TechCrunch Startup News

Serial edtech entrepreneur David Blake, who co-founded Degreed and launched LearnIn, is living the dream of any book worm. He reads at least one book a week, talks to the authors behind it and unpacks his biggest questions around the subtlest of passages. And it’s all thanks to his latest startup, BookClub, which first launched […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic...

French startup Klaxoon is announcing a product update for its whiteboard collaboration platform as well as a new hardware product. With Hybridity, the company is going to sell ready-to-use conference rooms that optimize hybrid meetings between people currently in the office and people on the go. Let’s start with the software update. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoi...

The round will help the company bolster the predictive AI and machine learning algorithms that power nSure AI’s “first of its kind” fraud protection platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s easier than ever to build a product and sell it around the United States, or the world. But if you want to do so without incurring the wrath of any particular state, or nation-state, you’d best have your tax matters in order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French startup Lydia is better known as the dominant app for peer-to-peer payments. But the company has been adding more features, such as a debit card, account aggregation, donations, money pots and more. This week, the company is adding savings accounts thanks to a partnership with French fintech startup Cashbee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New regulations are making it easier to invest in alternative assets via crowdfunding, and the recent explosion of crypto and NFTs means that investors are more diversified than ever.   Keeping up with such a variety of investments may prove difficult to those who want to handle managing their investment portfolios on their own. Money Minx, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoic...

One clear outcome of the pandemic was pushing more people to do their shopping online, and that was as true for B2B as it was for B2C. Knowing which of your B2B customers are most likely to convert puts any sales team ahead of the game. Slintel, a startup providing that kind of data, announced […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Threat intelligence company Recorded Future is launching a $20 million fund for early-stage startups developing novel data intelligence tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After co-founding Insomnia Consulting, Stacey Abrams and Lara O’Connor Hodgson started Nourish to address a personal problem. “We were at a meeting, I think for one of my campaigns,” explains Abrams, the Georgia-based lawyer and politician whose voting rights work became a focal point for the country in 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French startup Pennylane has raised a new $18.3 million funding round (€15 million). Interestingly, this is Sequoia Capital’s first investment in France after they announced ambitious expansion plans in Europe. If you’re not familiar with Pennylane, the startup has been developing an accounting platform that improves accounting for both clients and their accountants. Learn more about your ad choic...

The buy now, pay later frenzy isn’t going anywhere as more consumers seek alternatives to credit cards to fund purchases. And those purchases aren’t exclusive to luxuries such as Pelotons (ahem, Affirm) or jewelry someone might be treating themselves to online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New York-based Simulate today announced a $50 million fundraise. Led by Alexis Ohanian’s 776, the Series B brings the meat alternative’s total funding to north of $60 million and values it at $260 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Astra, the space launch startup with plans to go public via a SPAC merger, will acquire electric propulsion maker Apollo Fusion, the company said Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Toyota AI Ventures, Toyota’s standalone venture capital fund, has dropped the “AI” and is reborn as, simply, Toyota Ventures. The fund is commemorating its new identity by investing an additional $300 million in emerging technologies and carbon neutrality via two early-stage funds: the Toyota Ventures Frontier Fund and the Toyota Ventures Climate Fund. Â Learn more about your ad choices. Visit pod...

Indonesian healthcare startup Prixa has raised $3 million led by MDI Ventures and the Trans-Pacific Technology Fund (TPTF), with participation from returning investors including Siloam Hospitals Group. This brings Prixa’s total raised to $4.5 million since it launched in 2019. Co-founder and chief executive officer James Roring M.D., told TechCrunch in an email that the […] Learn more about your a...

Gong, the revenue intelligence startup, has been raising capital at a rapid pace, and today the company announced another $250 million on a $7.25 billion valuation, a number that triples its previous valuation from last summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Climate change is intensifying across the globe, and one of the most challenging cases is Japan. In addition to lying on a major fault, the archipelago is increasingly inundated from rising sea levels that make the country more prone to disasters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Lightyear, a new London-based startup coming out of stealth today. The company is building a stock trading app with a focus on creating a truly commission-free app. In addition to waving account fees and trading fees, Lightyear doesn’t charge foreign exchange fees either — up to a certain point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As companies increasingly rely on data to run their businesses, having accurate sources of data becomes paramount. Stemma, a new early stage startup, has come up with a solution, a managed data catalogue that acts as an organization’s source of truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kabuto, the French startup that designs and sells smart suitcases, is releasing a new suitcase today. Called the Kabuto Trunk, this is the company’s biggest suitcase to date. Unlike smart suitcases from other brands, this isn’t just a suitcase with a battery in it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even as remote software uptake has boomed during the pandemic, certain workflows have gotten prioritized for specialized toolsets while other team members have been left piecemealing their productivity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zenyum, a startup that wants to make cosmetic dentistry more affordable, announced today it has raised a $40 million Series B. This includes $25 million from L Catterton, a private equity firm focused on consumer brands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet June, a new startup that wants to make it easier to create analytics dashboards and generate reports even if you’re not a product analytics expert. June is built on top of your Segment data. Like many no-code startups, it uses templates and a graphical interface so that non-technical profiles can start using it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cloud kitchens are already meant to reduce the burden of infrastructure on food and beverage brands by providing them with centralized facilities to prepare meals for delivery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As AI has grown from a menagerie of research projects to include a handful of titanic, industry-powering models like GPT-3, there is a need for the sector to evolve — or so thinks Dario Amodei, former VP of research at OpenAI, who struck out on his own to create a new company a few months […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices