Startups

Temasek and Falcon Edge Capital have led a $220 million investment in Indian omni-channel eyewear retailer Lenskart, valuing the Bangalore-based startup at $2.5 billion. The new investment, which includes primary and secondary transactions, is part of a new round Lenskart unveiled a month ago when

When you hire a marketing consultant, you don’t necessarily expect to wind up discussing your life’s purpose. Yet, that is what Spanish marketing expert and entrepreneur Alex Barrera often ends up doing with startup founders who hire him to help improve their pitch. They think they are

ServiceMax, a company that builds software for the field-service industry, announced yesterday that it will go public via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The transaction comes after ServiceMax was sold to GE for $915 million in 2016, before being sp

Visualping, a service that can help you monitor websites for changes like price drops or other updates, announced that it has raised a $6 million extension to the $2 million seed round it announced earlier this year. The round was led by Seattle-based FUSE, a relatively new firm with investors who

There are many blockchain platforms competing for investors’ and developers’ attention right now, from the big daddy of them all, Ethereum, to so-called “Ethereum Killers” like Solana, which we wrote about in May. Often, these technologies are seen as so promising that inves

Jen Young and Jeff Cavins were sitting in a beige conference room at a downtown Vancouver hotel, wasting away under fluorescent lights, an endless PowerPoint and a pair of sad Styrofoam cups of coffee between them. Young was there on a marketing contract. Cavins was a board member. They shared one

Reliance Retail said on Friday it has acquired a controlling stake in 25-year-old Indian search and discovery firm Just Dial for $469 million. The Indian retail giant, which leads the market, said it has acquired a 41% stake in the publicly listed Just Dial for $469 million and will make an open of

technewss virtually sat down with venture capitalist and Cleo Capital managing director Sarah Kunst at our latest Early Stage event last week. Kunst joined us to chat about preparing for raising capital in today’s frenetic fundraising environment, digging into the gritty mechanics for the au

Vyrill helps brands discover and leverage video reviews created by authentic customers and users. The company presented its product at technewss Early Stage: Marketing & Fundraising, where it beat out nine other companies, winning the pitch-off. The judges were impressed with Vyrill’s no

Yummy, a Venezuela-based delivery app on a mission to create the super app for the country, announced Friday it raised $4 million in funding to expand its dark store delivery operations across Latin America. Funding backers included Y Combinator, Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, Canary, Hustle Fund

Switzerland-based privacy startup Nym Technologies has raised $6 million, which is being loosely pegged as a Series A round. Earlier raises included a $2.5 million seed round in 2019. The founders also took in grant money from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research fund during an earlier

FedEx Express, a subsidiary of delivery services giant FedEx, is investing $100 million in Indian startup Delhivery as the global firm looks to expand its presence in the South Asian country. Friday’s investment comes less than two months after the Gurgaon-headquartered startup, which is valu

American Express is branching out into financial planning, with a little help from a seven-person startup called BodesWell. This week, the credit card giant launched a pilot of its first self-service digital financial planning tool, dubbed “My Financial Plan (MFP).” The six-month pilot kicked o

At the technewss Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising event last week, Norwest Venture Partners‘ Lisa Wu took the stage to discuss how founders can think like venture capitalists in all facets of their business. The overlapping in job roles is uncanny: The best investors and founders have