Startups

In a large win for the Korean startup ecosystem, dating powerhouse Match Group announced this afternoon that it would buy social networking company Hyperconnect for a combined cash and stock deal valued at $1.73 billion. Hyperconnect, which is projected to have $200 million in revenue in 2020 (up 5

The pandemic has upended many aspects of urban life but perhaps the most visible upheaval is to citydwellers’ social lives, with curfews calling time on traditional night life across much of the Western world and social distancing putting a chilly spin on opportunities for getting together wi

Reddit raises more funding, Shopify expands payments to Facebook and a study suggests that the Apple Watch might be able to predict COVID diagnoses. This is your Daily Crunch for February 9, 2021. The big story: Reddit raises $250M This latest funding announcement comes after Reddit

LiveRamp has acquired DataFleets, a fresh young startup that made it possible to take advantage of large volumes of encrypted data without the risk or fuss of decrypting or transferring it. LiveRamp, an enterprise data connectivity platform itself, paid more than $68 million for the company, a huge

The commercial real estate industry is facing its share of challenges, considering the fact that so many people are working from home (and not in offices) and retail is riding a slippery slope as more people shop online. But from downturns, opportunity emerges. Enter OptioLend, a ne

Once upon a time, the idea of 3D-printed homes felt like a thing of the future. But as housing gets less and less affordable — especially in ultra-expensive markets such as the Bay Area — companies are getting creative in their quest to build more affordable homes using technology.

Jüsto, an online supermarket based in Mexico City, announced Tuesday it has raised $65 million in a Series A round led by General Atlantic. The amount is sizable for a Series A in general, but supersized for a LatAm startup. In fact, according to PitchBook data cited by General Atlantic, the round

Zeta co-founder Aditi Shekar has spent the past three years tracking the ways couples share and manage their finances, from each card swipe to every split bill. Her effort led to tens of thousands of couples signing up for a free budgeting app experiment. Today, those learnings have been formed int

I have a confession to make: My company fell short of its DEI goal in 2020. Heading into the year, our goal was to build a workforce that's 44% women and 14% underrepresented people (URP). We made some strides, but currently those figures are 43% and 13%, respectively. Here'

Nextmv, a platform that optimizes and tests decision models for logistics companies, announced the close of an $8 million Series A round earlier today. FirstMark, an existing investor, doubled down on nextmv and led the Series A. Other investors include GitHub CTO Jason Warner, Seamless founder Jas

This morning Monte Carlo, a startup focused on helping other companies better monitor their data inflows, announced that it has closed a $25 million Series B. The round, which was co-led by GGV and Redpoint, comes mere months after its September Series A that was worth $15 million. Accel led the co

One of the original startups that set out to create a low-Earth orbit satellite constellation to provide a data network here on Earth is now open for business: Swarm, which now operates 81 of its sandwich-sized satellites on orbit, announced today that its network service is live and available to c

Discovery and research of new molecular compounds is an expensive business, with development costs exceeding $10 billion per substance in some cases. Part of that comes from the need to closely examine every relevant molecule, studying its chemical composition and interactions as well as its physic

Emergency response services have been one of the unsung heroes of the last chaotic year, providing essential and urgent medical and other assistance during a period that has faced not just the usual run of natural and man-made disasters, but a global health pandemic to boot. Today, a startup that i