For obvious reasons, food delivery was among the categories that soared during a year of COVID-19 related lockdowns. The question remains how these changes will impact both grocery and restaurant delivery long term, but at the very least, it seems certain that the categories have hit an inflection point. This could also be the moment […]
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, […]
Potential threats to the free flow of GIFs continue to trouble the U.K.’s competition watchdog. Facebook’s $400 million 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 […]
Who’s ready for bootcamp? Today’s the day new founders get down to the business of, well, building a better business. TechCrunch Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising provides early-stage founders with access to top founders, investors and subject-matter experts across the startup realm. The goal? Learn and develop the skills essential for startup success, avoid […]
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 […]
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 […]
Mmhmm, the software that allows folks to personalize their appearance on video chat, has today announced that it’s 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 […]
So, let me preempt this by saying that there are plenty of robotics verticals worth getting excited about. But at the moment, everyone sure seems focused on warehouse fulfillment. It’s understandable, of course. Right now, it’s Amazon versus the world, and the retail giant certainly has a leg up on much of the world on […]
Thrasio, an early mover and leading player in the wave of startups emerging to consolidate and scale companies that sell their goods mainly via Amazon’s Marketplace, has raised some more funding and is making a key executive appointment to do some scaling of its own. The company, which to date has acquired and consolidated over […]
Next Insurance recently announced that it has raised a $250 million round, valuing the SMB-focused insurance provider at $4 billion. The company last raised another $250 million in September 2020, at a valuation of $2 billion. This funding also comes after Next Insurance acquired Juniper Labs in December, and AP Intego more recently. Next sells […]
Meet Collabio Spaces: An office suite app with a cloudless co-authoring twist that looks helpful if you need to collaborate on documents without having to worry about losing control of your data or the thread of changes. The P2P software lets multiple people co-edit a document locally — from a mobile device or desktop computer […]
Pair Eyewear has raised a $12 million Series A to help glasses-wearing kids and adults turn those glasses into what co-CEO Sophia Edelstein called “a form of self-expression.” After all, Edelstein (who founded the company with her co-CEO Nathan Kondamuri) noted that “you’re spending a lot of money on [glasses], and then you’re stuck with […]
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 […]
Two weeks ago, TPG’s Rise Fund invested $200 million in Airtel Mobile Commerce BV (AMC BV) — the mobile money business of telecom Airtel Africa. After closing the deal, the Bharti Airtel subsidiary noted that it was still in discussions to sell additional minority stake (25% of the issued share capital) to more potential investors. […]
Competition in China’s gaming industry is getting stiffer in recent times as tech giants sniff out potential buyouts and investments to beef up their gaming alliance, whether it pertains to content or distribution. Bilibili, the go-to video streaming platform for young Chinese, is the latest to make a major gaming deal. It has agreed to […]
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 […]
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 […]
Cendana Capital, a San Francisco-based fund of funds manager, has amassed stakes in more than 100 venture firms since launching in 2010. For the most part, it did this by focusing on managers who are raising funds of $100 million or less in capital, even foregoing stakes in beloved outfits like Forerunner Ventures and IA […]
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 […]
