Fundings and Exits

Kaia Health, a digital therapeutics startup which uses computer vision technology for real-time posture tracking via the smartphone camera to deliver human-hands-free physiotherapy, has closed a $26 million Series B funding round. The funding was led by Optum Ventures, Idinvest and capital300 with participation from existing investors Balderton Capital and Heartcore Capital, in addition to

Over the past two decades, the venture capital industry has exploded beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations. What began as a sleepy industry in Boston and Menlo Park has now expanded to dozens of cities the world over. The National Venture Capital Association estimates that VCs deployed more than $130 billion in 2018 and 2019, and thousands

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re adding a few names to the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) club. The new entrants come after we kicked off 2020 with a previous four new members. So far in January, we’ve

This morning FloQast, an LA-area startup, announced that it closed a $40 million Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners. The company also told TechCrunch in an interview that it raised a $20 million inside round between today’s investment and its 2017 Series B. Including today’s infusion, the firm has raised a little over $90

Good morning, friends, and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a short-form audio hit to kickstart your week. Equity’s regular, long-form shows still land each and every Friday, including this entry from just a few days ago. This morning, coming to you early from the frozen tundra of the American East Coast, it’s Tuesday. That’s

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re taking a moment to discuss the amount of money going into startups building OKR software. After covering WorkBoard’s recent round, I’ve noticed OKR software and services everywhere, even in Twitter ads that I

Jolt, an education startup that describes itself as an alternative to traditional MBA courses, has raised $14.1 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Hillsven Capital and Octopus Ventures. It brings Jolt’s total funding to $23.3 million in three years. The company plans to use the additional

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had TechCrunch’s Alex Wilhelm and Danny Crichton on hand to dig into the news, with Chris Gates on the dials and more news than we could possibly cram into 30 minutes. So we went

This week, Sisense, a player in the business intelligence space, announced a $100 million investment. As TechCrunch reported, the round pushed the company’s valuation north of the $1 billion mark, making Sisense the world’s newest unicorn. That moniker will last a day, we’re sure. TechCrunch caught up with Sisense CEO Amir Orad and CMO Harry

E-commerce phenom and D2C bright light Casper has filed to go public. The New York-based company that raised nearly $340 million while private, according to Crunchbase data, expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CSPR.” Its S-1 filing includes a $100 million placeholder figure for its possible capital raise.

Scoodle, a U.K.-based startup that, in its own words, wants to help tutors become influencers, is disclosing $760,000 in pre-seed funding. Backing the round is Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, alongside Tiny VC, IFG Ventures and a number of unnamed angels. Scoodle is also the first edtech company to join the University of Oxford’s accelerator, Oxford

Last year Insight Partners invested $500 million in cloud data management company Veeam. It apparently liked the company so much that today it announced it has acquired the Swiss startup for $5 billion. Veeam helps customers with cloud data backup and disaster recovery. The company, which has been based in Baar, Switzerland, says that it

Lily AI, a startup focused on using deep learning to help brands better convert customers through emotionally tailored recommendations, announced this morning that it has raised a $12.5 million Series A led by Canaan Partners. Prior investors NEA, Unshackled and Fernbrook Capital also took part in the funding event. Prior to its Series A, Lily had

Bux, the Amsterdam-based fintech that wants to make investing more accessible, has acquired the European “social” cryptocurrency investment platform Blockport. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although Bux says the move paves the way for the company to launch its own branded cryptocurrency investment app. Dubbed “BUX Crypto,” it will be available in the 9

Shares of Chicago-based food delivery service Grubhub are sharply higher in regular trading today after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company has hired external advisers to explore its “strategic” options, inclusive of a possible sale. Investors, heartened by the news, bid its equity up 17% as of the time of writing, valuing the

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. ClassPass, finally a unicorn, raises $285 million in new funding ClassPass launched in 2013 to give people an easier way to

Hello and welcome back to our regular moning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re digging into the One Medial S-1 IPO filing. The company, popular in Silicon Valley and known for an investment from Alphabet, intends to debut this year on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol

One Medical, a San Francisco-based primary care startup with tech-infused, concierge services filed for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. Internal medicine doctor Tom Lee founded the startup, now valued at well-over $1 billion dollars, in 2007. Lee exited his company in 2017, leaving it in the hands of former UnitedHealth group

The recovery in value of several high-profile electric car companies could help move yet-private EV manufacturers out of the pit lane and onto the IPO track. On the heels of NIO’s shocking value appreciation after its recent earnings report, and Tesla’s own public market run, China-based Lixiang Automotive is reported to have filed privately for

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re digging into seed-stage companies, the vanguard of the venture market. In particular, we’re trying to understand why the ratio of seed deals now favor enterprise startups over their consumer-focused brethren. The fact that

Cloudflare announced that it has acquired S2 Systems, a browser isolation startup started by former Microsoft execs. The two companies did not reveal the acquisition price. Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO at Cloudflare, says that this acquisition is part of a new suite of products called Cloudflare for Teams, which has been designed to protect

Changing from the highest-flying conglomerate and most famous capital vehicle to troubled icons of misplaced exuberance, it’s tough to be SoftBank and its Vision Fund today. Despite the occasional good story, it’s been a tough run for the pair. But lost in the continuous drip of bad news concerning the Japanese firm and its globally

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re peeking at what’s gone on in the world of altcoins recently, the other cryptocurrencies aside from bitcoin. As 2016 came to a close, altcoins like ether and XRP saw their value soar. Toward

MasterCard announced today that it is acquiring RiskRecon, a Salt Lake City startup that uses publicly available data to build security assessments of organizations. The companies did not share the purchase price. It’s become increasingly important for financial services companies like MasterCard to help customers navigate cyber security and RiskRecon will give customers an objective

One odd thing in 2019 has been Slack’s falling share price contrasted against the rising value of the Nasdaq composite, a tech-heavy index that many use as shorthand for the US tech market. Why one of tech’s hottest, and fastest-growing companies was losing altitude while tech stocks themselves broadly rose has been interesting to unpack.

Ripple has raised a $200 million Series C funding round. Tetragon is leading the round, with SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures also participating. According to Fortune, the company is now valued at $10 billion. “We are in a strong financial position to execute against our vision. As others in the blockchain space have slowed

Now that the final technology IPOs of 2019 have touched down, it’s a good time to start looking back at what happened during the year. We’re hunting for trends as the clock winds down. Here’s one that’s obvious: Hardware startups are still struggling. It’s cliché to note in startupland that hardware is hard. Everyone knows

Timothy R. Bowers Contributor Andrew P. Dixon Contributor For many founders, building and selling a successful venture-backed company for cash is the ultimate goal. However, the reality is that some companies will instead receive an equity-funded acquisition proposal in which equity of another private venture-backed company, rather than cash, represents all or a significant portion

Spain’s Glovo, an on-demand delivery app platform which operates in Europe, LatAm and Africa delivering food but also other urban conveniences from groceries to pharmaceuticals, has bagged another €150 million (~$166M) in a fast-following Series E round led by Abu Dhabi state investment company, Mubadala. The raise follows a €150M in Series D that was

Leapfin, a startup selling corporate finance tooling, announced a $4.5 million round this morning. The funding event was led by Bowrey Capital, and included dollars from a number of former technology executives. Before its newly announced investment, the company had raised just a small seed round. The small capital amounts may seem inconsequential, but they’re