Explosion snags $6M on $120M valuation to expand machine learning platform

Explosion, a company that has combined an open source machine learning library with a set of commercial developer tools, announced a $6 million Series A today on a $120 million valuation. The round was led by SignalFire, and the company reported that today’s investment represents 5% of its va

FTC bans spyware maker SpyFone, and orders it to notify hacked victims

The Federal Trade Commission has unanimously voted to ban the spyware maker SpyFone and its chief executive Scott Zuckerman from the surveillance industry, the first order of its kind, after the agency accused the company of harvesting mobile data on thousands of people and leaving it on the open i

Point raises $46.5 million for its premium debit card

Challenger bank Point has raised a $46.5 million Series B funding round. The company offers an account associated with a debit card. And the startup positions itself as a premium debit card company and tries to offer credit card rewards with debit cards. Existing investor Peter Thiel’s Valar

Station F launches FemTech Program on its startup campus

Paris-based startup megacampus Station F is announcing a new program for early-stage startups looking for opportunities to join the Station F community — the FemTech Program. With this new program, the Station F team wants to put a spotlight on femtech startups and make it easier to start a femte

HomeLight closes on $100M Series D at a $1.6B valuation as revenue surges

HomeLight, which operates a real estate technology platform, announced today that it has secured $100 million in a Series D round of funding and $263 million in debt financing. Return backer Zeev Ventures led the equity round, which also included participation from Group 11, Stereo Capital, Menlo V

YouTravel.Me packs up $1M to match travelers with curated small group adventures

YouTravel.Me is the latest startup to grab some venture capital dollars as the travel industry gets back on its feet amid the global pandemic. Over the past month, we've seen companies like Thatch raise $3 million for its platform aimed at travel creators, travel tech company Hopper bring in $1

Pancake aims to make customers flip for its virtual home design platform

Pancake brought in a $350,000 seed round to develop its home design platform that leverages furniture you already have in your home with a designer's fresh eye on your space. Maria Jose Castro, Roberto Meza and Alfredo Enciso, all from Costa Rica, started the company in 2020, based on their own

All the reasons why you should launch a credit or debit card

Over the previous two or three years we've seen an explosion of new debit and credit card products come to market from consumer and B2B fintech startups, as well as companies that we might not traditionally think of as players in the financial services industry. On the consumer side, that means

Pixalate tunes into $18.1M for fraud prevention in television, mobile advertising

Pixalate raised $18.1 million in growth capital for its fraud protection, privacy and compliance analytics platform that monitors connected television and mobile advertising. Western Technology Investment and Javelin Venture Partners led the latest funding round, which brings Pixalate's total f

WhatsApp faces $267M fine for breaching Europe’s GDPR

It’s been a long time coming but Facebook is finally feeling some heat from Europe’s much trumpeted data protection regime: Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has just announced a €225 million (~$267 million) fine for WhatsApp. The Facebook-owned messaging app has been u

Corelight secures $75M Series D to bolster its network defense offering

Corelight, a San Francisco-based startup that claims to offer the industry's first open network detection and response (NDR) platform, has raised $75 million in Series D investment led by Energy Impact Partners.  The round — which also includes a strategic investment from Capital One Venture

Callin, David Sacks’ ‘social podcasting’ app, launches and announces a $12M Series A round

As live audio becomes more and more popular, co-founders David Sacks (former COO of PayPal and CEO of Yammer) and Axel Ericsson sought to combine social audio and podcasting into one seamless app. The resulting app — Callin — launches today on iOS with an announcement of $12 million in

India launches Account Aggregator to extend financial services to millions

India's top banks five years ago built the interoperable UPI rails and enabled over 150 million people in the South Asian market to pay digitally. Scores of firms — including local firms Paytm, PhonePe, CRED and international giants Google and Facebook — in India today support the U

FAA opens probe into anomaly on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceflight

""> The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into an anomaly on the Virgin Galactic flight that carried Richard Branson to space. In a piece discussing not just that particular flight but the company’s various safety issues throughout the years, The New Yorker explained that Virgin’