Crunch Hype

OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that offers a machine learning acceleration platform build on top of the open-source Apache TVM compiler framework project, today announced that it has raised a $28 million Series B funding round led by Addition Captial. Previous investors Madrona Venture Group and Amplify Partners also participated in this round, which brings the […]

In recent years, the publicly traded observability service New Relic started adding more machine learning-based tools to its platform for AI-assisted incident response when things don’t quite go as planned. Today, it is expanding this feature set with the launch of a number of new capabilities for what it calls its “New Relic Applied Intelligence […]

Digitail, a cloud service for veterinary surgeries and customers, has raised $2.5M in a Seed round led by byFounders and Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), joined by Partech and a series of angels including as Dr. Ivan Zakharenkov (Smartflow). The startup was already backed (pre-seed round in 2019) by Fast Track Malmo. Digitail is currently […]

Tel Aviv-based Vulcan Cyber, a cybersecurity startup that helps businesses prioritize and fix security vulnerabilities, today announced that it has raised a $21 million Series B funding round led by Dawn Capital. Wipro Ventures and existing investors YL Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures also participated in this round. The company says it will use the […]

French startup PayFit has raised a $107 million series D funding round (€90 million). Eurazeo Growth and Bpifrance’s Large Venture fund are leading today’s round. Existing investors Accel, Frst and Xavier Niel are participating once again. PayFit has been building a payroll and HR software-as-a-service platform. It lets you manage your payroll from a web […]

Many of us are working in distributed environments these days, and in the best scenarios, it might actually have improved rather than impeded our productivity. Today, a company that has built technology that taps into that concept as it applies to computing is announcing a large round of funding to boost its growth after a […]

Capdesk, an equity management platform, has raised a £5m Series A extension led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and MiddleGame Ventures. This followed a first raise of £3 million in 2020, led by Fuel Ventures, and brings the Series A total to £8 million, and total funding raised to £11.7m. Capdesk’s clients include startups such […]

Dija, the London-based grocery delivery startup backed by Blossom Capital, Creandum and Index Ventures, has acquired Cambridge, U.K.-based Genie, in what looks in part like an acqui-hire. The deal, for which terms remain undisclosed, will see Genie founders Tim Chan and Callum MacBeth join the Dija team and also includes company assets. Having launched Genie […]

Zoom, Microsoft and Google all rocketed to the top of the charts in the virtual meetings stakes during the pandemic but a plucky startup from Norway had others ideas. Video meeting startup Whereby has now raised $12 million from German VC Point Nine, SaaStr fund and a group of more than 20 angel investors. Angels […]

Video streaming platforms have signed up more subscribers during Covid-19 lockdowns, and that growth is expected to continue after the pandemic, showcasing more international content. When subtitles are well done, they don’t take audiences out of the immersive experience of a good show or movie. This means as content providers tackle worldwide expansion, demand for localization […]

This Friday, the European Commission will be launching a ‘legislative instrument’ called the EU Startup Nations Standard (SNS) at its annual Digital Day. Now, before you think I’m about to bore you to death, you might like to know that the SNS is a huge political initiative. It will aim to make the European Union […]

Plentywaka, a Nigerian bus-booking platform, today announced that it has been accepted into the Techstars Toronto accelerator program. It will join nine other startups in the class of 2021 and secure funding from the accelerator as it sets its sights on global expansion. The Lagos-based company, founded by Onyeka Akumah, Johnny Ena, John Shaibu and […]

About four years ago, social impact organization Norrsken Foundation launched a small program investing around €30 million in capital it had received from its wealthy patron, Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth. Now, that initiative has become its own impact investment firm, Norrsken VC and, according to people familiar with the firm, is about to close on […]

Uber said Tuesday that drivers in the UK who use its ride-hailing app will be treated as workers, a designation that will give them some benefits such as holiday pay. However, even as Uber seemingly concedes to a Supreme Court ruling last month, a new fight could already be brewing over the company’s decision to […]

The transportation industry is abuzz with upstarts, legacy automakers, suppliers and tech companies working on automated vehicle technology, digital platforms, electrification and robotics. Then there are shared mobility companies from cars to scooters and mopeds to e-bikes. And who can forget the emerging air taxi companies? At the center of this evolving industry are the […]

Google is letting developers keep more of their Play revenue, Instagram adds teen safety features and we examine the global distribution of venture funding. This is your Daily Crunch for March 16, 2021. The big story: Google Play halves commission on first $1M Following a similar move by Apple last year, Google said that it […]

As enterprises around the world pour more money into research and invention to stay competitive, the need for analyzing the worthiness of R&D expenses also grows. One company serving that function is PatSnap. When co-founder Jeffrey Tiong was working in the medical devices industry more than a decade ago, he realized how critical intellectual property […]

Having worked at tech companies like LinkedIn and eBay, I’ve observed firsthand the evolution from Data 1.0 to Data 3.0. In Data 1.0, data is seen as a reactive function providing ad-hoc manual services or firefighting in urgent situations.

