Startups

Indian food delivery giant Swiggy has hired bankers as it gears up for an initial public offering next year, a source familiar with the matter said. The startup, which was valued at $10.7 billion in its Series K financing in January this year, is looking to raise as much as $1 billion in the IPO, w

Spotify and Discord both appear to be down. technewssers and the Twittersphere alike are experiencing difficulty logging in to Spotify. Folks are reporting on Twitter that opening the Spotify app on mobile leads to a login flow, but even the correct username and password results in a failed attemp

Hotel payment software provider Selfbook has completed a $15 million extension of its Series A financing that values the company at $300 million. Tiger Global Management led the extension, as well as the company's $25 million Series A in October. At that time, New York-based Selfbook was valued

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is one of the hottest, fastest-growing areas within crypto. An estimated 4 million-plus people worldwide have invested in DeFi products, according to data from Dune Analytics. The total value of assets locked in the DeFi ecosystem is worth over $100 billion today. The

Chipmaking giant Nvidia is investing $10 million in Uber spinout Serve Robotics, funds the startup will use to further expand its sidewalk delivery robot service outside Los Angeles and San Francisco. The investment – Nvidia’s first in the sidewalk delivery space – is part of a long-term

Having held the positions of CFO at digital lenders OnDeck and Better.com, Howard Katzenberg experienced firsthand just what a lack of visibility into company spend could cost an organization. After spending three weeks analyzing spreadsheets at one point, Katzenberg and his team were able to ident

Much of the technology attention lately has been paid to e-commerce companies, driven in large part by brick-and-mortar stores having to close for some time during the global pandemic. However, some companies, like retail technology company Swiftly, want to give those retailers a chance to capture

Anglophone East Africa is home to over 400 million people, with half under 25. The region happens to be one of the fastest-growing globally; nevertheless, over 200 million people in East Africa do not have access to a bank account or mobile money. But those who do risk facing inflation, a regional

Saltbox, a company providing co-working and warehousing space for up-and-coming e-commerce businesses, said it is working with Fundrise, a real estate investment firm, to expand nationally. We covered Saltbox's $10.6 million Series A round last year and spoke to CEO Tyler Scriven about the comp

Una Brands, a Singapore-based e-commerce aggregator, has partnered with South Korean peer KlickBrands to expand its footprint in South Korea.  The strategic partnership will help South Korean e-commerce brands grow domestically and make inroads into more countries in Asia. Una, one of the larges

While working her way through grad school, Opaper founder Joan McIntosh ran an online bakery. “I would wake up at 3 a.m., 4 a.m., go to a commercial kitchen and go door to door, delivering food or putting it in grocery stores.” After graduating, McIntosh's professional life became decidedly

Amazon-owned robotaxi firm Zoox this week announced that it has acquired Strio.AI. The Boston-based robotics startup was founded in 2020 by MIT alumns to bring autonomous picking and pruning to strawberry crops. It got up and running quickly during the pandemic, bringing its first prototype system

To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Monday, March 7, 2022! We have a packed newsletter today, so get hype for a news digest. But, first, Early Stage is next

In robotics, the remarkable often feels at odds with the practical. The Cassie robot captured the internet's imagination (ours included) when it debuted in 2017 through a series of Oregon State University YouTube videos. It was one of the most exciting examples of robotics engineering since Bos