SmartSuite raises $38M to be the final word on enterprise collaboration

Three founders who built out one of the bigger startups in risk management are scaling a new company to take on another pain point in the world of work. SmartSuite‘s platform lets teams collaborate on projects, build automations around that work, and search and access work across larger libr

Hyperlume wants to make chip-to-chip communication faster and more efficient

Data centers consumed 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and are estimated to use up to 12% by 2028. The majority of the energy that data centers suck up is used to help transfer data from chip to chip. A company called Hyperlume is looking to make that process more energy-efficient while also speedi

Fintech fundraising is giving me 2021 flashbacks

Welcome to technewss Fintech!  This week we're looking at some big valuation jumps, how Stripe is eyeing another shareholder sale, a colorful conversation with an early-stage VC, and more! To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important fintech stories

Phase raises $13M to speed up the UX design process with its no-code platform

UX and UI designers work closely with engineers throughout product development to build and implement design concepts and wireframes for functional user interfaces. Regular communication, feedback, and testing are required for the collaboration to work smoothly and deliver a user experience that al

SpotDraft taps AI to help streamline contract management

More and more legal professionals are embracing AI, surveys show. Per a recent poll from legal tech company Clio, 79% of firms used some form of AI for casework last year, up from just 19% in 2023. Despite some skepticism of the tech, in-house counsel has shown an interest, as well, with one survey

Voyantis aims to help companies figure out their customers’ worth

How much is a customer worth to a company? That’s the eternal question. To arrive at an answer, customer and sales teams are often forced to use spreadsheets and other manual data analysis methods. The problem is, these methods tend to be slow and error-prone, leading to gaps in reporting pro

Laurene Powell Jobs joins Amazon in backing nuclear startup X-Energy in $700M round

Nuclear startup X-Energy has added $200 million to an existing $500 million Series C round. The small module reactor specialist previously announced a deal with Amazon in October, which included an investment and development agreements to build 300 megawatts’ worth of nuclear power plants in

Cherry Ventures raises a new $500M fund for early-stage and beyond, but will it be enough?

It's sometimes said that European VC doesn't have the firepower to compete with VCs in the U.S., which regularly raise billion-dollar+ funds these days. Perhaps further evidence of this view persists in the news that Berlin-based Cherry Ventures has closed its latest fund at $500 million, t

Krafton leads Cashfree’s $53M funding at $700M valuation

Cashfree, an Indian payments startup that facilitates and processes more than $80 billion for its customers each year, has raised $53 million in a new round of funding as it gears up to deepen its presence in some international markets. Krafton, maker of sleeper hit titles such as PUBG and BGMI, l

Miist, founded by a 25-year-old, wants people to vape their way out of smoking addiction and migraines

As a university student, Dalton Signor was troubled by how many people around him smoked or vaped, including his grandmother and 14-year-old sister. Signor (pictured center) felt that existing smoking-cessation medicines, whether patches, gums, or lozenges, are not very effective because they take

ElevenLabs, the hot AI audio startup, confirms $180M in Series C funding at a $3.3B valuation

ElevenLabs, one of the more popular startups working in the field of AI audio, said Thursday that it has raised a Series C round of $180 million, valuing the company at $3.3 billion post-money. a16z and ICONIQ Growth are co-leading the investment. Rumors of the fundraise were first reported by Tec

Solar startup Niko is building Mexico's first virtual power plant

When Edoardo Dellepiane and Raffaele Sertorio founded Niko Energy in 2023, they saw ample opportunity in Mexico's underdeveloped solar market. Despite the fact that many parts of the country are bathed in sunlight, it has strikingly few solar installations. After more than a year of helping so

Automattic and others back Openvibe, an app that’s unifying the open social web

Openvibe’s clever app that integrates multiple open social networks, including Bluesky, Mastodon, Nostr, and Threads, just got a boost toward its future development. The company on Tuesday announced that it has received outside investment of $800,000 in a round led by Czech Founders VC, which

Geek Ventures, a fund that specializes in backing immigrant founders, is raising a second fund

Geek Ventures is raising a Fund II, according to a recent SEC filing.  The firm, founded in 2021 by Ihar Mahaniok, focuses on investing in early-stage immigrant founders. Mahaniok immigrated to the U.S. from Belarus and spoke to technewss a few years ago about how hard the venture ecosystem can