Squarespace has raised $300 million in a round of funding that values the company at a staggering $10 billion valuation. New backers include Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Spruce House. Existing backers Accel and General Atlantic also participated. […]

Wise, the London-headquartered company that made its name offering international money transfers and is reportedly planning an IPO, has accused its former banking partner in Brazil of a “smear campaign” after allegations of fraud — claims that Wise says are “false and unfounded.” The war of words between Brazil’s MS Bank and Wise appears to […]

Unpredictability and complexity are quickening, and technology has its place, but not simply as an individual safeguard or false security blanket.

Multi-asset investing and trading platform and Robinhood competitor eToro announced Tuesday it will go public via a merger with SPAC FinTech Acquisition Corp. V in a massive $10.4 billion deal. Once the transaction closes sometime in the third quarter, the combined company will operate as eToro Group Ltd. and is expected to be listed on […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in a way that no one could have ever anticipated, and as more people conduct more services online and via mobile devices, businesses have had to work even harder to validate users and security. One company working to serve that need, Socure — which uses AI and machine […]

Dutchie, a nearly four-year-old, Bend, Oregon company that charges cannabis dispensaries a monthly fee to create and run their websites, process their orders and track what needs to be prepped for pick up, has raised $200 million in Series C funding at a $1.7 billion valuation. That’s roughly eight times the valuation the company was […]

Occasionally, it’s easy for startups to achieve so-called product-market fit, but more often, it’s a struggle. Perhaps no one knows this as well as Sean Lane, co-founder and CEO of Olive, a company whose software completes so many tedious administrative healthcare tasks for hospitals that it is currently valued by investors at $1.5 billion. Somewhat […]

While there are plenty of companies selling data about physical locations, SafeGraph CEO Auren Hoffman said his startup is “one of the few companies to sell this data to data science teams.” For the most part, location data has traditionally been sold to marketers, and Hoffman said, “In the marketing world, if your data is […]

The importance of the pitch deck can’t be underestimated. It is often the first point of contact between a company and venture investors, but how investors consume a pitch deck (and what they really think) is also a bit of a black box. Are they speed-flipping through the slides or taking their time? Do they prefer […]

Another online grocery delivery and “dark store” operator breaks cover today: London-based Jiffy, which aims to deliver fresh groceries and household essentials in around 15 minutes, has raised £2.6 million in seed funding as it readies for launch. Backing the upstart, which already faces a plethora of better-funded competitors, is venture capital fund LVL1 Group, […]

Google will lower its Play commissions globally for developers that sell in-app digital goods and services on its marquee store, the company said, following a similar move by rival Apple late last year. The Android-maker said on Tuesday that starting July 1, it is reducing the service fee for Google Play to 15% — down […]

It was easy to wonder what would become of Docker after it sold its enterprise business in 2019, but it regrouped last year as a cloud native container company focused on developers, and the new approach appears to be bearing fruit. Today, the company announced a $23 million Series B investment. Tribe Capital led the […]

Ford Motor Company will be embedding 100 of its researchers and engineers in a new $75 million robotics and mobility facility on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. This is not the first collaboration between the automaker and the university. Ford is UM’s single largest corporate donor and the two entities have previously teamed […]

As NASA is quick to remind people, the investments it funnels towards space exploration often winds up improving life on Earth – and it’s now in the business of speeding up some of that work through startups. SMART, a startup founded in 2020, has a partnership with NASA through the Space Act Agreement and is […]

I am surprised that more VCs aren't investing in Africa. It smells like investing arbitrage. The pandemic has ripped the Band-Aid off investing via Zoom, making Africa is precisely as close to your in-house office as Europe, North America, Latin America or anywhere else.

