SoLo Funds wants to replace payday lenders with a community-based, market-driven model for individual lending and now has $10 million to expand its business in the U.S. Payday lenders offer high interest, short-term loans to borrowers who are at their most vulnerable and the terms of their loans often trap borrowers in a cycle of […]
SLAs, SLOs, SLIs. If there’s one thing everybody in the business of managing software development loves, it’s acronyms. And while everyone probably knows what a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is, Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level Indicators (SLIs) may not be quite as well known. The idea, though, is straightforward, with SLOs being the […]
After years of optimizing its products for engagement, no matter the costs, Facebook announced today it will “test” changes to its News Feed focused on reducing the distribution of political content. The company qualified these tests will be temporary, impact a small percentage of people, and will only run in select markets, including the U.S., […]
Managing IoT devices in a large organization can be a messy proposition, especially when many of them aren’t even managed directly by IT and often involve integrating with a number of third-party systems. SecuriThings wants to help with a platform of services to bring that all under control, and today the startup announced a $14 […]
Fiverr is adding a new way for freelancers on the marketplace to charge for their work — three- or six-month subscriptions. Through this feature, sellers on Fiverr can offer to provide a defined set of work each month. They also can offer discounts to subscribers, although it’s not required. The buyer or seller can cancel […]
Meet Powder, a French startup that helps you share video clips of your favorite games, follow people with the same interests and interact with them. The company has raised a $14 million Series A round led by Serena. Powder wants to build the video infrastructure for social gaming. While many communities of gamers already share […]
Cybersecurity startup CYE has raised $100 million in a new growth round, led by investment firm EQT and with participation from 83North. CYE was founded in 2012 by Reuven Aronashvili to help companies shore up their security posture. It does this in large part by conducting offensive operations against their customers — with their explicit […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace noticed last week that we had a bevy of software-as-a-service (SaaS) stories that we wanted to chat about. So we decided to break them out into their own episode. What came out of the conversation is a […]
There seems to be plenty of activity in adtech and martech, particularly across the commerce ecosystem with tools that support monetization for small merchants.
If you are a founder and launched a startup last February of 2020 just before the pandemic hit, then you may have felt like you were living the ultimate business nightmare. But if your company serves to stabilize the supply-chain business, then, in fact, you may have hit the ground running at just the right […]
This morning Ramp, a startup that competes in the corporate spend market, announced that it has secured a $150 million debt facility with Goldman Sachs. Ramp previously raised a $30 million Series B in late December 2020, after raising a $23 million Series A earlier in the same year. TechCrunch spoke with Ramp co-founder and […]
NeuReality, an Israeli AI hardware startup that is working on a novel approach to improving AI inferencing platforms by doing away with the current CPU-centric model, is coming out of stealth today and announcing an $8 million seed round. The group of investors includes Cardumen Capital, crowdfunding platform OurCrowd and Varana Capital. The company also […]
A new startup called Insight is bringing web browser extensions to the iPhone, with the goal of delivering a better web browsing experience by blocking ads and trackers, flagging fake reviews on Amazon, offering SEO-free search experiences, or even calling out media bias and misinformation, among other things. These features are made available by way […]
It’s difficult to get credit if you don’t have credit. That’s the problem that startup TomoCredit is trying to solve. Co-founder and CEO Kristy Kim came up with the concept for the company after being rejected multiple times for an auto loan while in her early 20s. Kim, who immigrated to the U.S. from South […]
Podz is the latest startup trying to solve the problem of podcast discovery, with backing from investors like M13, Katie Couric and Paris Hilton. “Even though podcasts have gained a lot of momentum — there are 100 million folks in the U.S. who listen to podcasts — we still haven’t seen that crossover behavior, where […]
Archer Aviation, the electric aircraft startup targeting the urban air mobility market, has landed United Airlines as a customer and an investor in its bid to become a publicly traded company via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Archer Aviation said Wednesday it reached an agreement to merge with special purpose acquisition company […]
The Amazon Marketplace roll-up play is well and truly underway. In the latest development, Thrasio — one of the biggest and earliest movers in the market to consolidate third-party sellers on the platform, with the promise to provide better economies of scale to manage and grow those businesses — announced that it has raised another […]
Freelancers who work well together in teams are the target for Collective, a French startup that’s launching a software-as-a-service marketplace today. (Not to be confused with Collective, a US-based startup that offers back-office tools for the self employed running a business-of-one.) Collective (the French ‘teams’ edition) is co-founded by Jean de Rauglaudre and Vianney de […]
Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm with $16.5 billion in assets under management, has poured millions into an edtech startup that sells virtual STEM lab simulations to institutions. Copenhagen-based Labster, which sells virtual science laboratory simulations to schools, announced today that it has raised $60 million in a Series C round led by the prominent […]
Uptime, the self-described “knowledge hacking” app, has raised $16 million in seed funding, after officially launching on iOS in January. Positioned as a “micro-learning” platform,” Uptime presents five-minute “knowledge hacks” from books, courses and documentaries. The idea is to let you quickly “grasp ideas and insights from trusted authors, instructors, and creative minds,” without spending […]
