It’s a years-long trend with no end in sight: venture firms are raising record amounts, owing to growing and sustained fascination from endowments, pension funds, family offices and others who see the sweeping, tech-driven changes all around — from self-driving cars, to new plant-based foods, to far more targeted drugs — and want to be part of that evolution. Read More
from TechCrunch
It looks like ICOs, shorthand for initial coin offerings, are about to undergo a lot more scrutiny.
The SEC has concluded that the digital currencies will be regulated as securities, meaning unregistered offerings could be subject to criminal punishment. The decision was announced via a report on Tuesday.
This is a blow to many startups who had been using ICOs as an alternative way to raise… Read More
from TechCrunch
When the ride-sharing industry emerged in 2007, few would have believed it would grow into the cash-eating behemoth it is today. Dozens of companies, in hundreds of markets, have garnered just over $47 billion in equity and debt investment, according to data pulled with Crunchbase and PitchBook. This massive figure doesn’t even include M&A or corporate investment made internally… Read More
from TechCrunch
British enterprise software company Sage Group has agreed to purchase Intacct, a 19-year-old accounting software company, for $850 million, the companies announced today. A cash and stock transaction, the deal aims to help build out Sage’s cloud financial management offerings. Intacct, which competes with Financial Force and Oracle’s NetSuite, said in a related statement that it… Read More
from TechCrunch
Grabr, an SF-based platform with a convenient way for people to buy international goods, has secured a $2.7 million funding round led by SignalFire. FF Angel, NFX, Global Founders Capital and multiple angel investors, including Diana Moldavsky and Charles Songhurst, also participated. Grabr plans to use the cash to scale up its operations and attract more travelers to its platform. Read More
from TechCrunch
The first step of any salesperson is to figure out who to pitch, but some of them are wasting time targeting the wrong prospective clients. That’s the premise behind Node, a startup that says its platform uses artificial intelligence to find sales leads. In “stealth mode” for the past 2.5 years, the company is now announcing a $10.8 million venture financing round led by… Read More
from TechCrunch
Northern Ireland based B-Secur has closed a £3.5m (~$4.5M) late stage seed investment for its biometric authentication technology that utilizes an individual’s unique heartbeat pattern, known as an electrocardiogram (ECG), to — in its words — “quickly and securely authenticate identity”. Read More
from TechCrunch
Tel Aviv-based startup Prospera has raised a $15 million Series B to expand the scope of its technology, which uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to help farmers analyze data gathered from their fields. The round was led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments, ICV and returning investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and brings Prospera’s total funding… Read More
from TechCrunch
Duolingo, the popular language learning service that was co-founded by reCAPTCHA founder Luis von Ahn, today announced that it has raised a $25 million Series E round led by Drive Capital. This brings Duolingo’s total funding to $108.3 million and the company says that its valuation in this last round was $700 million. Read More
from TechCrunch
Urbanbase, a Seoul-based startup that makes virtual reality tools for interior planning and design, plans to expand in Asia after raising $1.8 million in Series A funding. Its investors are CKD Venture Capital, Magellan Technology and Capstone Partners. Read More
from TechCrunch