Uptake nabs $117M at $2.3B valuation for industrial predictive analytics

 A company that is seizing the opportunity to provide predictive analytics to the industrial world — regardless of whether a business has made the (often costly) transition to internet-of-things “smart” systems — is today announcing that it has raised a significant round of growth funding to double down on the opportunity. Uptake, a SaaS startup that uses machine learning… Read More

Pokémon Go creator raises $200 million ahead of Harry Potter game launch

 Pokémon Go creator Niantic has raised a new $200 million in funding, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Series B raise was led by Spark Capital, and includes participation from Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin Venture Capital, You & Mr. Jones and NetEase, Inc. Spark partner Megan Quinn is also joining Niantic’s board as part of the new financing deal.
Niantic is known for its… Read More

PacketZoom lands $5M Series A investment to speed up mobile apps

 PacketZoom, a startup that helps app developers speed up and optimize app delivery on mobile devices, announced a $5M Series A today. The round was led by Baseline Ventures with participation from First Round Capital, Tandem Capital and Arafura Ventures. Today’s investment brings the total raised to over $9M, according to Crunchbase. The company combines a content delivery network (CDN)… Read More

Company raises $347K ICO, vanishes

 A company called Confido raised a small ICO by selling special CFD designed to allow “safe and trustless cryptocurrency payments. According to ICODrops they raised their goal of about $400,000 and quickly disappeared, taking the cash with it. The site is currently a parked web server that points to nothing. The apparent founder and former eBay employee, Joost van Doorn, posted a message to… Read More

Scalyr scores $20M Series A for super-fast log reading tool

 In a time where every startup seems to be using machine learning to sift through massive amounts of data, Scalyr is a cloud-based service that is taking a different approach. It has built a tool the founder claims can sort through massive amounts of log data at lightning speed when compared to conventional logging tools — and it doesn’t require machine learning to make it… Read More

Zego picks up £6M Series A led by Balderton for its gig economy worker insurance

 Zego, the London-based startup that appears to have spotted a gaping insurance hole in the so-called gig economy, has raised £6 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from existing backers, including LocalGlobe and unnamed angel investors in the insurance sector. The company plans to use the new capital to increase engineering and other… Read More