The first step of any salesperson is to figure out who to pitch, but some of them are wasting time targeting the wrong prospective clients. That’s the premise behind Node, a startup that says its platform uses artificial intelligence to find sales leads. In “stealth mode” for the past 2.5 years, the company is now announcing a $10.8 million venture financing round led by… Read More
from TechCrunch
Northern Ireland based B-Secur has closed a £3.5m (~$4.5M) late stage seed investment for its biometric authentication technology that utilizes an individual’s unique heartbeat pattern, known as an electrocardiogram (ECG), to — in its words — “quickly and securely authenticate identity”. Read More
from TechCrunch
Tel Aviv-based startup Prospera has raised a $15 million Series B to expand the scope of its technology, which uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to help farmers analyze data gathered from their fields. The round was led by Qualcomm Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments, ICV and returning investor Bessemer Venture Partners, and brings Prospera’s total funding… Read More
from TechCrunch
Duolingo, the popular language learning service that was co-founded by reCAPTCHA founder Luis von Ahn, today announced that it has raised a $25 million Series E round led by Drive Capital. This brings Duolingo’s total funding to $108.3 million and the company says that its valuation in this last round was $700 million. Read More
from TechCrunch
Urbanbase, a Seoul-based startup that makes virtual reality tools for interior planning and design, plans to expand in Asia after raising $1.8 million in Series A funding. Its investors are CKD Venture Capital, Magellan Technology and Capstone Partners. Read More
from TechCrunch
Less than a day after it agreed to put $2 billion into Southeast Asia’s Grab alongside Didi, now SoftBank is being linked with an investment in Uber, the U.S. firm that rivals those two aforementioned ride-sharing companies. A Wall Street Journal report claims SoftBank has been in touch with Uber with the apparent goal of buying a “multi-billion dollar stake” in the company.… Read More
from TechCrunch
Facebook is on the cusp of a big push to lure independent content creators to share their art through the News Feed. But it needs to prove it can help creators monetize their content without allowing piracy to run rampant. That’s why it’s acquired content rights management startup Source3, including its team and technology. The startup explains that “At Source3, we set out… Read More
from TechCrunch
Chatbots – automated bots that let you interact with a service or brand via messaging apps or SMS – haven’t yet become breakout hits, as a group. But that hasn’t stopped investors from pouring in $8 million into a hotel booking startup called SnapTravel, which lets users find and book rooms via SMS texts and Facebook Messenger. The $8 million Series A round was led… Read More
from TechCrunch
The RealReal CEO Julie Wainwright tells TechCrunch in a video interview that she’s preparing the luxury consignment e-tailer to go public someday. “That’s the goal,” she said when asked about IPO plans. “We really aren’t in the mood to sell the business, we’re in the mood to go public at some point in the future.” Read More
from TechCrunch
Restaurant owners have a lot of responsibilities and a wide array of skills to handle those responsibilities. That said, building a website isn’t usually within that skill-set. That’s where BentoBox comes in. The company, which helps restaurant owners quickly build full-featured websites for their restaurants, has just closed a $4.8 million Series A funding round. The round was led… Read More
from TechCrunch