Fundings and Exits

U.S. edtech company Duolingo released a revised IPO price range this morning, boosting its potential per-share value to $100 after initially targeting a range that topped out at $95 per share. Per the unicorn’s SEC filings, Duolingo is now targeting a $95 to $100 per share IPO price range, up from $85 to $95 per

The Exchange spent a little time on Friday ruminating on the impact of then-rumored regulation in China targeting its edtech sector. News that the Chinese government intended to crack down further on the education technology market hit shares of public, China-based edtech companies. It was a mess. Then over the weekend, the rumors became reality,

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. Despite the geopolitical headwinds for foreign tech firms to enter China, many companies, especially those that find a dependable partner, are still forging ahead. For this

News that China’s government may force domestic tutoring-focused companies to go nonprofit is taking a huge bite out of the value of several technology companies. Bloomberg notes that the value of companies like New Oriental Education & Technology Group and TAL Education are tumbling in light of the news, which would constitute merely the latest

Monarch, a subscription-based platform that aims to help consumers “plan and manage” their financial lives, has raised $4.8 million in seed funding. Accel led the round, which also included participation from SignalFire, and brings the Mountain View-based yet fully distributed startup’s total funding since its 2019 inception to $5.5 million. Co-founder and CEO Val Agostino

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We were smaller team this week, with Natasha and Alex together with Chris to sort through yet another summer frenzy of a week. This time around we actually recorded live on Twitter Spaces, which was a first for the podcast.

Just over five months after securing $50 million in debt & equity, Valoreo has closed on a $30 million Series A funding round. Mexico City-based Valoreo aims to invest in, operate and scale e-commerce brands as part of its self-described mission “to bring better products at more affordable prices” to the Latin American consumer. Valoreo

Continuing our global look into the torrid pace of venture capital investment in the second quarter, today we turn to Canada. While many markets have posted impressive results, like the United States setting the pace for new all-time records in dollars invested into startups, Canada’s numbers stand out. The country, now famous in the startup

New York-based startup Sketchfab has been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine. Sketchfab has been building a platform to upload, download, view, share, sell and buy 3D assets. Essentially, it is the leading repository for 3D files on the web. Epic Games isn’t disclosing the terms of the deal. Sketchfab

GudangAda founder and chief executive officer Stevensang GudangAda, a Jakarta-based marketplace that brings wholesalers closer to retail stores and other buyers, announced it has closed a Series B of more than $100 million. The company says the round was oversubscribed, passing its initial target of $75 million. The funding was led by Asia Partners and

Is the trading boom of 2020 and 2021 slowing? That’s a question The Exchange has had on its mind since Robinhood released its latest IPO filing. The popular U.S. consumer-focused investing app told investors in the document that it expects revenues to decline in the third quarter compared to its Q2 performance. The company highlighted

An old rule of thumb for building a startup is to find a group of professionals who use spreadsheets to do their work and then build an app to replace their spreadsheet usage. Presto, you have a startup, and perhaps even a new software category. Spreadsheet.com, however, is doing the opposite. Instead of turning spreadsheets

Titan, a startup that is building a retail investment management platform aimed at the new generation of “everyday investors,” has closed on $58 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The financing comes just over five months after Titan raised $12.5 million in a Series A round led by General Catalyst,

The startup market is having a moment around the world, but few regions can brag as much as Europe when it comes to venture capital investment. Yes, the United States is putting up impressive numbers and Indian startups are booming. But Europe is such a bright spot in the larger world of private startup investment that

Sundae, a residential real estate marketplace that pairs sellers of dated or damaged property with potential buyers, has raised $80 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Fifth Wall and General Global Capital. QED Investors, Wellington Management, Susa Ventures, Founders Fund, First American Financial, Prudence Holdings, Crossover VC, Intersect Capital, Gaingels and Oberndorf

Edtech giant Duolingo set an initial price range for its impending IPO today. The unicorn expects to price in its public debut at $85 to $95 per share, selling 3,700,000 in the deal. Another 1,406,113 shares are being sold by existing shareholders, and 765,916 shares are being offered to underwriting banks as part of the

