Fundings and Exits

StarTree, a company building what it describes as an “analytics-as-a-service” platform, today announced that it raised $47 million in a Series B round led by GGV Capital with participation from Sapphire Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and CRV. In an email interview, co-founder and CEO Kishore Gopalakrishna said that the proceeds will be put toward doubling

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Want to save some dosh on TechCrunch+? Use the code “EQUITY” at checkout for a big discount on annual subscriptions! Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann are back and as a three were in good spirits with more

Meadow, a leader in building tools for cannabis dispensaries, is expanding out of California. Since its founding in 2014, the company has focused its efforts on its home state, but recently partnered with Michigan-based Wellflower. The company retooled its cannabis platform for the Michigan market and now offers the service state-wide. “California is challenging,” CEO

Argyle, which wants to help companies and institutions get access to employment records, has laid off a number of employees across all departments, TechCrunch has learned from sources. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the workforce reduction to TechCrunch, saying that it let go of 6.5% of the team, or 20 people. The figure provided

If you want to break even, go APE. Cloud companies generally rely on efficiency metrics like CAC payback and LTV-to-CAC, but “they feel more like financial metrics than operational ones, and it is difficult for employees to execute against these concepts,” according to Neeraj Agrawal, Brandon Gleklen and Jack Mattei of Battery Ventures. Using data

Startups that are catering to homebuyers are struggling as interest rates and inflation have climbed and inventory shortages continue in many markets.  The latest casualty in the space is Reali, which announced that it has begun a shutdown and will be laying off most of its workforce on September 9. In a press release, co-founder

Healthcare startups often face unique challenges — something Well Health founder Guillaume de Zwirek understands. Together with Freestyle Partner, Jenny Lefcourt, the two will speak on the strategies used by de Zwirek as he built and scaled WELL Health into a leading healthcare startup. This TechCrunch Live event opens on August 31 at 11:30 a.m.

News that T. Rowe Price cut the value of its stake in fintech giant Stripe is making headlines this week, the new data point coming in the wake of similar cuts by other investment houses regarding their ownership in late-stage startups. However, while it is true that T. Rowe Price reduced the value of its

Privacy breaches are not only bad for users, but also costly for tech companies. For example, GDPR fines now total $1.7 billion, and earlier this year Twitter had to pay $150 million for misrepresenting the security and privacy of user data. Based in Pune, India and Delaware, Privado wants to make it easier for developers

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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: Which immigration options are

AI copywriters are getting a lot of attention from investors. A couple that have recently raised funding include Copy.ai and Copysmith. Now Scalenut is entering the arena with a $3.1 million funding round led by Saama Capital and Amit Singhal, formerly a senior vice president at Google and head of Google Search. Launched earlier this

Turning one-time customers into repeat buyers takes on heightened importance during a downturn. Acquiring one new user can be a heavy lift, but finding ways to reduce friction during shopping and checkout is a proven method for boosting the lifetime value of existing customers. An important note: One study found that password difficulties cause nearly

Jonathan Naymark Contributor Jonathan Naymark is the general manager of Codecademy for Business at Codecademy, an online learning platform that offers courses across web development, data science, cybersecurity and more. Launching a B2B product within a B2C company presents distinct challenges as you attempt to strike a balance between successfully establishing a new product and

Indian crypto exchange WazirX’s co-founder Nischal Shetty is in advanced stages of talks to raise a maiden funding round for his new venture, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Shetty is raising $20 million to $30 million in a seed financing round for his blockchain startup Shardeum, sources said, requesting anonymity as the deliberations

Imagine building some of the most sophisticated hardware-driven technologies in the world — spacecraft, drones or autonomous vehicles. Then imagine being unable to easily share your data to different teams, having to use clunky user interfaces and relying on a single person manually inputting data in an Excel spreadsheet to bottom-line your project. “You’d be

Over the weekend, CNBC reported a set of revenue and profit figures from FTX, a global cryptocurrency exchange that raised a mountain of capital in the last year and is currently expanding its product remit. Its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, has been a key player in the crypto market in recent months, involved in several deals

An Indian upstart, co-founded by a group of journalists, that seeks to disrupt how people follow news and what they consume has raised funds as it prepares to accelerate its growth and broaden its offering. The Signal is aiming to serve a need for the modern pace of life where everybody is busy, said Dinesh

A nonexhaustive list of why Marc Andreessen and Adam Neumann have misread America’s housing problems When Marc Andreessen announced that he was sinking $350 million of a16z investors’ money into a new venture by WeWork co-founder and former CEO Adam Neumann, plenty of jaws dropped. For one, there was the massive sum and equally massive

Last month, Andreessen Horowitz — one of venture capital’s largest and most prominent players — announced that its “headquarters will be in the cloud” going forward. Founded in 2009 in Menlo Park, California, the firm — also known as a16z — has for years been a symbol of Silicon Valley investing.  Its new philosophy in

Stripe has laid off some of the employees who support TaxJar, a tax compliance startup that it acquired last year, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources and firsthand documentation. The layoffs — conducted over the last month — are related to Stripe’s decision to wind down TaxJar-focused go-to-market efforts in late July. Sources estimate the

To play on a Langston Hughes poem — what happens to a Black founder ousted? Are they forgotten, like words on the tip of one’s tongue? Or revered like a deity and then thrown to the sun? The topic is often awkward to ponder and layered in its probe since the reasons for a Black

Ryan Breslow has had a tumultuous 2022. It’s not slowing him down. Few outside of Breslow’s world even knew his name a year ago. Then Bolt, a “one-click” checkout tech company that evolved from an earlier idea of his, announced $355 million in Series E funding at a reported $11 billion valuation. Suddenly, the startup

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. G’day, crunch bunch! We’re both starting to get a little bit excited about TechCrunch Disrupt coming up in October. Would you believe that, even though we’ve been working together for a long

Rocketplace, a startup that aims to build a “next-generation asset management platform for crypto,” has raised $9 million in a seed funding round. A few things about this raise stood out. For one, the funding comes at an interesting time in the crypto world — during the so-called “crypto winter” and a period that has

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: Which immigration options are

Sajith Wickramasekara co-founded Benchling to improve laboratory data collection and collaboration. Since its 2012 founding, the company has grown to a valuation of $6.1 billion. Wickramasekara will join TechCrunch Live, along with Benchmark general partner Miles Grimshaw, to discuss its recent acquisition and growth. This TechCrunch Live event opens on August 24 at 11:30 a.m.

While the impact of macro market conditions on the global venture ecosystem has dominated headlines and conversations since February, it occurred to me a few weeks ago that I hadn’t heard anything about Israel. No huge layoff perils — but no eye-popping mega-rounds either. Was no news good news? I decided to find out. In

QuotaBook, a Seoul-based equity management platform, has raised $11 million in funding led by Elefund, with participation from Access Ventures, Hana Securities and South Korean fintech company Viva Republica. Some of its previous backers, including Draper Associates and Capstone Partners, joined the round. The Korean startup, which graduated from Y Combinator (YC)’s Winter 21 batch,