The Latest from Ingrid Lunden
PPRO extends latest round to $270M, adding JPMorgan and Eldridge to grow its localized payments platform
In January, localized payments provider PPRO became the latest fintech-as-a-service startup to hit a billion-dollar valuation when it closed $180 million in funding. As a mark of how payments and e-co
Berlin’s Blacklane raises $26M to expand its high-end chauffeur-driven sustainable car service
As the Ubers of the world continue to scale, a smaller on-demand transportation startup has raised some funding in Germany, underscoring the opportunities that remain for startups in the space targeti
Feedzai raises $200M at a $1B+ valuation for AI tools to fight financial fraud
On the heels of Jumio announcing a $150 million injection this week to continue building out its AI-based ID verification and anti-money laundering platform, another startup in the space is levelling
Our favorite companies from Y Combinator’s W21 Demo Day: Part 1
If you don't have time to skim through 300+ startups, we've aggregated some of the companies that really managed to catch our eye. This is part one of two, covering our favorites from the companies th
Facebook will bring back F8 on June 2 as a pared-back, single-day, virtual-only conference for developers
After a few twists and turns and then ultimately cancelling its F8 developer conference last year over Covid-19 concerns, Facebook today announced a return of the event in a virtual-only format it is
Dataminr raises $475M on a $4.1B valuation for real-time insights based on 100k sources of public data
Significant funding news today for one of the startups making a business out of tapping huge, noisy troves of publicly available data across social media, news sites, undisclosed filings and more. Dat
Jumio raises $150M as its all-in-one ID authentication platform crosses 300M verified identities
Digital identity services — used as a key link between organizations to verify that you are who you say you are online and individuals logging into those services — have come into their ow
TryNow raises $12M to bring try-before-you-buy, Prime Wardrobe as a service to online retailers
Amazon’s Prime Wardrobe has been a key way for the e-commerce giant to expand its reach selling clothing and other apparel: giving shoppers an easy way to try on several items, return what they
Kuda raises $25M more led by Valar to become the neobank for ‘every African on the planet’
Challenger banks continue to make significant advances in attracting customers away from the big incumbents by providing more modern, user-friendly tools to manage their money. Today, one of the trail
Snap acquires Fit Analytics, a fitting technology startup, to double down on fashion and e-commerce
“Snap, Inc. is a camera company,” Snap notes on its homepage, and while a lot of its effort up to now have been about using that camera ethos to help people share images of their lives wit
Incredibuild gets $140M to speed up games and other software development with distributed processing tech
Many of us are working in distributed environments these days, and in the best scenarios, it might actually have improved rather than impeded our productivity. Today, a company that has built technolo
Overwolf raises $52.5M for its platform to build, distribute and monetize in-game, user-generated content
Roblox, the gaming company that went public this month with a strong debut, changed the game (so to speak) for the role that creative input can play in making a game more loved, more engaging and even
Cyware nabs $30M to help organizations detect and stop advanced cyberattacks
Malicious hacking has become a pernicious and dogged fact of life for more organizations, and it’s a threat that has seemingly grown more complicated and sophisticated over time. One effective a
SumUp raises $895M in debt to double down on its B2C payments business
SumUp, a London-based startup that helps businesses power revenues through card payments — by way of physical readers, online payments, invoices and other services — is itself powering up
Neobroker Bitpanda raises $170M at a $1.2B valuation to take its trading platform beyond crypto
One of the bigger startups in Europe operating a trading platform for cryptocurrency has closed a big round of funding on the heels of very rapid growth, and plans to open its platform to a wider stre
Sherpa raises $8.5M to expand from conversational AI to B2B privacy-first federated learning services
Sherpa, a startup from Bilbao, Spain that was an early mover in building a voice-based digital assistant and predictive search for Spanish-speaking audiences, has raised some more funding to double do
Genesis raises $45M to expand its fintech-focussed low-code platform to more verticals
Low-code and no-code tools have been a huge hit with enterprises keen to give their operations more of a tech boost, but often lack the resources to handle more complex integrations. Today, one of the
Stripe closes $600M round at a $95B valuation
On the heels of reports that Stripe was raising yet more money, the payments giant has now confirmed the details. The company has closed in on another $600 million, at a valuation of $95 billion. Stri
Assembled, an operating system for support teams, raises $16.6M
From the point of view of a consumer, customer service sometimes feels like a monolith, but behind the scenes it can be a very fragmented business, with dozens of companies providing various different
Epidemic Sound raises $450M at a $1.4B valuation to ‘soundtrack the internet’
The popularity of video and other streamed content like podcasts is continuing to grow at a breakneck speed, and today a startup called Epidemic Sound, a marketplace to source the background music for