Zoom, a well-known video conferencing company, will buy Five9, a company that sells software allowing users to reach customers across platforms, and record notes on their interactions. As TechCrunch noted this morning, the deal is merely “Zoom’s latest attempt to expand its offerings,” having “added several office collaboration products, a cloud phone system, and an

Blackstone is acquiring a majority stake in Bangalore and San Francisco-headquartered edtech startup Simplilearn for $250 million. Simplilearn operates an eponymous online bootcamp to help people learn data science, AI, machine learning, cloud computing and other skills that are in demand in the market. The startup has partnerships with several universities and colleges including IIT

The need for more affordable housing has never been more urgent as a shortage in the U.S. housing market persists. Startups attempting to help address the shortage in a variety of ways abound. One such startup, Abodu, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. Previous backer Initialized

TechCrunch virtually sat down with venture capitalist and Cleo Capital managing director Sarah Kunst at our latest Early Stage event last week. Kunst joined us to chat about preparing for raising capital in today’s frenetic fundraising environment, digging into the gritty mechanics for the audience. Cleo Capital invests $500,000 to $1 million into early-stage startups,

Reliance Retail said on Friday it has acquired a controlling stake in 25-year-old Indian search and discovery firm Just Dial for $469 million. The Indian retail giant, which leads the market, said it has acquired 41% stake in publicly listed Just Dial for $469 million and will make an open offer to acquire an additional

Visualping, a service that can help you monitor websites for changes like price drops or other updates, announced that it has raised a $6 million extension to the $2 million seed round it announced earlier this year. The round was led by Seattle-based FUSE Ventures, a relatively new firm with investors who spun out of

Mortgages may not be considered sexy, but they are a big business. And if you’ve refinanced or purchased a home digitally lately, you may or may not have noticed the company powering the software behind it — but there’s a good chance that company is Blend. Founded in 2012, the startup has steadily grown to

In case you’ve not been paying attention, we’ll say it again: The global venture capital industry is on fire. The second quarter of 2021 was the largest single three-month period on record for dollars invested. The data coming in points to a worldwide boom. The United States’ startup market had a huge Q2, and investors

News broke this morning that Revolut, a U.K.-based consumer fintech player, raised a Series E round of funding worth $800 million at a valuation of $33 billion. Those figures are breathtaking not only due to their sheer scale, but also thanks to their radical divergence from Revolut’s preceding funding event. At times, The Exchange, TechCrunch’s

American Express is branching out into financial planning, with a little help from a seven-person startup called BodesWell. This week, the credit card giant launched a pilot of its first self-service digital financial planning tool, dubbed “My Financial Plan (MFP).” The six-month pilot kicked off on July 11 with about 25,000 select Amex cardmembers. American

<a href=”https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/apple-goldman-plan-buy-now-pay-later-service-to-rival-paypal”>Bloomberg broke news earlier this week that Apple, the consumer hardware giant with a rising services focus, is building a buy now, pay later (BNPL) service that will integrate with its Apple Pay system. The news sent shares of Affirm down just over 10% by the end of the day, and it shed 2.5%

Easy Eat AI, a Singapore-based startup that wants to “transform restaurants into technology companies,” announced today it has raised $5 million in funding. Easy Eat AI offers an operating system for restaurants that lets them digitize all parts of their business, from inventory and customer orders to delivery, and gain AI-based data analytics to improve

Venture capital price discipline is out the window; venture funds are looking to make faster, earlier deals; and more unicorns were minted in the last three months than during any quarter in history. It’s a busy time for startups and their financial backers. Now weeks into July, it’s increasingly clear that 2021 is shaping up

There are far fewer annoying things than managing one’s passwords. There are a bunch of companies out there to help you attempt to do that. And there’s also a number of companies that want to go a step further and eliminate the password completely. One such company, Stytch, just raised $30 million in a Series