French dating app Happn just raised a $14 million Series B round from Idinvest with participation from Alven Capital, DN Capital, Raine Ventures and business angels, such as Fabrice Grinda, David Wolfson and Gil Penchina. Previously, the company had raised an $8 million Series A round. Read More
Spare a thought for high end fashion boutiques. The rarefied aura of prestige and privilege they spend so long cultivating to reflect the premium brands they stock means they can’t use something as crudely effective as discounts to lure customers in store. So how do they acquire new customers? Read More
This morning at Asana’s San Francisco headquarters, the startup announced a new version of its product, a new brand — logo — and, happily, some metrics about its growth. As you will recall, the startup picked up a new Head of Business from Google on Monday, announcing at the same time that it has expanded its revenue by 230 percent over the past year. Growth Asana announced… Read More
Last season, the Los Angeles Lakers paid Kobe Bryant $23.5 million as he sat on the bench indefinitely with a torn rotator cuff. That’s just a fraction of the $500 million that injured players’ salaries cost professional sports teams last year alone. To keep more of their players in the starting lineup, NFL, MLB and NBA teams are increasingly turning to Kitman Labs. Read More
Next Issue, the publisher-backed subscription service offering unlimited access to 160 magazines, is launching a revamped app with new features and a new name — Texture. A joint venture from publishers Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc., Next Issue launched more than three years ago. It raised $50 million from KKR at the end of 2014, and CEO John Loughlin said… Read More
Today, educational startup General Assembly announced a series D round of funding of $70M. Here’s what CEO Jake Schwartz had to say about the news: Today we are announcing a new round of funding for General Assembly, representing over $70 million in capital from a group of leading investors. Our new investors are Advance Publications and Wellington Capital Management LLP, and our… Read More
Have you ever wished you knew how many likes or shares a Facebook post would get before you pressed the blue button? 2014 Y Combinator-backed startup Naytev recently launched Spark, a tool that will allow media brands to test their best messages before posting them to their Facebook pages. The practice, commonly known as “dark testing,” allows publications (like TechCrunch) to… Read More
French startup accelerator Numa started as a nonprofit organization 15 years ago. Since then, everything has changed in the French tech ecosystem. Numa doesn’t have the same name, office, business model and now shareholders. After successfully raising $1.1 million (1 million euros) in a crowdfunding campaign, the organization has sold more equity to third-party investors — this… Read More
Nuzzel, the social news startup led by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, is announcing a bunch of new investors today — including Matter, the Knight Foundation-backed incubator for media startups. Abrams didn’t say how much additional cash he’s raised, but he described the new funding as “relatively small in size compared to some of our tech-industry… Read More
When I moved to Taiwan in 2007, I was struck by the large number of independent designers in the city—and how hard it was to find them. Most only sold at weekend craft markets and their online presences were scattered across different blogging platforms and social media sites. In just four years, however, Pinkoi has dramatically changed that, serving not only as an e-commerce platform… Read More
Rideshare service Lyft announced on Tuesday it would open its first engineering office outside the Bay Area in Seattle, saying the location would give it an advantage in recruitment. Initially about 20 engineers will join the Lyft Seattle office. Once a city that vexed ride-sharing companies with its strict regulations, Seattle now boasts engineering offices for Lyft and Uber.… Read More
Mobile shopping app Ibotta, which got its start as an alternative means of saving money while grocery shopping without having to clip coupons, has now closed on $40 million in Series C funding to continue to scale its business. A testament to building something practical and useful for the everyday consumer, Ibotta has seen over 10 million downloads to date and a user base that has saved a… Read More
Italy headquartered startup ShopFully, which helps drive customers to physical retail stores with a digital alternative to the humble paper flyer, has raised a further €10 million. Backing comes from Highland Capital Partners Europe and brings total raised over the last three years to €20 million. Previous backers include Principia SGR, 360 Capital Partners and Merifin. Read More
Farmigo, a startup rethinking the local farmer’s market, has raised $16 million in series B funding. Founder and CEO Benzi Ronen said the company started out by building software for farmers, but its focus has shifted to a consumer marketplace where you can order farm-fresh groceries, then pick them up from local “food communities,” such as a nearby school or office.… Read More
Foursquare is getting a touch closer to OpenTable through deeper integrations via Button. Users on the Foursquare app will now be able to see available tables (from OpenTable) right within the Foursquare app, as well as have the ability to book tables. Button, which helps different applications work more seamlessly together, is powering the integration. Foursquare has already taken steps… Read More
Credible, the multi-lender marketplace for student loans, has today announced the close of a $10 million Series A funding round led by Soul Htite, founder and CEO of Dianrong.com and cofounder of LendingClub, with participation from Prosper president Ron Suber, and Scott Langmack. Unlike other student loan marketplaces that sell leads to lenders, Credible works by getting fixed-rate lines… Read More
Yes, you read that right. Only 24 hours left to apply to the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt London. Time to get going. You can do it. We loved being in London so much that we’re bringing Disrupt back to welcome an all-new slate of outstanding startups, influential speakers, guests and more to the stage. It marks the second time we’ve set up shop in London and we couldn’t be… Read More
For more than 35 years since its founders emigrated from Lebanon to the Bay Area, La Mediterranee has served falafels and tzatziki to locals in San Francisco and Berkeley. It’s one of the longstanding local businesses that has managed to cross over with San Francisco’s more tech-centric crowds. That’s because of a partnership with ZeroCater, that is now bringing more than… Read More
Interviewed, a company that provides simulations for job candidates, has closed a $2 million seed round with participation from YC, SV Angel, Red Swan Ventures, and Jason Calacanis, among others. The company also announced that after six months it have given almost 100,000 job assessments, with that number growing from 240 assessments the first month to 43,500 assessments last month. Read More
Google just unveiled the 10 finalists for its second Impact Challenge: Bay Area, an effort to drive social change through funding local non-profit organizations and charities. The top four organizations get $500,000 in grant funding and the remaining six get $100,000 each. Google is also awarding $100,000 grants to an additional 15 non-profit organizations, bringing the total amount of… Read More
Attention comics fans: Social reading app Wattpad is giving you a new way to connect with your favorite publishers and writers. Well, one publisher and four writers initially — the publisher is Vertigo, which has enlisted Survivors’ Club writers Lauren Beukes and Dale Halvorsen to launch their profiles today and share lists of their favorite horror movies. Gail Simone and Holly… Read More
Slack, the $2.8 billion valued company behind the messaging app that is changing how many businesses communicate internally, just launched an update that might once again spare your inbox. The messaging service, which is used by over 1 million people each day, has proven to be a popular way to simplify ad hoc and daily communication between teams, but now it has revamped its… Read More
Eden, the on-demand tech support and installation startup out of Y Combinator, is today introducing new revenue streams to the platform. Originally, Eden launched to serve the consumer market, charging folks $70/hour to do things like troubleshoot the wifi or install a printer. But the team at Eden soon realized that businesses also show a great demand for quick-and-easy tech support and… Read More
For several years, Richard Price has had a quixotic dream to make cutting-edge academic research universally available to everyone. “I want a world where a 19-year-old kid in China can access a paper he’s interested in about lithium ion batteries on his phone on the subway and it’s validated by others and it’s in his own language,” Price said. Read More
New Orleans, prepare yourselves. TechCrunch is coming at you with the world-renowned TC Meetup + Pitch-off and it’s going down way sooner than you might suspect (mostly because Disrupt disrupted my life). For those of you who haven’t yet heard, the TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-off is essentially a smaller version of the TC Disrupt Battlefield competition. Ten pre-selected startups… Read More
