Startups

One thing seems certain: The past year-and-a-half has fundamentally transformed the world of live events. The pandemic left plenty of venues scrambling for alternative revenue streams and, in many cases, shutting down for good. On the flip side, it's been a massive driver for those companies wo

Get ready for a startup throwdown of global proportions (literally). We're the proud hosts of the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals, and the pitch competition action starts tomorrow, July 22 at 9:00 am (PT). Pro housekeeping tip: Attending this virtual pitch fest is 100% free, but you

French startup Spendesk has announced earlier today that it has raised a $118 million funding round (€100 million) led by General Atlantic. Overall, the company has raised $189 million (€160 million) since its inception. Existing investors Index Ventures and Eight Road Ventures participated onc

A new voice-based social app that cites Clubhouse as its biggest inspiration offers a playful new way to stay in touch with close friends and family. Zebra leaves video out of the equation altogether, inviting users to snap on-the-fly photos and send them off paired with casual voice updates. Zebr

Space propulsion developer Accion Systems has closed its most significant funding round yet. The company raised $42 million in a Series C led by Tracker Capital, bringing its valuation to $83.5 million. Along with the investment, Tracker Capital also acquired a majority stake in the company. This l

California-grown automotive software company Sonatus raised $35 million in a Series A round that attracted high-profile technology and automotive industry companies including Hyundai Motor Group’s Kia Corporation, SAIC Capital and LG Electronics. Silicon Valley VC Translink Capital led the ro

Loop Returns, a software company looking to handle the costly and inefficient process of retail/e-commerce returns, has announced the close of a $65 million Series B financing round. The round was led by CRV, with participation from Shopify and Renegade Partners, as well as existing investors First

Coding is not just for engineers and computer programmers anymore: The pace of technology and its growing ubiquity mean that even nontech roles will require workers to have some degree of knowledge to do their jobs in the future. Today a company called Sololearn — which has built a popular mo

An old rule of thumb for building a startup is to find a group of professionals who use spreadsheets to do their work and then build an app to replace their spreadsheet usage. Presto, you have a startup, and perhaps even a new software category. Spreadsheet.com, however, is doing the opposite. Inst

While markets grapple with the concept that the pandemic might not be entirely in the rear view mirror, investors are continuing to seek out investment opportunities outside public markets as they seek to diversify. Vincent, an alternative asset aggregation hub, is hoping to capture some of that in

Stripe, with its $95 blion valuation, has been taking on the payment landscape with a whole platform approach, bringing in dozens of adjacent services to snag a wider and deeper set of customers that use these services by way of APIs. But in the world of so-called “embedded finance” the

DNSFilter, an artificial intelligence startup that provides DNS protection to enterprises, has secured $30 million in Series A funding from Insight Partners. DNSFilter, as its name suggests, offers DNS-based web content filtering and threat protection. Unlike the majority of its competitors, which

Byju's said on Wednesday it has acquired California-headquartered reading platform Epic for $500 million, the latest in a series of moves from India's most valuable startup as it deepens its footprint in the U.S. market. The deal involves both cash and stock, and Epic founders Kevin Donahue

Fetch Package, a last-mile package delivery company for apartment communities, has raised $50 million in a Series C round of funding and closed on a $10 million venture debt facility. Michael Patton founded Fetch in May 2016 after being frustrated by having packages lost at the apartment community