A tense scene unfolded yesterday as user-generated music streaming service SoundCloud held an all-hands meeting to explain to employees why it suddenly had to lay off 40 percent of its staff last week. Exiting team members wanted to know why they weren’t warned, while those that survived the cuts wanted assurance that the cost reductions would keep the company afloat for the long-run. Read More
from TechCrunch
Earlier in the spring we told you about Zently, a new app for renters that helps them pay rent on time and flag maintenance issues to their landlords. Now the app can hook into your bank account, allowing roommates to more easily split shared expenses. And the company has raised a bit of funding as it looks to grow its user base. Read More
from TechCrunch
Venture investment in U.S. startups rose sequentially in the second quarter of 2017, boosted by large, late-stage financings and a few outsized early-stage rounds in tech and healthcare. Overall, Crunchbase projects that U.S. startups raised $22.7 billion across all stages, from seed through technology growth rounds. That’s up from $20.6 billion in Q1. Read More
from TechCrunch
Dietary supplements aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which means the industry is rife with dubious claims. Revere, a new startup that sells monthly subscriptions of its workout and energy drink powders, wants to cut through the buzz with straightforward mixes of plant-based ingredients, such as pea protein and sweet potato powder. The company announced today that it… Read More
from TechCrunch
Some more M&A news in the world of artificial intelligence. Today it was made public that Google has acquired Halli Labs, a very young (its first public appearance was on May 22 of this year) startup based out of Bengaluru, India, that was focused on building deep learning and machine learning systems to address what it describes as “old problems.” The company says it will… Read More
from TechCrunch
Hutch, the interior design app that takes a photo of your room and virtually redecorates it, has raised $10M in funding from real estate platform Zillow. Zillow’s CEO Spencer Rascoff will also join Hutch’s board of directors as part of the investment. Right now the investment is strictly a financing deal – meaning for now there will be no strategic or operational… Read More
from TechCrunch
ZeroFox, a startup that helps companies manage social media risk including scams, malicious links and account hijacking, announced a $40 million Series C investment today.
The round was led by Redline Capital Management and Silver Lake Waterman (which is Silver Lake’s late stage growth capital fund). Existing investors NEA, Highland Capital Partners and Core Capital also participated. Read More
from TechCrunch
As artificial intelligence continues its spread into all aspects of computing, many believe that it will be the next big frontier in CRM. Today a startup called Gong.io underscores that trend: the Israeli startup, which has built a tool that uses natural language processing and machine learning to help train and suggest information to sales people and other customer service reps, has raised a… Read More
from TechCrunch
Revolut has raised a $66 million Series B round with Index Ventures leading the round, and existing investors Balderton Capital and Ribbit Capital also participating. The startup will also run another $5 million crowdfunding campaign in a few weeks. The company has raised $83 million in total. Revolut started as a mobile app that lets you send and receive money in multiple currencies. Over… Read More
from TechCrunch
When we last checked in on Transfix in late 2015, the then two-year-old, 26-person, New York-based transportation startup was determined to use its tech to increasingly match customers needing interstate freight shipping with truck drivers needing to make deliveries. It wanted to cut out wasted travel, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Apparently they have been chugging along. Read More
from TechCrunch