Citcon, a mobile wallet payment provider, has closed on $30 million in funding in a Series C round co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Cota Capital. Sierra Ventures and Sonae IM also joined the financing, which brings San Jose-based Citcon’s total raised since its 2015 inception to nearly $50 million. Citcon’s mission is straightforward: to
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Fast-growing fintech Brex has raised $300 million in funding that propels it to decacorn status, just six months after it was valued at $7.4 billion, according to people familiar with the deal. The sources, who wished to remain anonymous since the deal is not yet public (although a term sheet has been signed), said corporate
XanPool, a payment infrastructure provider that facilitates faster crypto and fiat settlements, announced today it has raised a $27 million Series A led by Valar Ventures. The round included participation from CMT Digital, Wise founder and chairman Taavet Hinrikus and existing investors Gumi Gryptos and Antler. The funding brings XanPool’s total raised since it was
Google has held discussions to invest over $50 million in Indian social commerce startup Meesho, which recently secured $570 million in a financing round, according to a source familiar with the matter. The Android-maker, which has backed over half a dozen startups in India, has yet to make the investment in Meesho, according to another
Eric Kosmowski Contributor Brett Hauser Contributor The climate measures in the budget reconciliation package now before the U.S. Congress could unlock an investment boom in clean energy, zero-carbon transportation and efficient manufacturing that would allow us, as a nation, to reverse the course of rising greenhouse gas emissions that threaten our future. Simultaneously, these investments
Android 12 is now officially available for Google’s Pixel phones and will slowly roll out to others in the coming months. Chances are, you think of Android as a consumer product, but over the course of the last few years, Google has put a lot of work into making it an enterprise tool, too. It’s
European Union lawmakers are mobilizing support for a ban on tracking-based advertising to be added to a new set of Internet rules for the bloc — which were proposed at the back end of last year but are now entering the last stretch of negotiations ahead of becoming pan-EU law. If they succeed it could have
Google is lowering commissions on all subscription-based businesses on the Google Play Store, the company announced today. Previously, the company had followed Apple’s move by reducing commissions from 30% to 15% on the first $1 million of developer earnings. Now, it will lower the fees specifically for app makers who generate revenue through recurring subscriptions.
Jul.23 — The U.S. Department of Justice said its antitrust division will look at concerns that consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and online retail, according to a statement Tuesday. Lerer Hippeau Ventures Managing Director Eric Hippeau and Center for Democracy and Technology Vice President of Policy Chris Calabrese discuss the
So Plaid now calls itself a payments company. It was only a matter of time, really. Earlier today, the data and connectivity startup announced a new payments partner ecosystem that will extend its existing payments infrastructure and make ACH bank transfers a more attractive alternative to credit card transactions. But the big winners here are
Mahendra Ramsinghani Contributor Mahendra Ramsinghani is the founder of Secure Octane Investments, investing in cloud infrastructure and security startups. When he is not investing, he is busy writing blogs and books. His third book “The Resilient Founder” will be released in 2022. More posts by this contributor Pandemic reset leads investors to focus on resilience,
After steadily expanding access over the course of the year, Twitter announced today its audio chatroom feature known as Twitter Spaces is now open to anyone who wants to host a Space across iOS and Android. Earlier this year, the company had limited access to hosting Spaces to accounts with at least 600 followers, saying
Derek Zaba Contributor Derek Zaba is a partner at Sidley Austin’s Palo Alto office and co-chairs the firm’s Shareholder Activism practice. He counsels companies on a variety of matters, including activism defense/proxy contests, activism preparedness, takeover defenses, shareholder engagement and corporate governance. Sharon R. Flanagan Contributor Sharon R. Flanagan is the managing partner of Sidley
IBM has been in the midst of a strategy shift with a focus on hybrid cloud and AI since Arvind Krishna was promoted to CEO in last year. Red Hat, the software company it purchased for $34 billion in 2018 has been at the center of it all. With the company reporting earnings yesterday, the
Facebook has reached a multi-year agreement to pay French publishers for resharing their content on its platforms, it announced today. The social media giant said the licensing agreement with the Alliance of national and regional newspapers “means that people on Facebook will be able to continue uploading and sharing news stories freely amongst their communities,
