Fundraising

Why Y Combinator companies are flocking to banking and HR startup Every

Fundraising /

Rajeev Behera’s new all-in-one HR startup, dubbed Every, is either brilliant or crazy. Crazy because multi-module HR software that does payroll, onboarding, and spend management for small businesses is already a jam-packed market. Competitors include unicorn startups Gusto, Rippling, and Deel; incumbents that are strong in one area and are expanding into others like Mercury and […]

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After using a business coach to shift careers, AceUp founder wants to drive coaching based on data

Fundraising /

Is a business coach really worth the investment? Execs often seek coaches to bolster aspects of their work, like communication skills and their productivity. At least anecdotally, these skills do appear to get better with coaching — a survey from the nonprofit International Coach Federation found that 80% of execs who hired a coach saw

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Novatus nabs $40M to help financial institutions quell their RegTech nightmares

Fundraising /

Banks, investments and financial services are not known to be bastions of transparency — not to the general public, and, as the last financial crisis laid bare, sometimes not even to the people who operate within them. This was a fact known all too well by Andrew Hedley. Working in the area of risk at

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Paymob, started by three college friends, lands another $22 million and is profitable in Egypt

Fundraising /

Not many ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley can boast successful tech startups launched by founders while still in school or shortly after dropping out. So, when such events occur in regions like the Middle East or Africa, the companies are worth paying attention to.  A decade ago, Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj, and Mostafa Menessy,

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InMobi secures $100 million for AI acquisitions ahead of IPO

Fundraising /

Adtech startup InMobi has raised $100 million in debt financing as the profitable Indian firm looks to “significantly deepen” its artificial intelligence initiatives and fund potential AI acquisitions ahead of a planned IPO next year.  Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between MUFG and Liquidity Group, has financed the funding, InMobi said Wednesday. The investment

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French embedded insurance startup Neat secures $55 million

Fundraising /

It’s not every day that you hear about a large funding round for a French startup in the current funding environment. But Neat, a Paris-based insurtech startup, has managed to raise €50 million (around $55 million at current exchange rates). There is some fine print however. In addition to the traditional equity-for-cash financial transaction, a

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Spare fixes cities’ outdated transport services for disabled residents

Fundraising /

Cities spend hundreds of millions each year on paratransit services, or public rides for disabled residents, yet those services remain limited and unpredictable. Wheelchair users often face late pickups, hindering them from getting to work or medical appointments on time. As populations age, the strain on these services and city budgets continues to grow.  Vancouver-based

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Smartcat secures $43M for its AI-powered translation platform

Fundraising /

Can AI ever fully replace translators? Not likely. AI translations tend to lack the lexical richness of their human-translated counterparts, mainly because AI models make choices based on probability — not lived experience. Certainly, AI can produce “accurate” translations, but the translations lack the spice of life, like a textbook version of the source text.

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Form3, a quiet giant in UK fintech, raises $60M at a $570M valuation

Fundraising /

The global economy remains in a sticky spot, in the words of the International Monetary Fund. Understandably, banks and other financial players are therefore looking to do what they can to bring down operating costs while spurring more financial activity. Today, Form3, one of the startups building tools to do just that by connecting financial

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Alpha Partners raises $153M third fund for pro-rata investments

Fundraising /

Steve Brotman started Alpha Partners in 2014 with a novel idea at the time: investing alongside early-stage VCs to help preserve their ownership in promising companies as they transition to later funding rounds. Alpha’s first fund was a mere $10 million. But as startups started staying private for longer, the VC industry invented various mechanisms

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