Didi Chuxing, the on-demand giant that drove Uber out of China, is set to become the world’s second-highest valued tech startup. Beijing-based Didi is in the process of raising a round that could reach as high as $6 billion at a valuation that would exceed $50 billion, a source with knowledge of discussions told TechCrunch. That’s not far from Uber itself, which is said to… Read More
Everfi raises $190 million to teach life skills and touchy subjects online
Everfi Inc. has raised $190 million in Series D funding to teach students online the life skills and touchy subject matter that they never learned in school. A sampling of courses offered by Everfi range from “Harassment Prevention Training” for the workforce, to “Alcohol EDU” for college students and “Vault Understanding Money” for fourth-, fifth- and… Read More
Spotify acquires blockchain startup Mediachain to solve music’s attribution problem
Spotify has acquired the Brooklyn-based blockchain startup Mediachain Labs, whose team will join the company’s office in New York where they will work on developing better technology for connecting artists and other rights holders with the tracks hosted on Spotify’s service. Prior to its acquisition, the startup had developed several technologies that could aid in these… Read More
Huddly raises $10M to “reinvent the camera” with a computer-vision platform for video meetings
Huddly, a Norway-based startup that sells a camera targeting remote company meetings (or huddles) and is building out what it describes as a “computer-vision” platform to help managers glean better data from those meetings, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. It brings total raised to $20 million, not including a $3 million research grant. Read More
Robinhood stock trading app confirms $110M raise at $1.3B valuation
Zero-fee stock trading app Robinhood has joined the unicorn club thanks to reaching 2 million users and 17% month-over-month growth of its revenue-driving Robinhood Gold subscription product. The startup confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s raised a $110 million Series C at a $1.3 billion valuation led by DST Global, with participation by existing investors NEA, Index Ventures and Ribbit… Read More
OverOps scores $30 million led by Lightspeed Ventures
OverOps, a startup that wants to help companies find software bugs more efficiently than by pouring over log files, announced a $30 million Series C round led by Lightspeed Ventures with participation from Menlo Ventures. Both are existing investors. In a nutshell, OverOps delivers a cloud or on-prem solution that helps developers and operations teams nail down bugs in a more automated… Read More
Paktor, a major rival to Tinder in Asia, moves into live-streaming via merger deal
Dating app Paktor, often dubbed ‘The Tinder of Southeast Asia,’ just sealed up its move into live-streaming and media content after it announced a merger deal with Taiwanese startup 17 Media.
Under the deal, a new company called M17 Entertainment has been created with shares from both Paktor and 17 Media, company representatives confirmed. They didn’t, however, reveal a… Read More
Telegraph Media Group acquires UK exam preparation app Gojimo
Gojimo, an app that helps U.K. high school students prepare for exams, has been acquired by Telegraph Media Group, the publisher of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph newspapers. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but from what I gather the Gojimo team are staying on and the company will still be run as a separate entity. Read More
AIDoc Medical raises $7M to bring AI to medical imaging analysis
We are probably still quite some way off from seeing Artificial Intelligence (AI) replace doctors, but there are already lots of proven use-cases where AI is being used to augment the medical profession. One proven area is in medical imaging where AI and computer vision is helping with medical scan and imaging analysis to help support radiologists and other clinicians. One startup operating… Read More
Banking app Pockit picks up further £2.9M as it readies new remittance service
Pockit, a mobile banking app that provides current account functionality and is targeting the U.K.’s “underbanked,” has picked up £2.9 million in further funding and will soon begin rolling out a remittance service to make it easier for its users to send money abroad. Read More