Hex lands $5.5M seed to help data scientists share data across the company

As companies embrace the use of data, hiring more data scientists, a roadblock persists around sharing that data. It requires too much copying and pasting and manual work. Hex, a new startup, wants to change that by providing a way to dispense data across the company in a streamlined and elegant wa

Coursera prices IPO at top end of its range in boon to edtech valuations

Coursera, an edtech unicorn, will begin its life today as a public company after pricing its IPO at $33 per share yesterday evening. Using a simple share count, the company’s valuation comes to $4.30 billion, or $4.38 billion if its underwriters exercise their option to purchase shares at its

Spotify adds three new types of personalized playlists with launch of ‘Spotify Mixes’

Spotify this morning announced it’s significantly expanding its selection of personalized playlists with the addition of three new categories of playlists under the heading of “Spotify Mixes.” This collection will include artist mixes, genre mixes and decade mixes — meaning

Oklahoma-based Cortado Ventures raises $20M

The team behind Cortado Ventures thinks there’s plenty of untapped investment opportunity in the Midwest. To change that, it’s raised $20 million in what appears to be Oklahoma’s largest venture fund to date. The firm is led by partners Nathaniel Harding, David Woods and Mike Mora

Facebook denies its algorithms are a problem, but launches a tool to more easily view a non-algorithmic News Feed

Following years of backlash over its algorithms and their ability to push people to more extreme content, which Facebook continues to deny, the company today announced it would give its users new tools to more easily switch over to non-algorithmic views of their News Feed. This includes the recentl

Diversity-focused Harlem Capital raises $134M

Harlem Capital is announcing that it has raised $134 million for its second fund — well above its target of $100 million and its initial cap of $125 million. The firm was founded in 2015 by managing partners Henri Pierre-Jacques and Jarrid Tingle. It started as an angel syndicate with the goal of

Moveworks expands IT chatbot platform to encompass entire organization

When investors gave Moveworks a hefty $75 million Series B at the end of 2019, they were investing in a chatbot startup that to that point had been tuned to answer IT help questions in an automated way. Today, the company announced it had used that money to expand the platform to encompass employee

Zapp, the on-demand delivery and ‘dark’ store operator, picks up backing from Lightspeed and Atomico

Zapp, one of a number of startups currently battling it out in London and beyond by promising to let you order everyday items on-demand from its own delivery-only stores, has quietly raised a new round of funding from leading VCs, technewss has learned. According to multiple sources, Silicon Valle

Strength-training startup Tonal crosses unicorn status after raising $250M

When the pandemic unfolded last year, demand for at-home fitness equipment skyrocketed, and Tonal was no exception. The maker of a smart home fitness trainer experienced an explosive increase in sales, and now the six-year-old San Francisco-based startup is gearing up for its next stage of growth.

Clocktower Technology Ventures makes $25M bet on Latin American fintechs

The fintech space and the Latin American venture scene are both booming. So it's no surprise that an increasing number of global investors are investing in fintech startups based in Latin America. The latest is Clocktower Technology Ventures (CTV), the investing affiliate of San

Huawei seeks growth in Internet of Things as phone business suffers

Huawei’s struggles amid U.S.-China trade tensions are driving it to seek opportunities in other smart devices, setting itself up against a raft of hardware makers at home and abroad. The Chinese tech giant recorded sluggish revenue growth in 2020, climbing just 3.8% to 891.4 billion yuan ($13

Apple invests $50M into music distributor UnitedMasters alongside a16z and Alphabet

Independent music distribution platform and tool factory UnitedMasters has raised a $50 million series B round led by Apple. A16z and Alphabet are participating again in this raise. United Masters is also entering a strategic partnership with Apple alongside this investment.  If you're unfamil

Accel-backed mobile money platform NALA to start offering remittance services to East Africa

According to a McKinsey report, the total number of mobile money services worldwide was 282 in 2017, with more than half of those operating in sub-Saharan Africa.  In 2020, these numbers increased significantly, but the ratio remained similar. In 96 countries, there are 310 live mobile money serv

Kaya VC launches its new $80M fund, focusing on Prague, Warsaw and the CEE region

Kaya VC's new €72 million ($80 million) fund will focus on startups in Prague, Warsaw and the wider CEE region. Previously called Enern, the Central and Eastern European VC — which, historically, started out investing in wind farms and ended up invested in software — has changed its name