TechCrunch Startup News

Bubbles, a startup that pitches its platform as the “anti-Zoom” for video messaging, today announced that it closed a $8.5 million funding round led by Khosla Ventures, Craft Ventures, Streamlined Ventures, 468 Ventures, and Bain Capital. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gusto, an HR technology unicorn worth nearly $10 billion, has raised an extension to its 2021-era Series E funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The coaching world is crowded. There’s BetterUp, a re-skilling platform that wants to bring executive coaching to employees, and Sounding Board, which mixes SaaS and coaching services. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good Startup, a Singapore-based venture capital firm focused on alternative protein, has closed its latest fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Berlin-based GetHenry, a startup that provides electric last-mile delivery bikes to couriers and logistics companies, has raised a $17.4 million (€16.5 million) seed round to expand its business across Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Electric vehicle startup Canoo has filed suit against one of its largest shareholders, demanding that the firm pay back more than $61 million in “short-swing profits.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To date, Blueland, fresh off its $20 million fundraise back in February, has mostly been focusing on home cleaning products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hannah Life Technologies, a startup for couples trying to conceive, announced today it has raised $5.15 million in pre-Series A funding led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During the worst days of the pandemic, when people were stuck at home and starving for some form of entertainment beyond streaming yet another TV series, many turned to DIY home improvement projects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify cofounder Daniel Ek said on Friday that he’s pouring $50 million into the music streaming service, driving its stock price up by more than 3% to a high of $108.98 per share during regular trading hours. Â Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lucid Group is the latest automaker to up the price of its electric vehicles. The company announced Thursday alongside its first-quarter earnings report that it was raising prices of the variants of its luxury Air sedan, beginning June 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tomorrow Farms is turning the concept of pantry and refrigerator staples on its head to create foods that are better for us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shopify today announced that it will acquire Deliverr, a San Francisco, California-based ecommerce fulfillment startup, for $2.1 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It used to be getting from prototyping to manufacturing meant long, expensive trips to places like Shenzhen and a whole lot of trial and error. Fictiv was founded back in 2013 to address some of the biggest pain points of bringing products to market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fundid has a three-pronged approach to simplifying access to capital for small businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Getlife, a Madrid-based startup that just raised $6.3 million (€6 million) in seed funding. The company wants to make it easier to access life insurance products in Europe. For instance, there’s no medical exams needed to subscribe to Getlife. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For product-led growth companies (PLG), the perennial question is: how do we get non-paying customers to subscribe? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lottie animations are everywhere. The JSON-based file format, first introduced as an open-source library by Airbnb engineers, can now be seen in the top 500 iOS and Android apps, said LottieFiles co-founder Kshitij Minglani. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Less than a year ago, Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI VP of research Dario Amodei, intending to perform research in the public interest on making AI more reliable and explainable. Its $124 million in funding was surprising then, but nothing could have prepared us for the company raising $580 million less than a year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As you might’ve heard, it’s getting a little crowded in space, between thousand-satellite constellations à la SpaceX’s Starlink and the millions of pieces of space junk accumulated from decades of launches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Glorang, a Seoul-based edtech startup that offers after-school classes and extracurricular activities via online for students between the ages of 3 and 18, said Friday it has raised a $10 million Series A funding co-led by Korea Investment Partners and Murex Partners, along with Japan’s Pksha Capital. Â Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PullRequest, a five year old startup that came out of Y Combinator in 2017, helps software developers by providing an external code review team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Buoyed by a new $33 million investment, plans are in the works to add another 20 hair color bar locations and hire 850 new colorists by the end of the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Natural language processing (NLP), the field of AI that involves parsing text for tasks including summarization and generation, is a fast-growing technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Luis Vera believes the third time is the charm. The self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur admits that his vision for digitizing retail was a decade or two early when he started his journey in the 90s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices