Travel experiences marketplace Withlocals picks up $4.2M in Series A funding
Withlocals, the the Netherlands-based startup that operates a marketplace for personalised travel experiences, has raised $4.2 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Inkef Capital, the Amsterdam-headquartered VC firm. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/FTC3lW8g7-0/
Ola raises $1.1B led by Tencent to fuel battle with Uber in India
It’s been a long while coming but Uber’s chief rival in India is finally raising a big round, and joining the billion-dollar round club at the same time. Ola today announced that it has closed $1.1 billion in fresh financing. That’s the largest funding round in the company’s six-year history and its first major raise since November 2015 when it closed $500 million… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/bdMZDDJpYtI/
Blue Apron competitor HelloFresh planning to raise up to $353 million in IPO
HelloFresh, the Berlin-based cooking kit delivery company, revealed that it’s planning to raise up to $353 million in an IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The move would value HelloFresh at up to 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in the public markets. This is below the last private market valuation of 2 billion euros.
The IPO may come as a surprise to some, following the lackluster… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/wT7cyao5dGQ/
Cap table apps team up as Solium acquires Capshare
Uber, SpaceX and Stripe rely on Solium to keep track of all their shareholders and stock plans; 10,000 smaller startups turn to Capshare for more streamlined equity software that’s not clumsy like spreadsheets. Now Solium is buying out Capshare and letting it run independently, so together they can handle shareholder management from inception to IPO. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/1f9WqJ51Qvg/
Bigscreen nabs $11M in funding as it looks to build the perfect virtual movie-watching app
Big screens apparently mean big money. Virtual reality remote desktop app Bigscreen has added $11 million in Series A funding to its pocketbooks as it looks to weather some waning investor interest in VR and build up its technologies while the VR headset market builds itself up. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/0tkBvvScBes/
$3 million round for Vyng proves ringtones are still a thing
Sometimes the journey to success and millions of dollars in venture funding can start with nothing more than a Mexican road trip and crashing a cat convention’s film festival. That’s the story of Vyng, which has closed a round of $3 million after two years spent working on its technology that allows users to use personalized videos that appear on lock screens as ringtones. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/ISabAvQfnmY/
Dow Jones said that Google was buying Apple, and the bots bought it
There you have it. Steve Jobs’ will + Dow Jones + Apple Park = Google’s buying Apple. I think we finally have algorithmic transparency. This morning Dow Jones shot some fake news out over the wires announcing that Google was acquiring Apple for $9 billion. For a brief second, the news sent Apple’s stock up about $2 to $158 per share. Both stock prices quickly returned to normal. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/W_iMiIDUqDA/
HandUp, the startup that helps homeless people, has been acquired
In slightly bittersweet news, startup HandUp is selling itself to the Detroit-based South Oakland Shelter. This isn’t your typical Silicon Valley exit where the founders and investors made a bunch of money. HandUp CEO Rose Broome described it to me as a “primary philanthropic acquisition.” But it’s still a solid outcome for a startup that operates as a public benefit… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/oDpxszA6ckg/
Used car buying site Carspring goes quiet after Rocket Internet pulls investment
Carspring, the London and Berlin-based startup that makes it easy to buy a used car, has gone quiet, amid reports that its recent £5 million in Series B funding fell through. According to sources, Rocket Internet has pulled its investment in the company, which it co-founded with ex-McKinsey management consultants Peter Baumgart and Maximilian Vollenbroich. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/v8y04w0Bc4I/
Petuum secures $93M Series B to push AI into the mainstream
With a shortage of machine learning developers bearing down on the industry, startups and big tech companies alike are moving to democratize the tools necessary to commercialize artificial intelligence. The latest startup, Petuum, is announcing a $93 million Series B this morning from Softbank and Advantech Capital.
Founded last year by Dr. Eric Xing, a Carnegie Mellon machine learning… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/fmbYIFfinsU/
Airbnb’s major China rival Tujia raises $300M more at a $1.5B valuation
Airbnb finally got serious about the Chinese market this year, and now its chief rival in the country — Tujia — has tapped investors for $300 million more to sharpen its focus on global markets.
The new funding values Tujia at $1.5 billion, the startup confirmed. That’s a big jump on the $1 billion it commanded when it last raised in 2015, but the company is going to the… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/hBRHAwpYXfs/
Vertex Ventures closes new $210M fund for Southeast Asia and India
Vertex Ventures, one of the VC funds linked to Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, has closed its third investment fund for Southeast Asia and India with a total of $210 million for investment. Vertex Venture Holdings operates five funds across the world, which include vehicles focused on the U.S., Israel and healthcare. This is the third installment of its fund for India and Southeast… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/gP7I3s0XmI0/
Verve scores $18.5M to reward you for selling tickets to friends
Verve, the U.K, startup formerly known as StreetTeam that offers a sales platform to enable brands to easily run advocacy programs, has picked up $18.5 million is Series B funding. The round is being led by publicly-listed VC Draper Esprit, with participation from previous investors Kindred, Frontline Ventures, and Backed. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/qIC02VIU8JE/
Google acquires Relay Media to convert ordinary web pages to AMP pages
AMP — Google’s collaborative project to speed up the loading time for mobile web pages — is getting an interesting acceleration of its own today. Relay Media, a company founded by an ex-Googler that had developed technology to help covert web pages to the AMP format, has been acquired by Google. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/bSpZZWQ7M6c/
Laundryheap, a London-based laundry startup bootstrapped for three years, raises £2M
Laundryheap is a London-headquartered laundry on-demand startup that has taken a different path to competitors such as Laundrapp and Rocket Internet’s Zipjet. Rather than raise VC funding, the company, which claims to already be break even and is operational in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin and Dubai, has been entirely bootstrapped over the last three years. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/EQ7o5Bedv8w/
Cruise acquires Strobe to help dramatically reduce LiDAR costs
Cruise, the self-driving car startup GM acquired last year, has acquired a startup of its own – Strobe, a LiDAR sensor maker that reduces an entire LiDAR array down to just one chip, which Cruise says will be instrumental in helping it reduce the cost of LiDAR on a per vehicle basis by nearly 100 percent. The cost issue is a big one: LiDAR remains one of the single most expensive… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/zVP2eQxwV7k/
GitLab raises $20M Series C round led by GV
GitLab, a collaboration and DevOps platform for developers that’s currently in use by more than 100,000 organizations, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series C round led by GV (the fund you may still remember under its former name of Google Ventures). This brings GitLab’s total funding to date to just over $45.5 million. In addition to the new funding, the… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/o9n3Q4D-aeY/
Should VCs be investing in beauty brands?
In the last two years, Unilever acquired Carver Korea for $2.7 billion. Estee Lauder purchased Too Faced Cosmetics for $1.45 billion. CVC Capital Brands bought PDC Brands for $1.43 billion. L’Oreal purchased a trio of skincare brands for $1.3 billion, and also IT Cosmetics for $1.2 billion. E.l.f. Beauty did an IPO.
Venture capitalists didn’t invest in any of these beauty… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/nf9p4CvKy-U/
Switch finishes up 22% in data center IPO
Las Vegas-based data center operator Switch went public on the New York Stock Exchange today, under the ticker “SWCH.”
After pricing its IPO above the proposed range at $17, the company closed at $20.73, up almost 22 percent. The company raised $531 million in its offering. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/1deLC4OJie4/
Flexport’s epic plan to build a freight empire with its $110M raise
“We’re actually out here trying to create value, not just give venture capital money away” says Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen. “It’s counterintuitive. The more the business works, the more cash it needs.” That’s because Flexport doesn’t ship bits, it ships atoms. Lots of them. Flexport is a freight forwarding logistics network. If you produce a… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/fundings-exits/~3/gcELIUj5lQ8/ Source: https://techcrunch.com/
