Osome, a startup that combines multiple corporate services for SMEs into one “super app,” has raised a $16 million Series A. The round included returning investors Target Global, AltaIR Capital and Phystech Ventures, and new backers S16VC and venture capitalist Peng T. Ong, who joined as an angel investor. The Singapore-based startup’s last funding round
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Fixed-term funds (FTFs) have historically been a bank-to-bank market. FTF products allow for investing into some of the safest assets, including U.K. government bonds, U.S. government bonds and highly rated corporations. They allow holders of large amounts of cash (such as charities, private funds, family offices, etc.) to reduce and diversify their risk, but also
Jamie Viggiano Contributor Jamie Viggiano is the chief marketing officer at FUEL Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in consumer, SaaS and infrastructure businesses. “Who should my first marketing hire be?” This is (by far) the most common question I’ve received since starting as Fuel’s CMO, and for good reason. Your first marketer will
After years of speculation, Didi Chuxing, China’s ride-sharing behemoth, finally unveiled its IPO filing in the U.S., giving a glimpse into its money-losing history. Didi didn’t disclose the size of its raise. Reuters reported the company could raise around $10 billion at a valuation of close to $100 billion, though The Wall Street Journal cited
Investors placing capital in earlier and earlier tech deals has been a historical trend for the last few years, but this strategy was generally reserved for the traditional, ‘high-growth’ VC arena. VCs needed to snag earlier ad earlier deals otherwise they would be diluted at a later stage. But with startups coming up with models
This morning, Anna Heim and Alex Wilhelm dug into the EU insurtech market, interviewing European VCs and collating the biggest recent rounds to take the temperature of the waters across the pond: Alex Timm, CEO, Root Dan Preston, CEO, MetroMile Luca Bocchio, partner, Accel Florian Graillot, investor, Astorya.vc Stephen Brittain, director and founder, Insurtech Gateway
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re closing our survey soon, so this is your last chance (probably) to get your voice heard! Despite it being a short week, as always, it was a busy, busy time. We had Grace on the dials today,
Beauty and wellness businesses have come roaring back to life with the decline of Covid-19 restrictions, and a startup that’s built a platform that caters to the many needs of small enterprises in the industry today is announcing a big round of funding to grow with them. Fresha — a multipurpose commerce tool for independent
Twelve years ago, Joby Aviation consisted of a team of seven engineers working out of founder JoeBen Bevirt’s ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains. Today, the startup has swelled to 800 people and a $6.6 billion valuation, ranking itself as the highest-valued electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) company in the industry. As in any
Didi filed to go public in the United States last night, providing a look into the Chinese ride-hailing company’s business. This morning, we’re extending our earlier reporting on the company to dive into its numerical performance, economic health and possible valuation. Recall that Didi has raised tens of billions worth of private capital from venture capitalists,
Well this is big. The UK’s competition regulator looks set to get an emergency brake that will allow it to stop Google ending support for third party cookies, a technology that’s currently used for targeting online ads, if it believes competition would be harmed by the depreciation going ahead. The development follows an investigation opened
The war for talent in the tech world can be brutal — and so, it turns out, can the war between platforms that help companies source it. In the latest developement, Toptal — a marketplace for filling engineering and other tech roles with freelance, remote workers — has filed a lawsuit against direct competitor Andela
The U.S. insurance technology market is hot, and has been for years now. Back in early 2020, to pick an example, TechCrunch reported on a wave of funding events among domestic insurtech marketplaces. Those companies have since gone on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars more. And after a long period of incubation, we’ve
On the heels of acquiring sales tax specialist TaxJar in April, today Stripe is making another big move in the area of tax. The $95 billion payments behemoth is launching a new product called Stripe Tax, which will provide automatic, updated sales tax calculations (covering sales tax, VAT, and GST) and related accounting services to
French startup Lydia is better known as the dominant app for peer-to-peer payments. But the company has been adding more features, such as a debit card, account aggregation, donations, money pots and more. This week, the company is adding savings accounts thanks to a partnership with French fintech startup Cashbee. If you aren’t familiar with
