Over the last 18 months, those of us following the venture and startup space have gone on a rollercoaster ride of mega rounds, unicorns, sky-high valuations and bubble fears. Look beyond the hyperbolic headlines and you’ll see that there is more than meets the eye to that shiny new unicorn valuation. Square’s recent IPO registration statement provides an opportunity to peel the… Read More
from TechCrunch
PeerSpace, a short-term meeting space reservations marketplace, has announced a $5 million Series A round of financing led by Foundation Capital to propel growth. Existing investor Structure Capital also participated in the round.
The startup is a bit like Airbnb but for empty meeting spaces. The idea is to utilize creative spaces in the cities the platform operates instead of the same old… Read More
from TechCrunch
Another day, another new VC fund closes in Europe. This time it’s the turn of Helsinki-headquartered Open Ocean, backer of startups such as Truecaller and EyeEm. Read More
from TechCrunch
When Craig Shapiro and his team at Collaborative Fund are making investments, they don’t exactly ignore the devil on their shoulders. They look for companies that fall somewhere in the nexus between companies that will address the broader interests of the world around them — but also generate a return on their investment, Shapiro says. Read More
from TechCrunch
Today, Megan Quinn shared that she’d be joining Spark Capital as a general partner for its growth stage fund, a fund which we covered last year. Quinn stepped down from Kleiner-Perkins this year after nearly three years with the firm. Here’s what Quinn had to say on the new role: Three and half years ago I made the transition from product builder to investor. It has been an amazing… Read More
from TechCrunch
Home24, the Rocket Internet-founded online European furniture store, has acquired competitor Fashion For Home, another German company most comparable to the U.K.’s Made.com. Specific terms of the acquisition aren’t being disclosed, although I understand it’s an all-stock deal. Read More
from TechCrunch
The iPad helped introduce the concept of interactive books, where stories are accompanied by games and other tappable animations to complement their tales. But a company called Hullabalu offers a twist. Instead of digital stories with interactive bits, kids advance the story’s progress by interacting with the world and playing with the characters. Now the company has raised an… Read More
from TechCrunch
Israel is a small country with a thriving security startup industry, and Microsoft appears to be have a taste for them. Today it announced an agreement to buy Secure Islands, its third Israeli security firm in the last year. While Microsoft did not reveal a specific price, various reports peg the deal at between $77 million and $150 million. Microsoft made the announcement official in a… Read More
from TechCrunch
Dublin-based WhatClinic — a healthcare comparison site for dental, plastic surgery and cosmetic treatments — has acquired the U.K. dental booking site Toothpick. Read More
from TechCrunch
Welcome to another episode of CrunchWeek, TechCrunch’s weekly roundup show where we talk the biggest things in tech. This week we’re chatting about Twitter’s issues with diversity, Activision paying a lot of billions for the maker of the addictive game Candy Crush (hear Megan talk about her recovery), and Facebook’s earnings. They crushed it. So: As our resident… Read More
from TechCrunch