Snapchat revamps creator payouts by offering chance to win prizes with Spotlight Challenges

As competition for creator talent heats up, Snap today introduced a series of new tools, programs and features that will enable creators on its platform to generate revenue. These include the expansion of a Gifting feature to worldwide creators, the expansion of the Creator Marketplace to include S

Y Combinator-backed CostCertified lands $8.45M to build the ‘Amazon for construction’

CostCertified, a Canadian startup which provides real-time, interactive residential construction estimates, raised $8.45 million in a seed round of funding. FUSE, a Pacific Northwest venture firm which counts former Microsoft CFO John Connors and Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner as venture

Vlad Novakovski and Nicole Quinn to elucidate Series A fundraising

Vlad Novakovski co-founded Lunchclub in 2017 as a way to improve professional networking. In 2020, the company made a large push toward videos (thanks, COVID) and eventually saw enough traction to raise a $24.2 million Series A at a valuation above $100 million. Nicole Quinn from Lightspeed Venture

Getting the details right in your pitch deck

VCs read pitch decks extremely quickly, which means that every detail holds the potential to get them to double down on a startup or just pass altogether. While crafting the high-level narrative is critical, of course, founders can't skimp on the details either. That's why every Disrupt, w

The Athletic’s numbers look fine actually?

The Information broke some neat news earlier this week about The Athletic, the subscription sports media website that has raised lots of money and, per the report, spent lots of it. While we have all become inured to a degree regarding losses at quickly growing, venture-backed companies, seeing a m

On the heels of IBM partnership, Celonis announces one with ServiceNow

Celonis, the late-stage processing mining startup with a gaudy $11 billion valuation, announced a new partnership today, this one with ServiceNow. Celonis co-founder and CEO Alexander Rinke says that he and ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott go back a long way, and that working together should provide b

GM, General Electric agree to develop rare earth materials used in EV manufacturing

In yet another sign that automakers are determined to get ahead of the supply chain curve, General Motors said Wednesday it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with General Electric for the supply of rare earth materials, the kind used to manufacture electric vehicles and clean energy eq

Copper Banking adds $9M in funding as digital banks clamor for teen customers

Copper Banking, a digital banking service aimed at teens, announced today it has raised a total of $13.3 million in seed funding. PSL Ventures, an arm of Pioneer Square Labs, led a $4.3 million raise for Seattle-based Copper last year and an additional $9 million this year. Other investors in the f

Matter raises $7 million Series A to build a better reading app

A startup called Matter, which aims to build a better reading app for today’s internet, is launching out of private beta testing and announcing the close of its $7 million Series A, led by GV (formerly Google Ventures.) The app enters a space where technologies for saving articles to read lat

Spotify’s podcast creation tool Anchor gains access to the company’s larger audio ad network

Earlier this year, Spotify introduced its new audio advertising marketplace, the Spotify Audience Network, which allows advertisers to reach audiences across Spotify’s ad-supported music and original and exclusive podcast programs, as well as third-party podcasts from Megaphone publishers, al

Alphabet’s Wing tests drone deliveries from shopping center rooftops in Australia

Alphabet subsidiary Wing has launched a pilot program that will have its drones fly products from the rooftops of shopping centers. In fact, it has already started the program in its biggest market, Logan, Australia. The subsidiary has teamed up with Australian retail property group, Vicinity Centr

Twitch confirms hack after source code and creator payout data leaks online

A huge cache of source code repositories, creator payouts and other internal data from Twitch has been published online after a data breach, the company has confirmed. In a post on Tuesday (but which was widely circulated on Wednesday), a leaker claims to have taken the video game streaming giant&#

‘Metroid: Dread’ is a tense and fluid return to form for Nintendo’s enduring series

Nintendo seems as unable to let go of its decades-old franchises as it is unwilling to stop reinventing them. But in Metroid: Dread the company has acknowledged that sometimes it really is better not to mess with a good thing. The game’s traditional approach may not move the genre forward lik

Mindee's API automagically parses documents without manual data entry

Mindee offers an API that lets you turn raw data in a paper document into structured data. The startup is coming out of stealth mode and has raised a $14 million Series A round led by GGV Capital. Other investors in today's funding round include Alven, Serena Capital, Bpifrance's Digital Ve