Fundings and Exits

In a message posted to its internal communications channel earlier this week, the massive startup accelerator Y Combinator said it will change the terms of its own PPP (the YC pro rata investment program) and investing in companies raising seed and Series A rounds on a case-by-case basis. The company began a policy of investing

On-demand mobility, when done successfully, strikes a balance between demand and supply while providing reliable service and making a profit. It’s a sweet spot that can be difficult, if not impossible, to find. Autofleet, a startup that develops fleet optimization software to redirect underused vehicles into ride-hailing and delivery services, wants to solve that mission

US carrier Verizon* has splashed out to buy veteran B2B videoconferencing platform, BlueJeans Network — shelling out less than $500 million on the acquisition, according to the Wall Street Journal which first reported the news. A Verizon spokeswoman confirmed to TechCrunch that the price-tag is sub-$500M but did not provide a more exact figure. Videoconferencing

Berlin-based startup Taxfix has raised a $65 million Series C funding round. Index Ventures is leading the round with Neil Rimer joining the board. The company started its fundraising process before the coronavirus process and managed to sign all contracts a few days ago. As the name suggests, Taxfix thinks filing taxes remains broken in

Previse, a fintech focused on helping suppliers get faster payment, announced that it has raised $11 million in new funding led by Reefknot Investments and Mastercard. Returning investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Hambro Perks and Augmentum Fintech also participated. Founded in 2016, Previse says it currently processes about 100,000 invoices a day, and its goal is

Airbnb takes on new debt as it adapts to a world without tourism, Apple announces a new entry-level iPhone and Google lowers Nest camera quality. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 15, 2020. 1. Airbnb ups its debt by $1B amid the coronavirus travel crunch Airbnb has secured commitments of $1 billion for a syndicated

French startup Slite has raised an $11 million Series A round led by Spark Capital with existing investors also participating. Slite is a sort of multiplayer Evernote. It lets you collect and organize documentation, create shared documents and build a company handbook. Many companies struggle to keep a single source of truth when it comes

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Earlier today, PwC and CB Insights dropped a sheaf of data concerning the global and domestic Q1 venture capital market, something we’ll be yanking data points from here and there for a few days. What

The student loan crisis has crescendoed to even worse heights. As universities shut down across the country due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and employment opportunities dim with the rapidly decelerating economy, today’s students and postgrads need better tools than ever to navigate their finances. Unfortunately, student loans in the United States are extraordinarily complicated,

Kumu Holdings, a live streaming startup based in the Philippines, announced today it has raised about $5 million in Series A funding, earmarked for new features and growing its operations. The round was led by Openspace Ventures, an early investor in Go-Jek, with participation from Kickstart Ventures, media conglomerate ABS-CBN, Gobi-Core Philippine Fund, and returning

Frank, a New York-based student-facing startup, has raised $5 million in what the company described as an “interim strategic round” led by Chegg, a public edtech company. According to Frank founder and CEO Charlie Javice, previous investors Aleph and Marc Rowan took part in the round alongside new investor GingerBread Capital. The education funding-focused startup

The Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group said it would lose a staggering $24 billion on investments made through its Vision Fund and bets on the co-working real estate company, WeWork, and satellite telecommunications company, OneWeb. Ultimately, the company expects the losses to help generate a $7 billion total loss for the technology giant for the

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The whole crew was present this week: Natasha, Danny and Alex, along with our intrepid producer Chris. And like the last few episodes it was good to have everyone around as there was so very much to get through. Even better there

Pangea.app, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup has raised a $400,000 Seed round, it told TechCrunch this week. The company’s new capital, raised as a post-money SAFE, comes from PJC, a Boston-based venture capital firm and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea.app raised money from angel investors. The company links “remote college freelancers,” per its website, to businesses

Earlier this week TechCrunch caught up with Union Square Ventures‘ (USV) Albert Wenger. Wenger, a managing partner at the venture firm, is well-known in the New York startup scene. USV has invested in former startups like Twitter, Twilio, Etsy and Cloudflare. TechCrunch is touching base with a number of investors during the COVID-19-driven economic slowdown.

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Airbnb’s recent moves in the wake of a global travel slowdown are interesting and worth understanding in chronological order. What it details is a company spending heavily today to keep up its future health. Demand

Phos, the U.K. fintech that offers a software-only PoS so that merchants can accept payments directly on their phones without the need for additional hardware, has raised €1.3 million in funding. The round was led by New Vision 3, an early-stage VC based in Bulgaria (where a part of the Phos team is based), with

Paidy, a Japanese fintech startup that allows customers to make online purchases without credit cards, announced today that it has raised a $48 million Series C extension from ITOCHU. The company says it has now raised a total of $281 million in equity and debt. Its latest investment from ITOCHU, one of the largest Japanese

Ready or not, edtech has been shoved into the spotlight as millions of students shifted to remote learning due to pandemic-related school shutdowns. But backing these companies are investors who have long believed that edtech was always set up for great returns and a big impact. We reached out to several to find out about

Railsbank, the open banking and compliance platform, has picked up further investment, following the company’s $10 million Series A in September 2019. This time backing comes from Visa — a strategic investment, if you will — along with Global Brain, a venture capital firm based in Tokyo, Japan. The exact amount isn’t being disclosed, though

Motherly CEO Jill Koziol admits that it was a tough pitch when she and her co-founder Liz Tenety first tried to get investors on-board in 2015. “We wanted to create a brand first and foremost,” Koziol told me. “We did not want to go and build a media company or a [direct-to-consumer] company or Facebook

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. So far, 2020 has proven to be a year of surprises and disappointments. Over the past month, we’ve seen companies like Toast go from raising huge new rounds this year at heightened valuations to layoffs

MyBuddy.ai, a startup that develops virtual tools to help kids learn English, announced today that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from LETA Capital. The capital will be used to expand into new markets and develop new features including mini-classes about health. The San Francisco-based company’s app features a AI-based virtual tutor called

Airbnb turns to private equity for new funding, WhatsApp takes new steps to fight disinformation and another potential COVID-19 vaccine enters human trials. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 7, 2020. 1. Airbnb turns to private equity to raise $1 billion Airbnb said Monday that it has raised $1 billion in debt and equity from

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. We’ve dug into churn twice in the last week from an expert and data-based perspective. We’ve also spent a good amount of time talking to venture capitalists about how they are approaching today’s turbulent market.

Foursquare, the 10-year-old location platform based in New York City, has today announced its plan to merge with Factual. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The merged company will keep the Foursquare moniker, and Foursquare CEO David Shim will remain at the helm, with Factual’s founder and now-former CEO Gil Elbaz joining Foursquare

TechCrunch confirmed today that BounceX (the firm is rebranding this year) has executed layoffs and salary cuts in the wake of recent COVID-19-led economic disruptions. Many startups are undergoing staff cuts as the domestic and global economies slow, making individual reductions less newsworthy as the layoff tally rises. However, as BounceX is a company we’ve

Good morning friends, and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a short-form audio hit to kickstart your week. Before we jump into today’s show, don’t forget that the long-form Equity that we’ve done for more than three years still drops on Friday. Last week’s was a particular delight, so make sure you’re caught up. Ready? Let’s

Lunar, the Nordic challenger bank that started out life as a personal finance manager app (PFM) but since acquired a full banking license last year, has extended it Series B round with an additional €20 million in funding. It brings the Series B total to €46 million, having disclosed €26 million in August last year.

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. This morning brought fresh economic bad news for the US economy, with over 700,000 jobs lost in the latest report, despite the window of time measured not including some of March’s worst days, and the