SeedPlus closes $18M early-stage fund backed by Cisco, Eight Roads and others
Author: Jon Russell / Source: TechCrunch SeedPlus, the early-stage investment firm backed by Singapore’s Jungle Ventures, has closed its debut fund at a total of SG$25 million, or approximately $18 million. The firm also announced that Cisco and Eight Roads...
Dave wants to save you from expensive overdraft fees
Author: Natasha Lomas / Source: TechCrunch Meet Dave: an AI dressed up in a bearsuit that’s just launched to save you from the evils of expensive overdraft fees. Hand Dave access to your checking account and the app’s machine learning algorithms will get...
VC firm Pi Ventures funds health tech startup Niramai
Author: Raaghav G R / Source: IndianCEO The Delhi – based breast cancer screening startup, Niramai Health Analytix, announced yesterday (24/04/2017) that it had raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a clutch of VC firms and angel investors. The...
HR and employee benefits platform Hibob raises $17.5M led by U.S.-based Battery Ventures
Author: Steve O'Hear / Source: TechCrunch Hibob, a HR and employee benefits platform for small to medium-sized businesses, has raised $17.5 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is U.S. VC firm Battery Ventures, with participation from Arbor...
Babylon Health raises further $60M to continue building out AI doctor app
Author: Steve O'Hear / Source: TechCrunch Babylon Health, the U.K. startup that offers a digital healthcare app using a mixture of artificial intelligence (AI) and video and text consultations with doctors and specialists, has raised $60 million in new...
Here’s How to Master Facebook Advertising and Why You Must
Author: Lesya Liu / Source: Entrepreneur Social media ads are the norm for entrepreneurs both as consumers and business owners, so it’s a safe guess that most entrepreneurs realize the power and reach of Facebook's targeting capabilities. Maybe you’ve tried...
Juicero may be the absurd avatar of Silicon Valley hubris, but boy is it well-engineered
Author: Devin Coldewey / Source: TechCrunch The Juicero story is a funny one in some ways and a sad one in others, so let’s just assume they cancel each other out and admire the machine itself in a nice judgment-free moral vacuum. Or rather, let’s let...
Use Tradition and Ritual to Thrive In the Experience Economy
Author: Allen Han / Source: Entrepreneur I spent most of my childhood in Taiwan learning the ancient art of the Chinese tea ritual from my grandparents. I visited different tea farms during the summer with my grandfather and searched local tea houses and...
LoveCrafts, a social network and marketplace for makers, raises $33M
Author: Ingrid Lunden / Source: TechCrunch Facebook may have the generalist, mass-market social network on lockdown, but when it comes to communities based around special interests, the playing field remains full of promise. Today, a U.K. startup called...
Data management startup Rubrik is raising up to $200M on a $1B valuation
Author: Ingrid Lunden / Source: TechCrunch Make way for another juggernaut amongst enterprise startups: Rubrik, a data backup company that only emerged from stealth in 2015, is in the process of raising between $150 million and $200 million on a valuation of...
6 Important Factors Venture Capitalists Consider Before Investing
Author: Jonathan Long / Source: Entrepreneur I am constantly speaking with entrepreneurs, and they all seem to share the same obstacle: securing funding. Sometimes, bootstrapping isn’t a viable option and traditional lenders won’t approve a business loan,...
Flush with funding, Instacart accelerates US expansion
Author: Lora Kolodny / Source: TechCrunch Grocery delivery startup Instacart recently closed a $400 million Series D round of funding at a valuation of $3.4 billion. Now, the company is putting that capital to work by accelerating its expansion across the...
Chicago’s Next Tech Boom: The Maker-Entrepreneur
Author: Karis Hustad / Source: Chicago Inno Nuha Nazy and Emilia Rogowska set out to create a space that gave people the ability to quit their 9-to-5 jobs. The duo opened the doors to Z-Axis Factory last October, a 15,000 square-foot coworking and maker...
Early-stage fund pi Ventures, others back health-tech startup Niramai
Author: Shruti Jain / Source: VCCircle Breast cancer screening startup Niramai Health Analytix has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a clutch of investors, including early-stage venture funds pi Ventures and Axilor Ventures, impact investor...
When angels fear to tread
Author: Meeta Malhotra / Source: YourStory.com I started making angel investments in 2013 for a very simple reason. I believed that the founders I was investing behind had the vision and tenacity to create powerful brands, and the execution capability to do...
Exclusive: Toppr raises $3.2 mn in bridge round
Author: Dearton Thomas Hector / Source: VCCircle Mumbai-based Haygot Education Pvt Ltd, which runs ed-tech startup Toppr, has raised an external round of funding of Rs 2.16 crore ($3.2 million) in a bridge round of funding, documents with the Registrar of...
As Investors Get Picky, Startups Start To Struggle
Author: PYMNTS / Source: PYMNTS.com A not so very long time ago — about a year and a half — VCs and private equity groups were enthusiastic about innovation — and deeply worried about missing out on the “next big thing.” A lot of questionable ideas got...
Alibaba’s Ant Financial invests in Chinese bike-sharing startup unicorn Ofo
Author: Catherine Shu / Source: TechCrunch Ofo, the Chinese bike-sharing startup that recently claimed unicorn status, announced this weekend that it has added Ant Financial as an investor. In a statement posted to its Weibo account, Ofo said that it will...