We’re getting closer to putting our spotlight on Pittsburgh, and there’s quite a bit going on behind the scenes. We’ve been spending a ton of time chatting with folks who are on the ground in the city, and we’ve had a great time learning and listening, which we think will make this installment of our Spotlight
The world seems to move faster every year, and yet, nothing feels slower than the speed by which paychecks get distributed. In the United States, work conducted the day after a pay period will take two weeks just to process, with a check or direct deposit coming another week or two later. For the tens
One clear outcome of the pandemic was pushing more people to do their shopping online, and that was as true for B2B as it was for B2C. Knowing which of your B2B customers are most likely to convert puts any sales team ahead of the game. Slintel, a startup providing that kind of data, announced
Productivity analytics startup Time is Ltd wants to be the Google Analytics for company time. Or perhaps a sort of “Apple Screen Time” for companies. Whatever the case, the founders reckon that if you can map how time is spent in a company enormous productivity gains can be unlocked and, money better spent. It’s now
If you’ve ever bought a subscription inside an iOS app and later decided you wanted to cancel, upgrade or downgrade, or ask for a refund, you may have had trouble figuring out how to go about making that request or change. Some people today still believe that they can stop their subscription charges simply by
Jeff Bussgang Contributor Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital, a former entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, teaches entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School. When I was at Open Market in the 1990s, our CEO gave out the recently published book “Crossing the Chasm” to the executive team and told us to read it to gain insight into why
Just over three months after its last funding round, European fintech giant Klarna is announcing today that it has raised another $639 million at a staggering post-money valuation of $45.6 billion. Rumors swirled in recent weeks that Klarna had raised more money at a valuation north of $40 billion. But the Swedish buy now, pay
In a press conference at the Élysée Palace, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his focus on online regulation, and more particularly toxic content. He called for more international cooperation as the Group of Seven (G7) summit is taking place later this week in the U.K. “The third big topic that could benefit from efficient multilateralism
Meghan Hind Contributor Meghan Hind is an operations analyst for SOSV. Her role includes gathering and analysing data on SOSV portfolio companies and syndicate investors, managing the funds’ databases and CRM, and reporting SOSV’s quarterly investments to external data providers. On Earth Day, April 22, SOSV published the SOSV Climate Tech 100, a list of
Shiran Shalev Contributor Shiran Shalev is a principal at Battery Ventures, where he focuses primarily on software and consumer investments, including fintech. More posts by this contributor Why Breach Detection Is Your New Must-Have, Cyber Security Tool Aaron Rinberg Contributor More posts by this contributor Amazon’s one-two punch: How traditional retailers can fight back Lior
French startup Ledger has raised a $380 million Series C funding round led by 10T Holdings. Following today’s funding round, the company has reached a valuation of $1.5 billion. Other investors in the funding round include existing investors Cathay Innovation, Draper Associates, Draper Dragon, Draper Esprit, DCG, Korelya Capital and Wicklow Capital. Some new investors
Apple announced a batch of accessibility features at WWDC 2021 that cover a wide variety of needs, among them a few for people who can’t touch or speak to their devices in the ordinary way. With Assistive Touch, Sound Control, and other improvements, these folks have new options for interacting with an iPhone or Apple
Jumpcut founder Kartik Hosanagar is a professor at the Wharton School, but about ten years ago, he spent his summer in an unlikely way: he wrote a screenplay. Set in India, his script garnered some interest from producers, but no one took the plunge to fund a film by a first-time Indian director. Now, films
We’re digging into the final IPO prices set by fintech unicorn Marqeta and enterprise productivity unicorn Monday.com this morning. Briefly, it’s good news. A small programming note: The Exchange is off next week. I am taking some time to do nothing other than eat, read books and lose at lawn games. Regular service will resume
Today, former President Donald Trump issued a statement supporting the Nigerian government’s decision to suspend Twitter activities in the West African country. “Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President,” he said in the statement. The ex-president also encouraged other countries to follow in Nigeria’s footsteps and ban