Author: Thomas Crown

 AxleHire, a last-mile logistics startup that facilitates deliveries for companies like HelloFresh, Freshly, Sunbasket, La Boulangerie and others, has raised $4.3 million from Acorn Pacific, RGA Ventures and others. Read More

from TechCrunch

 Springboard is a platform that helps people advance their tech skills, and ultimately career. Today it took a step further to realizing its own potential after it landed a $9.5 million Series A round to develop specialisms. I wrote about the U.S.-based service nearly two years ago when it was just starting out and it had gobbled up a $1.7 million seed round. Then, Springboard had brought… Read More

from TechCrunch

 Quinyx, a Stockholm-headquartered company that offers cloud-based software to help businesses manage things like employee scheduling, communication, task-management and payroll integration, has raised a further $12 million in funding. Backing the round is VC firm Battery Ventures, which sees Boston-based Battery General Partner Michael Brown join the Quinyx board. Read More

from TechCrunch

 Horizons Ventures, the VC firm founded by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-Shing, has made a rare early-stage investment after it backed AI startup Fano Labs.
Horizons has invested in the likes of Facebook, Razer, Slack, Improbable, Spotify and more, and now it is putting undisclosed money into Fano Labs, which recently graduated AI accelerator program Zeroth. This deal also marks the… Read More

from TechCrunch

 Oracle will pay $1.2 billion in cash to buy construction software developer Aconex, the companies announced today. Based in Melbourne, Aconex’s cloud-based software allow teams working on building projects to collaborate and share documents. Oracle agreed to pay AUD $7.80 (about $5.97) per share in cash for a total of $1.2 billion. This price represents a 47% premium over… Read More

from TechCrunch

 Tencent, the internet giant that recently became Asia’s first $500 billion company, is continuing its investment spree after it agreed to buy $604 million in shares of Chinese online retailer Vipshop. The deal is being made with long-time partner JD.com, which will invest $259 million into Vipshop, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That takes the total between the two to… Read More

from TechCrunch

 Digital security solutions provider Gemalto has agreed to a €51 per share acquisition offer from French aerospace and defense firm Thales — in a deal worth around $5.43BN.  Read More

from TechCrunch

 Andover, Massachusetts-based Casa Systems had a tough time pulling off its IPO this week. The broadband solutions company initially wanted to debut Thursday, but pushed its launch back to Friday, likely due to weak initial demand. Casa had planned to sell 8.4 million shares, but reduced it to 6 million, following the investor roadshow, where companies pitch institutional investors and other… Read More

from TechCrunch

 Airwallex, an Australia-based fintech startup that helps banks and businesses handle cross-border transactions at scale, has closed a $6 million investment ahead of a planned Series B next year.
The new funding comes from Square Peg — a VC firm located in Melbourne, the same city as Airwallex HQ — which joins Tencent, MasterCard, Gobi Ventures and Sequoia China as backers of… Read More

from TechCrunch

 “There are two types of competition for us at Loot: the banks and the money management apps,” Loot founder Ollie Purdue tells me. The U.K. startup, founded in 2014 while now 24 year old Purdue was finishing up university, offers a digital-only current account aimed at students and millennials. It comes with a Mastercard and mobile app, with a particular focus on spending insights… Read More

from TechCrunch