H Venture Partners closes $10M debut fund targeting science-based brands
H Venture Partners brought together more than 75 consumer and retail industry experts to invest in its first fund, raising $10 million aimed at consumer brand startups backed by science.
Founder and Managing Partner Elizabeth Edwards (pictured above) formed the Cincinnati-based venture capital firm
Clearco gets the SoftBank stamp of approval in new $215M round
Toronto-based Clearco, a fintech capital provider for online companies, has raised $215 million in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund II. The financing event closed just weeks after Clearco completed its most recent financing, a $100 million round that quintupled its valuation to $2 billion.
Clear
Smile Identity raises $7M to build KYC and identity verification tools for Africa
An estimated one billion people worldwide face the challenge of proving who they are, according to a World Bank Group report that states that 81% of this number live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia without official proof of identity.
It’s no news that Africans spend an inordinate amount
Indian social commerce DealShare raises $144 million, eyes international expansion
High-profile investors are doubling down on their bets to explore the future of social commerce in India. DealShare said on Thursday it has raised $144 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its presence in the South Asian market and eye opportunities in international markets.
The n
Indian edtech Teachmint raises $20 million to expand to new categories and geographies
As most Indian edtech startups work on broadening their catalog with live and recorded courses for students, some are beginning to take a different approach to tackle the South Asian nation’s large education market.
Teachmint, a one-year-old startup, is betting on empowering teachers to creat
Younited Credit raises $170 million for its data-driven credit offering
French startup Younited Credit has raised a $170 million funding round. Goldman Sachs is leading the round with existing investors Eurazeo, Bpifrance and AG2R La Mondiale also participating. The company offers several credit products to European consumers. It also has a diversified distribution str
Indonesian edtech startup Gredu raises $4M Series A to keep teachers, parents and students engaged with one another
Many teachers and parents in Indonesia rely on WhatsApp to keep in touch, creating “multiple groups that often become messy and highly ineffective, and result in confusion or lost threads,” says Rizky Aniez, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Gredu. The Jakarta-based startup was crea
Google faces a major multi-state antitrust lawsuit over Google Play fees
A group of 37 attorneys general filed a second major multi-state antitrust lawsuit against Google Wednesday, accusing the company of abusing its market power to stifle competitors and forcing consumers into in-app payments that grant the company a hefty cut.
New York Attorney General Letitia James
TikTok wants you to send video resumes directly to brands to land your next gig
A new pilot program from TikTok would inject a little LinkedIn into the youthful video-based social network.
TikTok announced that, starting today, it will invite users to submit video resumes to participating companies, including Target, Chipotle, Shopify, Meredith, NASCAR and the WWE. The company
BMW is finally producing its retro-futuristic CE 04 electric scooter, but at $12K will anyone buy it?
We’ve been hearing about BMW’s electric city scooters, not to be confused with electric kick scooters, for years. The German automaker came out with the BMW Motorrad Concept Link in 2017, a concept vehicle that imagines the future of expensive micromobility. After revealing the latest c
Daily Crunch: Indian startups raised a record $10.46 billion in the first half of 2021
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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 7, 2021! Today was a doozy, with everything from global startup fundraising news to frivolous lawsuits attacking tech c
European challenger bank Bunq raises $228 million at $1.9 billion valuation
Amsterdam-based challenger bank Bunq has been self-funded by its founder and CEO Ali Niknam for several years. But the company has decided to raise some external capital, leading to the largest Series A round for a European fintech company.
The startup is raising $228 million (€193 million) in a
Navigating ad fraud and consumer privacy abuse in programmatic advertising
Programmatic advertising is a $200 billion global marketplace that is rapidly growing and far-reaching, with Connected TV (CTV) serving as its latest accelerant. Unfortunately, however, it's also a business sector rife with fraud and consumer privacy abuse, particularly in emerging media forms
Kobo Elipsa review: A sized-up e-reading companion with clever note taking
Kobo’s Elipsa is the latest in the Amazon rival’s e-reading line, and it’s a big one. The 10.3-inch e-paper display brings it up to iPad dimensions and puts it in direct competition with the reMarkable and Boox’s e-reader tablets. It excels on reading experience, gets by on