Roblox, the gaming company that went public this month with a strong debut, changed the game (so to speak) for the role that creative input can play in making a game more loved, more engaging, and even more enterprising. Today, a startup that is taking a version of that model — focused on in-game apps […]

Google is making changes to its parental control system, Family Link, that aims to better reflect parents’ changing views on children’s screen time. In the pre-pandemic world, parents were more likely to see screen time as something in need of restriction — they’d rather their kids get offline or go outside to play with friends, […]

A security breach at cryptocurrency platform Roll allowed a hacker to obtain the private key to its hot wallet and steal its contents — worth about $5.7 million. In a statement, the company said it was investigating the breach, which happened early Sunday. “As of this writing, it seems like a compromise of the private […]

Earlier this year, TikTok made an update to its privacy settings and defaults to further lock down the app for its teenage users. This morning, Instagram followed suit with teen-focused privacy updates of its own. But the Facebook-owned social app didn’t choose to add more privacy to teen accounts by default, as TikTok did — […]

Talk about surprise comebacks. This morning Google announced the arrival of the next-gen Nest Hub. In spite of rebranding from Google Home Hub back in 2019, the smart screen hasn’t seen many changes since its 2018 introduction. Today’s arrival doesn’t represent a huge upgrade from its predecessor, but it does support a familiar — and […]

Appfire, a Boston-based provider of software development apps, announced Tuesday that it has received a $100 million investment from growth private equity firm TA Associates. Founded in 2005, Appfire was bootstrapped until it got $49 million from Silversmith Capital Partners last May. Since that time, Appfire has acquired six companies in the Atlassian “ecosystem,” including […]

Noogata, a startup that offers a no-code AI solution for enterprises, today announced that it has raised a $12 million seed round led by Team8, with participation from Skylake Capital. The company, which was founded in 2019 and counts Colgate and PepsiCo among its customers, currently focuses on e-commerce, retail and financial services, but it […]

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers and young adults get on flights each year from India to a foreign land to pursue higher education. Upon landing, they face a myriad of challenges: They don’t have a local credit history, so they can’t avail a range of financial services including a loan or a credit card — […]

Cloud Paper, the startup whose bamboo toilet paper (and celebrity and billionaire backers including Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Marc Benioff, Dara Khosrowshahi, and Mark Cuban) made a splash last year, is getting into the paper towel racket. Starting today, the company is taking pre-orders for its 12 pack boxes of sustainably sourced bamboo paper […]

Malicious hacking has become a pernicious and dogged fact of life for more organizations, and it’s a threat that has seemingly grown more complicated and sophisticated over time. One one effective approach to tackling that has been collaboration: not just applying an array of services to address the issue, but creating environments to help those […]

Meet Resilience, a new startup that wants to help cancer treatment institutes as well as cancer patients at every step of the treatment journey. It’s an ambitious project founded by two well-known French entrepreneurs. They want to leverage their tech skills for this new healthcare startup. Behind the scenes, there are two co-CEOs — Céline Lazorthes […]

Montreal-headquartered Inovia Capital has raised $450 million for Growth Fund II, the firm’s second growth-stage investment fund. The close of this funding comes just a little over two years after the announcement of its first in February 2019, a $400 million pool of investment capital that marked Inovia’s first foray beyond the early stage deals […]

Ikigai, a London fintech founded by former McKinsey partners, thinks there’s room in the crowded challenger market for a new premium offering that combines digital banking with wealth management. Targeting future and present high-net-worth individuals, Ikigai is iOS-only for now and consists of a current account and savings account, with adjacent wealth management features, all […]

SumUp, a London-based startup that helps businesses power revenues through card payments — by way of physical readers, online payments, invoices and other services — is itself powering up in a big way. Today it announced financing totalling €750 million (around $895 million at today’s rates), money that it will be using to continue expanding […]

It is nearly impossible for businesses in some African countries to receive money from PayPal. While the payments giant has not given reasons why this is so, speculation hints at factors like insufficient regulation and poor banking security in said countries. That might be a thing of the past for some businesses as African payments […]

One of the bigger startups in Europe operating a trading platform for cryptocurrency has closed a big round of funding on the heels of very rapid growth and plans to open its platform to a wider stream of assets. Bitpanda, a “neobroker” that wants to make it easier for ordinary people to invest not just […]

Chinese users of the instant messenger Signal knew that the good times wouldn’t last long. The app, which is used for encrypted conversations, is unavailable in mainland China as of the morning of March 16, a test by TechCrunch shows. The website of the app has been banned in mainland China since March 15, according […]