Fundraising

Fintech startup Forward grabs $16M to take on Stripe, lead future of integrated payments

Fundraising /

After Brandon Lloyd sold his second company, Bypass, a payments and point-of-sale software company for sports and entertainment, to Fiserv in 2020, he dove more into the payments industry and realized something: Software companies were getting a raw deal from the payments provider industry. “Companies like Stripe originally built that platform for an online merchant […]

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How Clean Energy Ventures avoided the pandemic bubble and raised a $305M fund

Fundraising /

Climate tech couldn’t escape the frothiness that engulfed the startup world earlier in the decade. For both founders or venture capitalists, it was tempting to raise money. Interest rates were low, money was cheap, and investors looking for better returns were hungry to get in the game. Instead, Clean Energy Ventures took a different approach,

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LumApps, the French ‘intranet superapp,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Fundraising /

Big news today for LumApps, the French startup that describes itself as an “intranet superapp” with a platform for building and provisioning internal communications and apps for workforces. The company, used by some 5 million people across 700 organizations, said private equity firm Bridgepoint is taking a majority stake in the company in what it

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MARS doubles down on India’s Infra.Market with new $50M investment

Fundraising /

Infra.Market, an Indian startup that helps construction and real estate firms procure materials, has raised $50 million from MARS Unicorn Fund as it looks to expand operations overseas, the companies told TechCrunch on Tuesday.  MARS Unicorn Fund, a joint venture between AI-driven fund Liquidity Group and Japanese bank MUFG, is an existing backer of the

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Cloover wants to speed solar adoption by helping installers finance new sales

Fundraising /

Solar panels practically sold themselves in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent electricity prices skyrocketing. Now, as prices have begun to fall, solar installers have found themselves spending more on marketing to attract customers. One proven way to win more business has been to offer financing. But small operations usually don’t have the resources

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Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12

Fundraising /

A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cybercriminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup called Bolster that has built a novel approach to tackle that trick has raised $14 million in funding to expand its work, both across a

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Immigrant banking platform Majority secures $20M following 3x revenue growth

Fundraising /

It can be challenging to pick up and move to a new country, made even more challenging if you are not used to the style of banking in that particular country. The increase of immigrants to the United States — some 50 million total foreign-born people live in the US now, according to immigration think

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Praktika raises $35.5M to use AI avatars to make learning languages feel more natural

Fundraising /

Most apps that help you learn languages have features where you select options or swipe away wrong answer cards — you’re more or less interacting with a machine. Language-learning app Praktika is adopting a different approach: It lets you create personalized AI-powered avatars to replicate the experience of having a private tutor, leveraging inflections like

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VCs wanted FarmboxRx to become a meal kit, the company bootstrapped instead

Fundraising /

Some startups choose to bootstrap from the beginning while others find themselves forced into self funding by a lack of investor interest or a business model that doesn’t fit traditional VC. FarmboxRx decided to bootstrap because founder Ashley Tyrner didn’t like the advice she was getting from potential backers. Tyrner told TechCrunch’s Found podcast that

VCs wanted FarmboxRx to become a meal kit, the company bootstrapped instead Read More »