Fintech Brex first partnered with Weav, a developer of a universal API for commerce platforms, last summer. In March, Brex launched Instant Payouts for Shopify sellers using the startup’s technology. The results were impressive enough that by April, Brex co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi participated in Weav’s $4.3 million seed round as strategic angel
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Unbundling financial data through APIs and driving data-driven insights with value-add products in Africa keeps getting more exciting as major players continue to raise more money for scale. Less than a year after its $3 million seed round, San Francisco- and Africa-based fintech Pngme has snapped up another $15 million for its financial data infrastructure
Hamburg’s state government has been formally warned against using Zoom over data protection concerns. The German state’s data protection agency (DPA) took the step of issuing a public warning yesterday, writing in a press release that the Senate Chancellory’s use of the popular videoconferencing tool violates the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) since
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You
Many Southeast Asian digital businesses run into obstacles when seeking early-stage growth financing. They might not want to sell equity in their company, but often struggle to secure working capital loans from traditional financial institutions. That’s where Singapore-based Jenfi comes in, providing revenue-based financing of up to $500,000 with flexible repayment plans that co-founder and
After meeting an ignominious end in 2017, the anonymous gossip app once popular with college students lives again. Yik Yak returned to the iOS App Store on Monday (sorry, Android users) under new ownership, inspiring a fresh round of interest in the long-dead social network. 📣 ICYMI: After a 4 year hiatus, Yik Yak is
Cisco announced on Friday that it’s acquiring Israeli applications-monitoring startup Epsagon at a price pegged at $500 million. The purchase gives Cisco a more modern microservices-focused component for its growing applications-monitoring portfolio. The Israeli business publication Globes reported it had gotten confirmation from Cisco that the deal was for $500 million, but Cisco would not confirm
As last week came to a close, funding news involving three major U.S. technology startups lit up on Twitter. Carta closed a $500 million Series G at a $7.4 billion price tag. Chime put together a $750 million round at a $25 billion valuation. And Discord was reported to be hunting up new cash that
Nuro doesn’t have a typical Silicon Valley origin story. It didn’t emerge after a long, slow slog from a suburban garage or through a flash of insight in a university laboratory. Nor was it founded at the behest of an eccentric billionaire with money to burn. Nuro was born — and ramped up quickly —
The pandemic was a catalyst for showing companies looking to cut costs just how much they were spending on their software tools. New York-based Tropic’s platform not only uncovers those savings, but also brings a click-and-approve approach to buying software. Today, the company announced a $25 million Series A round of funding. Canaan Partners led
Canada-based Shopistry wants to turn the concept of headless commerce, well, on its head. On Monday, the e-commerce startup announced $2 million in seed funding to continue developing its toolkit of products, integrations, services and managed infrastructure for brands to scale online. Jaafer Haidar and Tariq Zabian started Shopistry in 2019. Haidar’s background is as
If you injure your elbow, surgery can help. If you lose a leg, prostheses are available. But problems within the brain are more difficult to treat, and for stroke victims rehabilitation is largely left to the body’s own repair mechanisms. BrainQ aims to change that with a device that stimulates the damaged part of the
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy Contributor Sukhinder Singh Cassidy founded theBoardlist, a premium talent marketplace that helps diverse leaders get discovered for board and executive opportunities. A technology executive and entrepreneur, board member and investor, she has 25 years of experience founding and helping to scale companies, including Google, Amazon and Yodlee. More posts by this contributor
Kiddom, a platform that offers a digital curriculum that fits the core standards required by states, announced today that it has raised a $35 million Series C round led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Owl Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Outcomes Collective. The financing came nearly three years after Kiddom’s Series B, a $15 million
This week Danny and Alex and Chris took to Twitter Spaces to chat about the current state of the crypto economy, and hang out with friends in a live Twitter Space. We’re doing more of these, so make sure that you are following the show on Twitter. As a small programming note, I forgot to
Karl Laughton Contributor Karl Laughton is president & COO of Insightly, which makes scalable CRM software that enables companies to go beyond transactions and grow lasting customer relationships. Nearly three in 10 employees (29%) would quit their job if they were told they were no longer allowed to work remotely, according to a recent survey.
