TechCrunch Startup News

Not every startup wants to raise venture capital. And then there are those that do want to raise VC money but don’t want to use it for specific things. In recent years, a number of firms have emerged looking to meet the credit needs of such venture-backed and growth startups: i80 Group is one of […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This morning Mural, a startup that builds digital collaboration software with a focus on visual presentation, announced that it has closed a $50 million Series C. The new capital, co-led by prior investors Insight Partners and Tiger Global, values the startup at more than $2 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French startup Spendesk has announced earlier today that it has raised a $118 million funding round (€100 million) led by General Atlantic. Overall, the company has raised $189 million (€160 million) since its inception. Existing investors Index Ventures and Eight Road Ventures participated once again in today’s funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While direct-to-consumer growth has exploded in the past year, some brands are finding there’s still plenty of room to forge ahead in building a more direct relationships with their customers. Sydney-based Okendo has made a splash in this world by building out a popular customer reviews systems for Shopify sellers, but it’s aiming to expand […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoice...

The quest to disrupt the traditional baby food aisle continues as more of today’s parents seek out nutritional food for their children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fabric8Labs this morning announced that it has raised $19.3 million. The Series A was led by Intel Capital and features Lam Capital, TDK Ventures, SE Ventures, imec.xpand, Stanley Ventures and Mark Cuban. It follows $4 million in seed funding raised in mid-2018. The San Diego-based startup specializes in metal 3D printing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Founded in 2014 as an in-person rowing studio, CityRow was relatively early to adopt the at-home connected model. The New York-based company launched a digital platform in 2018, two years before the pandemic completely transformed the way many of us work out. Of course, things have been trending that way a while, but 2020 accelerated […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...

Youth sports are an integral part of our communities, bringing families together and helping kids all over gain confidence and skills. Most of us don’t think about all the work that goes into setting up, growing and maintaining these leagues. It’s a lot. Today, LeagueApps, which aims to be the operating system for youth sports […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoice...

As more consumers embrace plant-based diets and sustainable food practices, Rise Gardens is giving anyone the ability to have a green thumb from the comfort of their own home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Halla wants to answer the question of how people decide what to eat and now has $4.5 million in fresh Series A1 capital from Food Retail Ventures to do it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It seems like everything is being pushed online now, but network procurement stubbornly has remained an in-person or phone-based negotiation. Lightyear, an early stage New York City startup decided to change that last year, and the company announced a $13.1 million Series A today. The round was led by Ridge Ventures with participation from Zigg […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastch...

Walking into an auto repair shop can sometimes feel like taking a step into the past. The handwritten notes and receipts, the clunky point-of-sales system and scheduling tools — if those are even there — can make customers feel like they’re in the 1990s, not the 21st century. Shopmonkey is trying to change that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Gourmey, a new French startup that recently raised a $10 million founding round in equity and debt. The startup is working on meat grown in laboratories from animal cells. In particular, the company is focusing on poultry and aims to convince chefs that they should use the company’s products in their restaurants. “We’ve been […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adcho...

Cadoo, a US-startup that’s gamifying fitness by turning it into a betting opportunity, using the prospect of winning (or losing) cold hard cash to motivate people to get off the couch, has collected $1.5 million in seed funds from Sam & Max Altman’s Apollo VC and the student-focused Dorm Room Fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brooklyn-based Looking glass today announced the release of a pair of second-gen holographic displays. Following up on late-last year’s release of the entry-level Portrait, the startup is offering new versions of the Looking Glass 4K and 8K systems, which sport 15.6- and 32-inch displays, respectively. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sourcegraph, a late stage startup that wants to bring the power of search to code, announced a $125 million Series D investment today on a $2.625 billion valuation, a 3x growth from its previous valuation in December 2020, according to the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oakland-based Mighty Buildings, which is on a quest to build homes using 3D printing, robotics and automation, has raised a $22 million extension to its Series B round of funding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pretty soon, people won’t have to provide a fingerprint or a driver’s license to prove their identity — if VU has its way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Based in Sydney and Auckland, Dovetail is a full-service venture studio that works closely with founders who have a great idea, but may lack technical backgrounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Netskope, focused on Secure Access Service Edge architecture, announced Friday a $300 million investment round on a post-money valuation of $7.5 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This morning r2c, a startup building a SaaS service around the Semgrep open-source project, announced that it has closed a $27 million Series B. Felicis led the round, which the company said was a pre-emptive deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As companies look for ways to respond to incidents in their complex micro services-driven software stacks, SREs or site reliability engineers are left to deal with the issues involved in making everything work and keeping the application up and running. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 strategy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

WellSaid Labs, whose tools create synthetic speech that could be mistaken for the real thing, has raised a $10M Series A to grow the business. The company’s home-baked text-to-speech engine works faster than real time and produces natural-sounding clips of pretty much any length, from quick snippets to hours-long readings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lacuna Technologies, a startup that helps cities create and enforce transportation policies by building and managing open-source digital tools, has raised $16 million in a Series A round, bringing the company’s total investment to $33.5 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices