When August Home raised its last big round nearly two and half years ago, the smart lock maker was targeting retail expansion. That’s still part of the plan for the company’s new $25 million Series C, but the real story of this latest round is increasing focus on its partnership program, August Access. The service has already made some headway in the rental market, counting… Read More
from TechCrunch
On the heels of announcing a fresh $70 million in funding led by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik AB, Betterment is launching a new messaging feature that will allow users to ask questions and get answers from its team of financial advisors. Read More
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Since 2010, Marqeta has quietly established itself as the underlying tech provider for businesses that are looking to issue virtual and physical debit and credit cards to employees, partners and customers alike. As it looks to expand internationally and sign up customers around the globe, the company has taken $25 million in strategic investment from payments heavyweight Visa. Read More
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Consumer robot maker iRobot is to acquire its largest European distributor, Robopolis, in a cash deal worth $141 million. The company said it’s signed a definitive agreement to acquire the privately-held, French company, with the acquisition expected to close in October 2017. Read More
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Cleo, the London-based fintech startup that offers an AI-powered chatbot to help you manage your finances, has closed £2 million in further funding, adding to an impressive list of backers that already includes Skype founder Niklas Zennström. The new round is led by LocalGlobe, the seed VC firm founded by father and son duo Robin and Saul Klein, with participation from a number of… Read More
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Tencent, Asia’s highest-valued tech company, has continued to invest in India after it backed online education service BYJU’s. The startup that includes the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Sequoia among its investors. The size of the investment has not been disclosed, but a source close to the deal told TechCrunch that it values BYJU’s around the $800 million mark. Tencent… Read More
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Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg might not be able to agree about much when it comes to AI these days, but the pair do seem to see the same potential in Vicarious, a startup applying unsupervised learning techniques to robots. Musk and Zuckerberg were two of the early backers of Vicarious. The startup announced that it raised an additional $50 million in financing this morning (via… Read More
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Beijing-based Momenta announced this morning that it raised a $46 million Series B round led by NIO Capital, Sequoia Capital China and Hillhouse Capital. Momenta produces self-driving car software that applies deep learning to mapping, path planning and object recognition problems. Shunwei Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Unity Ventures and Daimler also participated in the round.
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Artificial intelligence-focused investment funds are a dime a dozen these days. Everyone knows there’s money to be made from AI, but to capture value, good VCs know they need to back products and not technologies. This has left a bit of a void in the space. AI Grant aims to bankroll science projects for the heck of it to give untraditional candidates a shot at solving big problems. Read More
from TechCrunch
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
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