Clay debuts a new tool to help people better manage their business and personal relationships

A new startup called Clay, backed by $8 million in seed funding, has built a system designed to help you be more thoughtful with the people in your life, which operates somewhat like a personal CRM. With Clay, you build a collection of the people you meet by connecting your email and calendar with

Kocomo raises millions to give people a way to co-own a luxury vacation home

Who doesn't want a vacation home? Right. That's what I thought. Kocomo is a Mexico City-based startup that wants to help make that dream a reality. And it has just closed on $6 million equity and $50 million debt financing to advance on that goal. The company aims to allow f

Ideanomics to buy EV fleet maker Via Motors in $450M all-stock deal

Ideanomics, a fintech and electric mobility firm based in New York, has added to its list of acquisitions: commercial electric vehicle manufacturer Via Motors (in an all-stock deal valued at $450 million). Ideanomics has been aggressively purchasing mobility businesses this year, as it seeks to bui

Brazil’s Petlove raises $150M from Riverwood, SoftBank to sell pet products and services online

Petlove&Co, a São Paulo-based digital platform for products and services for the pet market, announced today that it has raised about $150 million (R$750 million) in a funding round led by Riverwood Capital. The round is nearly double that of what Petlove has raised in its history. The company

The Station: Rivian makes its IPO move, Nuro pushes into Nevada and Waymo scales up in SF

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every weekend in your inbox. Hello readers: Welcome to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point

Alpaca raises $50M to rapidly scale its API-delivered equities trading business

Alpaca said this morning that it has closed a massive $50 million Series B round of capital. technewss previously covered the company’s late-2019 $6 million seed round and its late-2020 $10 million Series A. Alpaca offers equities trading software via API. The company initially allowed firm

Russell Westbrook, Chainsmokers join group pouring $13.5M into prebiotic soda brand Poppi

Poppi, a prebiotic soda brand, closed $13.5 million in a Series A2 round and is on a mission to lead in the new category of “functional soda” by offering a better-for-you product that also tastes good. The investment was led by CAVU Ventures and included sports and entertainment celebrities lik

Ragnarok ransomware gang shuts down and releases its decryption key

Ragnarok, a ransomware gang operational since 2019 that gained notoriety after launching attacks against unpatched Citrix ADC servers, has shut down and released a free decryption key for its victims. The gang, sometimes referred to as Asnarok, last week replaced all 12 of the victims listed on its

Flip bags $28M to turn beauty, wellness social commerce on its head

Social commerce startup Flip is mixing live commerce mobile apps with real customer reviews to improve the buying experience and opportunity for the creator economy. Today, the Los Angeles-based company closed on a $28 million Series A led Streamlined Ventures. Nooruldeen “Noor” Agha, a serial

Thatch using $3M round to put travel creators on the map

After a difficult year, the travel industry is gaining steam again this summer and Thatch is carving out a space for itself in the sector by enabling travel creators to monetize their recommendations. Today the company announced a $3 million Seed II round led by Wave Capital. They were joined by Fr

Xayn launches a desktop version of its ad-free, privacy-safe search

Berlin-based Xayn, which as we reported last year is doing ad-free, personalized, privacy-safe search as an alternative to tracking and profiling adtech giants like Google, has expanded its product offering — launching a desktop version (in beta for now). The desktop Xayn WebBeta is describe

China restricts kids' online gaming to three hours a week

China's National Press and Publication Administration has released a notice imposing limits on online gaming for minors. On September 1st, video game companies will have to restrict gaming time to three hours a week — from 8 PM to 9 PM on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. With this new set of rest

HAAS Alert raises $5M seed round to scale its automotive collision prevention system

HAAS Alert, a SaaS company that provides real-time automotive collision prevention for public safety and roadway fleets, has raised $5 million in seed funding that the company says it will use to scale sales and outreach efforts and prioritize R&D with vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastr

Astra’s first commercial launch fails to reach orbit

Astra, now a public company, ran into a problem during its first commercial launch (the mission carried a test payload contracted by the U.S. Space Force as part of its Space Test Program) that meant the rocket never made it to orbit. On Saturday, the rocket ignited all its engines at liftoff time