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Pinterest says it will test livestreaming events this month through a three-day virtual event featuring sessions with around 21 top creators
Roku announces launch of its original programming, including the Quibi content it acquired, on the Roku Channel, starting May 20
Discord announces Stage Discovery, a tool to help people find communities through live audio events, and says it will soon test paid, ticketed audio events
Framework’s repairable laptop is up for preorder, starting at $999
Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide says it raised an undisclosed sum to complete its Series C at a $3B+ valuation, four months after its $310M Series B
Munich-based parcelLab, which helps retailers send automated personalized shipping messages to their customers, raises $112M Series C led by Insight Partners
London-based Unmind, which lets employers offer digital mental health services to their staff, raises $47M Series B led by EQT Ventures
Stampli, which helps companies manage invoices and see how costs are allocated, raises $50M Series C led by Insight Partners and says it has ~1,000 customers
Vinted, an online marketplace for used clothes and home goods, raises €250M Series F led by EQT Growth at a €3.5B valuation
Acquco, a NY-based startup founded by former Amazon employees that buys and scales Amazon third party sellers, raises $160M Series A in debt and equity
Cycode, which focuses on helping enterprises secure their DevOps pipelines, raises $20M Series A led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $24.6M
Panaseer, whose platform helps companies correlate data from all available security tools to check assets, control gaps, and more, raises $26M Series B
UK-based Huma, which uses AI and biomarkers to monitor patients at home and for medical research, raises $130M Series C that it can extend with a $70M debt line
SightCall, an AR-based visual assistance service for field workers, raises $42M Series B and says it has 200+ enterprise clients like Kraft-Heinz, GE Healthcare
YouTube plans to pay $100M to top creators on YouTube Shorts, its TikTok competitor, through 2022, starting in the next few months in the US and India
Google Pay users in the US can now send money to GPay users in India and Singapore; Google has partnered with Western Union and Wise to enable this feature
Zencargo, which helps companies organize and track movements of items via its freight forwarding platform, raises $42M Series B led by Digital+ Partners
Innovusion, which develops lidar tech for autonomous vehicles, raises $64M Series B led by Temasek, bringing its total raised to over $100M
Telkomsel, Indonesia's biggest telecom network, invests an additional $300M in ride-hailing giant Gojek, after investing $150M in November 2020
Crypto asset manager Babel Finance raises $40M Series A from Zoo Capital, Sequoia Capital China, Tiger Global, and others
Amsterdam-based StuDocu, which sources and shares student-created class notes, raises $50M Series B, says it reaches 15M university students in 60 countries
Report: fintech startups across India, Africa, and Latin America raised a total of $23B since 2017; Indian companies raised $11.6B, including $4.8B just in 2019
Bitski, which builds custom NFT storefronts for brands and creators, raises $19M Series A led by a16z and others including Jay-Z, MrBeast, and Serena Williams
Techmeme · 7 days ago
Lightmatter, which is developing AI chips that use light signals rather than electrical signals, raises $80M Series B, bringing its total raised to about $113M
TikTok announces new tools for developers, including TikTok Login Kit to let users sign into apps using their TikTok credentials and sound sharing
Snap to launch a Creator Marketplace later this month to let businesses find Snapchat creators, including lens makers, with plans to expand to Snap Stars
Singapore-based Rainforest, which wants to consolidate Asia-Pacific Amazon Marketplace brands, raises $36M in seed funding led by Nordstar
Techmeme · 1 week ago
Oslo-based edtech company Kahoot says it is acquiring Clever, a portal for educators and students to build digital learning classrooms, for up to $500M
French startup Shift Technology, which uses AI to help insurance providers detect and prevent fraud, raises $220M Series D at a $1B+ valuation, led by Advent
Una Brands, which acquires and consolidates third party sellers across e-commerce platforms in the Asia-Pacific region, launches with $40M in debt and equity
Finnish mobile games company Metacore raises $180M in a debt round from Tencent's Supercell to scale its first game Merge Mansion, which has 800K+ DAUs
Cymulate, which tests clients' networks by running simulated machine learning-based cyber attacks, raises $45M Series C led by One Peak Partners
Twitter says it is rolling out improved prompts that discourage "harmful" language, first to iOS and then Android, after studies showed prompts were effective
Timescale, which develops the open source TimescaleDB time series database, raises $40M Series B led by Redpoint Ventures, bringing its total raised to ~$70M
Apple announces "Search tab campaigns" for App Store, a new ad unit that lets developers promote apps alongside the Suggested list of results
Researcher details a Peloton API bug that let anyone access private account info, which initially went unpatched until a reporter contacted Peloton
Acronis, which provides data backup and protection services, raises $250M at a $2.5B+ valuation led by CVC
HoneyBook, which offers financial and business management tools to SMBs and freelancers, raises $155M Series D at $1B+ valuation, has doubled users in 12 months
Headway, which helps connect therapists with people and acceptable insurance coverage in the US, raises $70M Series B led by a16z at a $750M valuation
Instagram announces a "captions sticker" to help make videos accessible without sound, coming first to Stories and then Reels
Techmeme · 1 week ago