Voice-based social networks and gaming as a new form of identity were amongst the top emerging trends in consumer social startups, according to an Extra Crunch survey of top social tech investors. Meanwhile, anonymity and dating apps with a superfluous twist were spaces where investors were most pessimistic. Extra Crunch assembled a list of the […]

Early this afternoon Shippo, a shipping software and services company, announced that it has closed a $30 million Series C. The funding round roughly doubles the capital that the firm has raised to-date, from a little over $29 million to just under $60 million. The round, however, wasn’t put together recently. As is often the […]

The fintech wars continue to heat up with another major exit in the space. Consumer financial services platform SoFi announced today that it is acquiring payments and bank account infrastructure company Galileo for $1.2 billion in total cash and stock. The acquisition is dependent on customary closing conditions. Salt Lake City-based Galileo was founded in […]

Given the rise in online shopping attributed to the coronavirus outbreak which has forced consumers to stay home from stores, Pinterest today is launching a new way to shop on its platform. Now, Pinterest users will be able to browse in-stock inventory from newly added “Shop” tabs on Search and on Pinterest boards. The company […]

After raising $8 million in November to roll up top Amazon marketplace companies, the new Boston-based startup Perch has begun putting that money to work in its first few deals. The brainchild of Chris Bell, formerly Wayfair’s head of logistics and a Bain & Co. principal, Perch is pretty well-positioned to serve as unifier of […]

Securitization is a critical function of the modern financial system. Banks “package” individual loans, say a mortgage or an auto loan, into a group with similar characteristics and sell them to other investors. That gets the debt off the originator’s balance sheet so that they can offer more loans, while also offering private investors alternative […]

CircleCI, an early adherent to the notion of continuous delivery when it launched in 2011, announced a $100 million Series E investment today. It comes on top of a $56 million round last July. The round was led by IVP and Sapphire Ventures. Under the terms of the deal, Cack Wilhelm will be joining the CircleCI […]

Quibi, the oddly-named mobile streaming service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, was downloaded over 300,000 times on launch day, according to preliminary data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That’s only 7.5% of the approximately 4 million installs Disney+ saw when it launched in the U.S. and Canada on November 12, 2019. However, it was […]

Spot & Tango, the D2C pet food brand, has today announced the launch of a new line of pet food called UnKibble. Alongside the announcement of the launch, the company has also closed on a $4.2 million seed funding round led by Guild Capital. Spot & Tango launched 2018 with a line of fresh, wet […]

Shipt shoppers, which began organizing in February, are staging their first action today. Yesterday, a group of Shipt shoppers, who shop and deliver orders from Target and other stores, announced their plans to walk off today. The walk-off is in protest of the way Shipt has treated its shoppers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Vice first […]

Last year, The Information reported that CNN was working on a new digital news service to compete with the likes of Apple and Facebook. Today, some of those plans are taking shape. The Turner-owned news broadcaster has acquired Canopy, an all-purpose content personalisation that uses human curation, on-device machine learning and differential privacy to help […]

The decade-old New Media Ventures investment fund, which backs startup businesses and non-profits developing technologies to improve access to government, said it is raising a “Crisis Innovation Fund” aiming to provide matching grants for startups advancing democracy and centering marginalized communities. The fund will offer grants and investments of between $25,000 and $250,000 to entrepreneurs […]

WorkClout, a graduate of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 cohort, announced today that it has shifted its focus from manufacturing automation to manufacturing performance support and has raised a $2.3 million seed round. The funding was led by Spider Capital with participation from Y Combinator, Liquid 2, Soma Capital, Pioneer Fund, Mehta Ventures and several […]

Let's talk about how Q2 is going to impact startups and how young companies might respond.