If challenging the status quo was easy, we’d see a lot more of it. In the world of smartphones, this means daring to think outside the rectangle, a form factor that has been the default for more than a decade and a half. Slowly but surely amid stagnant smartphone sales, companies have been testing the
Running out of inventory not only means you are missing out on sales of popular items, but you may also have to wait awhile to get those items back in stock. New York-based Toolio has built cloud-based merchandising and inventory planning software to enable retailers to optimize their merchandise planning and make better and faster
Three months after announcing a $4 million seed round, Venezuelan delivery super app Yummy is back with an $18 million Series A round that will accelerate the company’s proposed expansion throughout Latin America. Anthos Capital led the latest round, with additional participation from JAM Fund, whose founder Justin Mateen was an investor in the seed
Indian hyperlocal social media platform Lokal has raised $12 million in a new round of financing led by Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent, according to a source familiar with the matter. Existing investors 3one4 Capital, Y Combinator, and India Quotient have also participated in the Bangalore-based startup’s Series A, the source said, requesting anonymity as the
Ishveen Anand grew up in England playing sports all of her life, including during her time at Oxford. She wanted to do something sporty for a career and “fell in love” with sponsorship marketing. However, what she found was that the process was inefficient — the sports world was slow-moving in terms of brands getting
A large number of UK tech ‘unicorns’ have been in complex markets where policy and regulation really matters. But regulated markets (fintech, healthtech etc), or markets where regulation is still emerging (e.g. lab-grown meat) are, well, HARD. Founders have to navigate policy-makers, regulators and even politicians. To it’s interesting that today a new VC is
Spotify has already invested around $1 billion in podcasting between its acquisitions, exclusive deals, and other partnerships. Now, it wants people to do more than just listen — it wants them to watch, too. The company announced today it’s opening up access to a new tool for creators that will allow them to begin publishing
The edtech boom has focused primarily on students, but teachers are learners, too. Doyobi, a Singapore-based professional development platform, wants to give educators new, more engaging ways of teaching STEM subjects. The startup announced today it has raised $2.8 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The round included Tresmonos Capital, Novus
If you’ve been working in the French tech ecosystem, you may remember a startup called AppGratis. The app discovery and promotion startup basically had to stop operating overnight following a long and nasty fight with Apple. From the team that brought you AppGratis, Batch is a customer engagement platform that has been operating under the
Facebook has been steadily rolling out updates to Facebook Groups aimed at giving admins better ways to manage and moderate their online communities. Recently, this has included a combination of product releases — like access to automated moderation aids and alerts about heated debates — as well as new policies aimed at keeping Groups in
Enterprise engagement company Countable raised $12 million in Series A funding so that brands can more easily engage with customers, even in a way that shows a brand’s values and stance on issues. Existing investor Canaan Partners led the round and was joined by Ulysses Management and Global Catalyst Partners. In total, the company has
360Learning has raised a $200 million funding round from Sumeru, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Silver Lake Waterman. And this time, the name of the startup describes quite well what it does. 360Learning lets you learn from your peers with an easy-to-use platform that lets you create and share courses with your peers. Existing investors
Spotify this morning announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform provider Shopify that will allow artists on its service to connect their Spotify profiles with their Shopify stores, allowing them to market their merchandise directly to fans through the Spotify app. After connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online store, artists will
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: Marriage-based green card versus
Online education company Udemy this morning set an initial IPO price range for its upcoming debut. The San Francisco-based edtech unicorn — backed by Learn Capital, Insight Partners and Norwest, among others — expects to price its IPO between $27 and $29 per share. The company could be valued at more than $4 billion at