After months of talks, SoftBank Group is close to finalizing its investment in Uber. Multiple sources tell TechCrunch that the deal is expected to be signed later in the day on Sunday. SoftBank plans to lead a $1 billion investment directly in the company alongside Dragoneer Investment Group. The joint venture will also buy up to $9 billion of shares from eligible existing shareholders in a… Read More
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Robin, which pitched a combined “Uber for lawn care” and robotic-lawnmower-as-a-service at Disrupt SF’s Startup Battlefield last year, is making some big changes. It quietly sold the first part to Porch earlier this year, and is now focused on expanding the robot service nationwide via a franchising plan. (And they’re going to be on Shark Tank.) Read More
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Bandwidth, a company which helps businesses with voice and text communication, debuted on the Nasdaq on Friday, going up about 6% on its first day of trading. After pricing its IPO at the bottom of the expected range at $20 per share, the company closed Friday at $21.19, or up about 6%. The Raleigh, North Carolina-based company raised $80 million in its offering. Bandwidth, which… Read More
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ByteDance is a name that is about to become very familiar to everyone in international tech circles. Really it should already be. It is valued at $20 billion and its flagship Toutiao news reader app is one of China’s fastest growing internet services with 120 million daily users. It is in the process of raising a $2 billion funding round and revenue for this year is reportedly forecast… Read More
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PC gaming company Razer is set to raise upwards of $504 million (HK$3.9 billion) when it lists on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday. The company, which develops gaming-focused accessories for PCs, laptops and is preparing to sell its first smartphone, today priced its shares at HK$3.88. That comes in towards the high-end of its HK$2.93-HK$4.00 price range set last month. The listing… Read More
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Musical.ly, the lip-syncing app popular with teens and young people, has been sold to Chinese social media giant Toutiao, according to an announcement made today. The deal is undisclosed by sources tell TechCrunch that Bytedance, the company behind China’s top news aggregator service Toutiao, will pay between $800 million and $1 billion to buy Musical.ly, which claims 60 million users… Read More
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Sogou, the Chinese search engine, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, under the ticker “SOGO.” After pricing at the top of the range at $13 per share, the company raised $585 million. Sogou then hovered around $13.50 for most of its first day of trading, closing the day at $13.51, up about 4%. Beijing-based Sogou aims to be a Google for China. While it’s a… Read More
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Our spidey senses are burning over here. According to an SEC filing, TechCrunch has learned Bolt Threads, the biotech company spinning microbes into spider silk, is raising a whopping $106 million in Series D financing. Bolt Threads has been on a meteoric rise since it first told TC about its ambitious endeavor to make spider silk, a material stronger than teflon but softer than a cloud,… Read More
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Investors are suing Outcome Health, a startup selling ad space on screens in doctor’s offices, for alleged fraud and breach of contract eight months after pouring $500 million into the company. First reported in the Wall Street Journal, investors Goldman Sachs, which invested $100 million into the company, and Google parent company Alphabet’s investment arm CapitalG, Norwest… Read More
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Digital patient relationship platform Welkin Health has landed $8 million in Series A financing, led by Jared Kushner’s Thrive Capital. This now brings the total in the VC piggy bank to $12 million for the company. Welkin launched in 2013 as a digital monitoring system for diabetics. It joined Rock Health in 2014 to create a disease management platform with robotic coaching tools… Read More
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