Kaya VC’s new €72 million ($80m) fund will focus on startups in Prague, Warsaw and the wider CEE region. Previously called Enern, the Central and Eastern European VC — which, historically, started out investing in wind-farms and ended up invested in software — has changed its name to better reflect its modern focus. The firm
Kevin Xu Contributor Kevin Xu is an early-stage investor and founder of Interconnected, a bilingual newsletter covering tech, business and U.S.-Asia relations. Mexico has been known as an up-and-coming tech hub and a gateway to the Latin American market. As an investor focused on developer-centered products, open-source startups and infrastructure technology companies with a particular
Today Coinbase, an American cryptocurrency trading platform and software company, said that it will begin to trade via a direct listing on April 14th. In a separate release the company also said that it will provide a financial update on April 6th, after the close of trading. Coinbase’s impending public debut comes at an interesting
As Covid-19 vaccines are becoming more readily available to larger groups of the U.S. population, Facebook has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to launch new Facebook profile frames that allow users to share their support for getting vaccinated with their
mmhmm, the software that allows folks to personalize their appearance on video chat, has today announced that its introducing usage-based enterprise accounts. In a conversation with TechCrunch, founder and CEO Phil Libin said this is a natural evolution, remarking that mmhmm has had hundreds of registrations from users all at the same company. “It was
Launched in only November last year, the Craft Docs app — which was built from the ground up as an iOS app for collaborative documents — has secured an $8 million Series A round led by Creandum. Also participating was InReach Ventures, Gareth Williams, former CEO and co-founder of Skyscanner, and a number of other
Holler, described by founder and CEO Travis Montaque as “a conversational media company,” just announced that it’s raised $36 million in Series B funding. You may not know what conversational media is, but there’s a decent chance you’ve used Holler’s technology. For example, if you’ve added a sticker or a GIF to your Venmo payments,
Meet Soda, a data monitoring platform that is going to help you discover issues with your data processing setup. This way, you can react as quickly as possible and make sure that you keep the full data picture. If you’re building a digital-first company, you and your customers are likely generating a ton of data.
The Exchange just yesterday discussed a downward revision in the impending Compass IPO and the disappointing Deliveroo flotation as signals that market demand for high-growth, unprofitable tech shares could be slipping. Recent news underscores the possibly chilling conditions. This morning, Kaltura, a technology company that provides video streaming software and services, delayed its IPO. JioForMe reports
Potential threats to the free flow of GIFs continue to trouble the UK’s competition watchdog. Facebook’s $400M purchase of Giphy, announced last year, is now facing an in-depth probe by the CMA after the regulator found the acquisition raises competition concerns related to digital advertising. It now has until September 15 to investigate and report.
Every tech vendor has to pass security muster with customers, typically a tedious activity involving answering long questionnaires. Kintent, a new startup that wants to automate this process, announced a $4 million seed today led by Tola Capital with help from a bunch of tech industry angel investors. After company co-founder and CEO Sravish Sridhar
TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey European founders and investors in cities outside the larger European capitals. Over the next few weeks, we will ask entrepreneurs in these cities to talk about their ecosystems, in their own words. This is your chance to put your city on the Techcrunch Map! This
U.S. consumers spent an average of $138 on iPhone apps last year, an increase of 38% year-over-year, largely driven by the pandemic impacts, according to new data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Throughout 2020, consumers turned to iPhone apps for work, school, entertainment, shopping, and more, driving per-user spending to a new record
Many companies had to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. For SOSV-backed Achiko, this meant shifting its focus from mobile payment services to affordable COVID-19 screening. Achiko’s platform combines an app called Teman Sehat (“Health Buddy” in Indonesian) for payments and keeping test records, and proprietary low-cost testing kits using DNA aptamers, or synthetic strands of
LINE completed its merger with Yahoo! Japan owner Z Holdings last month, and now the two firm’s venture capital arms have also combined. Z Holdings announced today that its subsidiary, YJ Capital, has merged with LINE Ventures to form Z Venture Capital. The new firm also announced the launch of a 30 billion JPY (about
