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
from TechCrunch
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
from TechCrunch
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
from TechCrunch
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.
Quite a few U.S. Read More
from TechCrunch
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
from TechCrunch
It looks like ICOs, shorthand for initial coin offerings, are about to undergo a lot more scrutiny.
The SEC has concluded that the digital currencies will be regulated as securities, meaning unregistered offerings could be subject to criminal punishment. The decision was announced via a report on Tuesday.
This is a blow to many startups who had been using ICOs as an alternative way to raise… Read More
from TechCrunch
When the ride-sharing industry emerged in 2007, few would have believed it would grow into the cash-eating behemoth it is today. Dozens of companies, in hundreds of markets, have garnered just over $47 billion in equity and debt investment, according to data pulled with Crunchbase and PitchBook. This massive figure doesn’t even include M&A or corporate investment made internally… Read More
from TechCrunch
British enterprise software company Sage Group has agreed to purchase Intacct, a 19-year-old accounting software company, for $850 million, the companies announced today. A cash and stock transaction, the deal aims to help build out Sage’s cloud financial management offerings. Intacct, which competes with Financial Force and Oracle’s NetSuite, said in a related statement that it… Read More
from TechCrunch
Grabr, an SF-based platform with a convenient way for people to buy international goods, has secured a $2.7 million funding round led by SignalFire. FF Angel, NFX, Global Founders Capital and multiple angel investors, including Diana Moldavsky and Charles Songhurst, also participated. Grabr plans to use the cash to scale up its operations and attract more travelers to its platform. Read More
from TechCrunch