Private equity firm Apollo to buy Verizon Media assets for $5B, will rename business ‘Yahoo’

Following several days of negotiation and rumors, Verizon today announced that it has entered an agreement to sell its media assets to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. Apollo will be paying Verizon $4.25 billion in cash, along with preferred interests of $750 million, an

Path Robotics raises $56M Series B for automated welding

Columbus, Ohio-based firm Path Robotics today announced the completion of a $56 million Series B. The round, led by Addition (featuring Drive Capital, Basis Set and Lemnos Lab) brings the robotic welding company's total funding to $71 million. Adding another piece to the broader automated manuf

Facebook rolls out vaccine finder tool in India, donates $10 million

Facebook has announced a $10 million grant to support emergency response efforts in India and has rolled out its Vaccine Finder tool in the country as the South Asian nation grapples with the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The American social network said that it has partnered with a numb

Wealthsimple raises $610M at a $4B valuation

Canadian fintech giant Wealthsimple has raised a new round of $750 million CAD (~$610 million) at a post-money valuation of $5 billion CAD (~$4 billion). The round was led by Meritech and Greylock, and includes funding from Inovia, Sagard and Redpoint, Two Sigma Ventures, TCV, as well as individual

Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup with plans to become a global F&B company, closes $13M Series A

Hangry, an Indonesian cloud kitchen startup that wants to become a global food and beverage company, has raised a $13 million Series A. The round was led by returning investor Alpha JWC Ventures and included participation from Atlas Pacific Capital, Salt Ventures and Heyokha Brothers. It will be us

Bibit raises another growth round led by Sequoia Capital India, this time for $65M

Four months after leading a $30 million growth round in Bibit, Sequoia Capital India has doubled down on its investment in the Indonesian robo-advisor app. Bibit announced today that the firm led a new $65 million growth round that also included participation from Prosus Ventures, Tencent, Harvard

Gillmor Gang: Walk the Dinosaur

Clubhouse hosted another excellent conversation between Josh Constine and Facebook’s audio czar Fidji Simo. The format continues to sparkle, as I was once again forced to choose between MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell and just plain audio. JPA won going away. The talk

How did Atlanta become a top breeding ground for billion-dollar startups in the Southeast?

Over the past five years, the Southeastern region, led by Atlanta, has gone from being “one of the best kept secrets” in tech, to a vibrant ecosystem teeming with a herd of the billion dollar tech businesses that are referred to in the investment world as “unicorns” (thanks

Data was the new oil, until the oil caught fire

We've been hearing how “data is the new oil” for more than a decade now, and in certain sectors, it's a maxim that has more than panned out. From marketing and logistics to finance and product, decision-making is now dominated by data at all levels of most big private orgs (and if it is

Emotional marketing and an e-mail titan walk into a bar

My mom cuts to the chase when she is describing my beat to others. In her words, I cover companies like Uber before they become companies like Uber. And honestly? I can't exactly disagree with the description. The best feeling in tech journalism is telling a story about a startup before it beco

Is Washington prepared for a geopolitical ‘tech race’?

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sat down with Chinese officials in Anchorage, Alaska for the first high-level bilateral summit of the new administration, it was not a typical diplomatic meeting. Instead of a polite but restrained diplomatic exchang

The most disastrous sales cycle in the world

Startups constantly talk about being mission-oriented, but it's hard to take most of those messages seriously when the mission is optimizing cash flow for tax efficiency. However, a new generation of startups is emerging that are taking on some of the largest global challenges and bringing the

Can speculative fiction teach us anything in a world this crazy?

There’s an old saw from Mark Twain about how truth is stranger than fiction, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve lived through a very strange reality this past year. With all the chaos and change, we’re led to a foundational question: what’s the purpose of speculative f

Early bird extension gives you more time to save on passes to TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing and Fundraising

Startup life, especially in the early innings, is nothing short of hectic. Who wouldn't love a clone or two to help get everything done? Well, we can't clone you, but we can give you more time to sign up and save on a pass to TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing and Fundraising on July 8-9. We