SoftBank has confirmed that its 4.9 percent stake in Nvidia is to be transferred to the Vision Fund, its colossal investment vehicle that’s targeting a $100 million final close. The Japanese tech firm bought the position in chip-maker Nvidia, which has forayed into AI and self-driving car tech in recent years, back in May for a reported $4 billion. The Vision Fund held the rights to… Read More
from TechCrunch
There has been a wave of startups turning to initial coin offerings, known as ICOs, to raise funding through digital currency and now at least one fund is doing this, too. Science Inc., the LA-based team co-founded by Peter Pham and Mike Jones, which has incubated startups like Dollar Shave Club, DogVacay and Wishbone, is launching a fund for blockchain startups and plans to raise the… Read More
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Indeed, the job platform with over 200 million people searching for jobs each month, is acquiring Interviewed, the online job assessment tool. The terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but all 12 of Interviewed’s employees, including the three co-founders, will be going to work at Indeed. Based in San Francisco, Interviewed was part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2015 class… Read More
from TechCrunch
Auris Surgical Robotics, a 10-year-old, San Carlos, Ca.-based surgical robotics company that was founded by serial entrepreneur Frederic Moll, has quietly raised $280 million in Series D funding led by Coatue Management. The company had previously raised at least $184 million from investors, shows Crunchbase. Its other backers include Mithril Capital Management (cofounded by Peter Thiel and… Read More
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Nerdy Google has failed at social time and time again, so it considered buying teen sensation Snapchat. The search giant held informal talks with Snap and floated an offer of $30 billion in 2016 before Snap’s last funding round, and just before its IPO this year, according to Business Insider’s Alex Heath. That offer was apparently an open secret inside Snap, and was on the table… Read More
from TechCrunch
Last November, GE acquired the AI-centric startup Wise.io to bolster its machine learning capabilities. While Wise.io’s core competency was in machine learning, its main product focused on helping enterprises manage customer service requests. GE has now spun out Wise.io in a new company, SmartAssist.io, which will continue to expand the service and work with existing customers. Read More
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China’s Ofo and Mobike may be the Uber of bike-sharing thanks an early head start and more than $1 billion in cumulative funding that’s financing aggressive international expansions, but that isn’t deterring smaller players.
Hong Kong’s Gobee Bike, one such upstart — which literally operates in the shadow of those two Chinese giants — just announced a $9… Read More
from TechCrunch
Personio, a German startup that offers a HR management and recruiting platform, has closed $12 million in Series A funding. European VC Northzone led the round, with participation from existing investors, such as Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Picus Capital. Read More
from TechCrunch
Back in December, we reported that NextView Ventures, one of the few seed-stage venture firms in Boston, was looking to raise at least $50 million for a third fund, per an SEC filing that was processed at the time. Today, the firm says it has closed the fund with exactly that amount in capital commitments. Read More
from TechCrunch
Square, the payments processing company founded by Jack Dorsey, reported its second quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. After beating expectations, the stock quickly went up 4% in initial after hours trading. Square reported revenue of $552 million, when analysts were forecasting $536 million. It’s also up 26% from the same period last year. The company still lost money at… Read More
from TechCrunch