Airtable, the makers of the no code relational database, announced its first acquisition today, acquiring Bayes, an early stage visualization startup. The purpose of the purchase is to enhance the data visualizations on the Airtable platform. The companies did not share the purchase price. Much like Airtable, Bayes focuses on a no-code approach and the
VerSe Innovation, the parent firm of popular news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, said on Thursday it has raised over $450 million in a new financing round, just five months after securing $200 million, as the Indian startup looks to expand its offerings to international markets. Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle
Although older adults are one of the fastest-growing demographics, they’re quite underserved when it comes to consumer tech. The global population of people older than 65 will reach 1.5 billion by 2050, and members of this cohort — who are leading longer, active lives — have plenty of money to spend. Still, most startups persist
Agora, a startup that has built a materials management platform for contractors, has raised $33 million in a Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global Management. 8VC, Tishman Speyer, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Michael Ovitz, DST, LeFrak and Kevin Hartz also participated in the financing, which brings the startup’s total raised since its
Jenny Wang Contributor Jenny Wang is a principal investor at Neo and co-host of the “Techsetters” podcast. Five years ago, the playbook for launching a new company involved a tried-and-true list of to-dos. Once you built an awesome product with a catchy name, you’d try to get a feature article on TechCrunch, a front-page hit
When Salesforce announced its new business video streaming service called Salesforce+ this week, everyone had a reaction. While not all of it was positive, some company watchers also wondered if there was more to this announcement than meets the eye. If you look closely, the new initiative suggests that Salesforce wants to take a bite
From Instagram’s Reels to Snapchat’s Spotlight, most social media platforms are looking toward the TikTok boom for inspiration. Now, even Reddit, a discussion-based forum, is making short-form video more pronounced on its iOS app. According to Reddit, most iOS users should have a button on their app directly to the right of the search bar
The dollars keep flowing into Latin America. Today, Argentine personal finance management app Ualá announced it has raised $350 million in a Series D round at a post-money valuation of $2.45 billion. SoftBank Latin America Fund and affiliates of China-based Tencent co-led the round, which included participation from a slew of existing backers, including funds
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Our beloved Danny was back, joining Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris to chat through yet another incredibly busy week. As a window into our process, every week we tell one another that the next week we’ll cut the show down to
Manish Maheshwari, the head of Twitter India, has taken a new role at the company and is relocating to the U.S., the latest in a series of developments for the American social giant after a tense stand off with New Delhi this year. Maheshwari is moving on from the high-profile position, a role he assumed
Houston-based ThirdAI, a company building tools to speed up deep learning technology without the need for specialized hardware like graphics processing units, brought in $6 million in seed funding. Neotribe Ventures, Cervin Ventures and Firebolt Ventures co-led the investment, which will be used to hire additional employees and invest in computing resources, Anshumali Shrivastava, Third
Automation will displace 85 million jobs while simultaneously creating 97 million new jobs by 2025, according to the World Economic Forum. Although that sounds like good news, the hard reality is that millions of people will have to retrain in the jobs of the future. A number of startups are addressing these problems of employee
Food delivery apps offer convenience for customers, but a host of headaches for restaurants, like commissions as high as 40% and very few tools to build customer loyalty. Based in Singapore, Tablevibe wants to help restaurants reduce their reliance on third-party delivery apps and help them get more direct orders and returning customers. The startup
Just five months after raising a $100 million Series A, TaxBit announced today it has raised $130 million in a Series B round of funding. The latest financing officially makes the Salt Lake City, Utah-based provider of crypto tax and accounting software a unicorn, with a valuation of $1.33 billion. It also brings the startup’s