StartUp

Since its launch in May of last year, the cannabis-infused drink company Cann has sold 150,000 cans of its THC and CBD-infused, alcohol-free intoxicants, in a sign of success that’s bucking current industry trends.

On its way to that milestone, the company has sold out multiple times as it wrestled with manufacturing facilities that simply couldn’t

Robotics startup company Soft Robotics has closed its Series B round of funding, raising $23 million led by Calibrate Ventures and Material Impact, and including participation from exiting investors including Honeywell, Yahama, Hyperplane and more. This round also brings in FANUC, the world’s largest maker of industrial robots and a recently a

Meet Harvestr, a software-as-a-service startup that wants to help product managers centralize customer feedback from various places. Product managers can then prioritize outstanding issues and feature requests. Finally, the platform helps you get back to your customers once changes have been implemented.

The company just raised a $650,000 funding

A couple of weeks ago, France’s digital minister Cédric O announced some changes when it comes to stock options in France. President Emmanuel Macron is going to talk about the new policy today ahead of the World Economic Forum.

While I don’t want to be too technical, here’s a quick overview of the changes.

First, the price of stock options (also

“Revolutionary” may be an over-used adjective, but how else to describe the rapid evolution in mobility technology? Join us in San Jose, Calif., on May 14 for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. Our second annual day-long conference cuts through the hype and explores the current and future state of the technology and its social, regulatory and economic

Snyk, the company that wants to help developers secure their code as part of the development process, announced a $150 million investment today. The company indicated the investment brings its valuation to more than $1 billion (although it did not share the exact figure).

Today’s round was led by Stripes, a New York City investment firm, with help

Tink, the European open banking platform, is disclosing €90 million in new funding, just 11 months after the Sweden-headquartered company announced a €56 million round of funding.

Co-leading this new round is Dawn Capital, HMI Capital and Insight Partners. The round also includes the incumbent postal operator and Italy’s largest financial services n

Lizhi, one of China’s biggest audio content apps, is debuting on Nasdaq today under the ticker symbol LIZI. It is the first of its major competitors, Ximalaya and Dragonfly, to go public (though Ximalaya is expected to also list in the United States later this year). Lizhi is offering 4.1 million shares at an IPO price of $11 per share.

Though Lizhi

AppsFlyer has raised a massive Series D of $210 million, led by General Atlantic.

Founded in 2011, the company is best known for mobile ad attribution — allowing advertisers to see which campaigns are driving results. At the same time, AppsFlyer has expanded into other areas, like fraud prevention.

And in the funding announcement, General Atlantic

Facebook spying on teens, Twitter accounts hijacked by terrorists, and sexual abuse imagery found on Bing and Giphy were amongst the ugly truths revealed by TechCrunch’s investigating reporting in 2019. The tech industry needs more watchdogs than ever as its size enlargens the impact of safety failures and the abuse of power. Whether through m

Fyllo, a digital marketing company focused on the cannabis industry, has acquired CannaRegs, a website offering subscription access to state and municipal cannabis regulations. Fyllo founder and CEO Chad Bronstein (pictured above) said his company paid $10 million in cash and stock.

Bronstein previously served as chief revenue officer at digital

San Francisco and Lagos-based fintech startup Flutterwave has raised a $35 million Series B round and announced a partnership with Worldpay FIS for payments in Africa.

With the funding, Flutterwave will invest in technology and business development to grow market share in existing operating countries, CEO Olugbenga Agboola — aka GB — told Tec

Last Saturday, Taiwanese voters re-elected President Tsai Ing-wen to her second term after an election that split the country among generational and ideological lines. A crucial issue were the differences in how Tsai, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and her main opponent, Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang (KMT), approach Taiwan’s f

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week Danny and Alex were back together to riff over the latest early-stage rounds, the latest on the late-stage front and more. It was yet another stacked week, forcing us to pick and choose a bit.

Starting off,

Stasher, the luggage storage app for travelers, has raised $2.5 million in additional funding. Leading the round is Venture Friends, along with various angels, including Johan Svanstrom, former president of Expedia-owned Hotels.com.

Launched in 2015, and now calling itself a “sharing economy solution” to luggage storage, the Stasher marketplace

Hi everyone, my name is Eric Eldon and I’m the new writer of the Startups Weekly newsletter. 

I’ll be picking my favorite explicitly startup-focused articles of the week for you from Extra Crunch (where I’m the editor now), as well as TechCrunch (where I was the co-editor years ago… long story). 

Some people tell us that TechCrunch doesn’t cover s

In many countries, an aging population coupled with a low birth rate is increasing the demand for qualified caregivers. In Asia, the need is especially urgent because rapid demographic shifts and changing social structures means family members who traditionally cared for relatives are unable to because they need to work, or live far away. Homage wa

Home, the Berlin-based startup that set out offering an app to help landlords manage rentals but has since pivoted to solve the landlord-tenant problem more directly, has raised €11 million in Series A funding.

Backing the round is Capnamic, EQT Ventures, FJ Labs and Redalpine, whilst the new capital will be used for “product innovation,” par

This week, LaunchDarkly announced that it has raised another $54 million. Led by Bessemer Venture Partners and backed by the company’s existing investors, it brings the company’s total funding up to $130 million.

For the unfamiliar, LaunchDarkly builds a platform that allows companies to easily roll out new features to only certain customers,

Funnel, the Stockholm-based startup that offers technology to help businesses prepare — or make “business-ready” — their marketing data for better reporting and analysis, has closed $47 million in Series B funding.

Leading the round is Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital, with participation from existing investors Balderton Capital, Oxx,

French startup Qonto has raised a $115 million Series C funding round led by Tencent and DST Global. Today’s news comes a few days after another French fintech startup, Lydia, raised some money from Tencent.

Existing investors Valar and Alven are also participating in today’s funding round. TransferWise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus and Adyen CFO Ingo

Continuing our irregular surveys of the public markets, two things happened this week that are worth our time. First, a third domestic technology company — Alphabet — passed the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold. And, second, software as a service (SaaS) stocks reached record highs on the public markets after retreating over last summer.

T

SpinLaunch, a company that aims to turn the launch industry on its head with a wild new concept for getting to orbit, has raised a $35M round B to continue its quest. The team has yet to demonstrate their kinetic launch system, but this year will be the year that changes, they claim.

TechCrunch first reported on SpinLaunch’s ambitious plans in 2

Personio, the Germany-founded HR platform for SMEs, has raised $75 million in Series C funding in a round led by Accel. I understand the investment values the company at around $500 million.

Also joining is Lightspeed Venture Partners, alongside Lars Dalgaard (the founder and former CEO of SuccessFactors). Existing investors Index Ventures,

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that Eaze, a well-known cannabis-focused startup, is struggling to stay in business amidst a cash crunch, leadership turmoil, banking issues and a business model pivot. It’s a compelling, critical read

When Intuit acquired Mint more than a decade ago, mobile was in a different place — as were tech-enabled financial services. There hasn’t been much progress for the personal finance tracker app category in the meantime. Mint has stumbled along with integration issues and tiresome data misclassifications. For many, the best alternative has been fir

It seems like every company making lidar has a new and clever approach, but Baraja takes the cake. Its method is not only elegant and powerful, but fundamentally avoids many issues that nag other lidar technologies. But it’ll need more than smart tech to make headway in this complex and evolving industry.

To understand how lidar works in general,

When Visa bought Plaid this week for $5.3 billion, a figure that was twice its private valuation, it was a clear signal that traditional financial services companies are looking for ways to modernize their approach to business.

With Plaid, Visa picks up a modern set of developer APIs that work behind the scenes to facilitate the movement of money.