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump promoted a new interview with the former president on Facebook and Instagram Tuesday, but a workaround to Trump’s ban on two of the world’s most popular social networks wasn’t long for this world. She was apparently swiftly cautioned by Facebook that anything posted “in the voice of President Trump” is not
Before you can improve a workflow, you have to understand how work advances through a business, which is more complex than you might imagine inside a large enterprise. That’s where Celonis comes in. It uses software to identify how work moves through an organization and suggests more efficient ways of getting the same work done,
On the heels of Deliveroo raising more than $2 billion ahead of its debut on the London Stock Exchange this week, another hopeful in the food delivery sector has closed a super-sized round. Glovo, a startup out of Spain with 10 million users that delivers restaurant take-out, groceries and other items in partnership with brick-and-mortar
Sarah Kunst, founding partner at Cleo Capital, has worn many hats. She’s been an entrepreneur, served on plenty of boards, is a contributing author at Marie Clare, has been a senior advisor to Bumble and worked as a consultant in marketing, business development and more. With all that experience, she knows all too well that
At the age of 14, Jacklyn Rome saw firsthand how divorce can impact families, and how arguing about finances both during and after the process can impact children. The experience stuck with her. As an adult, after leading new product launches at Uber and Blue Apron, Rome came up with the concept behind her startup,
Facebook has some thoughts and updates about its News Feed, Siri gets some new voices and Tonal becomes a unicorn. This is your Daily Crunch for March 31, 2021. The big story: Facebook makes it easier to view a non-algorithmic News Feed Facebook highlighted features today that should make it easier for users to see
From the earliest days of the pandemic, it was no secret that video chat was about to become a very hot space. Over the past several months investors have bankrolled a handful of video startups with specific niches, ranging from always-on office surveillance to platforms that encouraged plenty of mini calls to avoid the need
Zapp, one of a number of startups currently battling it out in London and beyond by promising to let you order everyday items on-demand from its own delivery-only stores, has quietly raised a new round of funding from leading VCs, TechCrunch has learned. According to multiple sources, Silicon Valley’s Lightspeed and Europe’s Atomico (the VC
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: When can I finally
Fast-growing fintech Pipe has raised another round of funding at a $2 billion valuation, just weeks after raising $50M in growth funding, according to sources familiar with the deal. Although the round is still ongoing, Pipe has reportedly raised $150 million in a “massively oversubscribed” round led by Baltimore, Md.-based Greenspring Associates. While the company
Following years of backlash over its algorithms and their ability to push people to more extreme content, which Facebook continues to deny, the company today announced it would give its users new tools to more easily switch over to non-algorithmic views of their News Feed. This includes the recently launched “Favorites,” which shows you posts
As companies embrace the use of data, hiring more data scientists, a roadblock persists around sharing that data. It requires too much copying and pasting and manual work. Hex, a new startup, wants to change that by providing a way to dispense data across the company in a streamlined and elegant way. Today, the company
Meet Leeway, a French startup that is building an end-to-end software-as-a-service solution for your contracts. Leeway lets you centralize all your contracts in a single repository, go through multiple negotiation steps and trigger a DocuSign event for the signature. The company raised a $4.2 million seed round from HenQ, Kima Ventures as well as several
Chih-Han Yu, chief executive officer and co-founder of Appier Group Inc., right, holds a hammer next to a bell during an event marking the listing of the company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, at the company’s office in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg via Getty Images Appier’s initial public
Nested, the London-based startup that is using technology to build a “modern” estate agency and improve the home-selling experience, has raised an additional £5 million. Backing comes from Axel Springer, alongside previous backers Balderton Capital and Northzone. Described as a “strategic investment,” Nested co-founder and CEO Matt Robinson tells TechCrunch that the round brings the