out there. And rightfully so: Business school is damn expensive and largely reserved for a select group of people who have the time and money to invest in elite education. While no single company has perfectly cracked the code yet,
The unprecedented rush of venture capital into startups is having an interesting knock-on effect: “Venture capital investors are racing to pay more to buy smaller pieces of startups that are less profitable than before,” writes Alex Wilhelm, who studied Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the Markets Report Q4 2021. Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available
Discord is already the de facto home for NFT communities, but the company could be planning to deepen those connections in a big way. On Monday, Discord founder and CEO Jason Citron tweeted a screenshot depicting Discord integrated with popular crypto wallet service MetaMask and WalletConnect, an open protocol that many mobile crypto wallets are
On-demand delivery giant DoorDash announced Tuesday it was acquiring food delivery company Wolt in an all-stock deal valued at €7 billion, or $8.1 billion. Talking about the acquisition, Tony Xu, co-founder and CEO of DoorDash said in a statement that the move “will accelerate our product development, bring greater focus to each of our markets