startups News of 01/21/20

Challenger Business Bank Qonto Raises $115 Million Round Led By Tencent And DST Global

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 ...

Personio, The German HR Platform For SMEs, Raises $75m Series C At A $500m Valuation

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 ...

Israel’S Cybersecurity Startup Scene Spawned New Entrants In 2019

Yoav Leitersdorf Contributor Share on Twitter Yoav Leitersdorf is the Silicon Valley-based Managing Partner at YL Ventures, where he accelerates cybersecurity startups in the U.S. market. ...

Soft Robotics Raises $23 Million From Investors Including Industrial Robot Giant FANUC

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. ...

Maze Raises $2 Million And Adds Figma Support To Enable User Testing At Scale

Maze wants to reinvent usability tests by letting you turn design prototypes into tests in just a few clicks. It could become the equivalent of a developing test suite for developers, but this time for designers — it could be something that you ...

France Improves Stock Options Policies For Startup Employees

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 ...

Catalyst Fund Gets $15m From JP Morgan, UK Aid To Back 30 EM Fintech Startups

The Catalyst Fund has gained $15 million in new support from JP Morgan and UK Aid and will back 30 fintech startups in Africa, Asia, and Latin America over the next three years. The Boston based accelerator provides mentorship and non-equity funding ...

Open Banking Platform Tink Raises €90m At A Post-Money Valuation Of €415m

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 ...

TechCrunch’S Top 10 Investigative Reports From 2019

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 ...

Taiwan’S Entrepreneurs Move Forward After Tense Presidential Election

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 ...

Startups Weekly: Plaid’S $5.3b Acquisition Is A Textbook Silicon Valley Win

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 ...

LaunchDarkly CEO Edith Harbaugh Explains Why Her Company Raised Another $54m

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, ...

As Alphabet Crests The $1t Mark, SaaS Stocks Reach All-Time Highs Of Their Own

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, ...

Eaze’S Struggles Reflect Falling VC Interest In Cannabis Startups

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 ...

Baraja’S Unique And Ingenious Take On Lidar Shines In A Crowded Industry

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 ...

Discount Student Tickets Available For TC Sessions: Mobility 2020

“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 ...

Harvestr Gathers User Feedback In One Place

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 ...

Chinese Podcasting And Audio Content App Lizhi Debuts On Nasdaq

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 ...

We’Ve Gone Plaid #

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 a the latest early-stage rounds, the latest on the ...

Caregiving Startup Homage Raises $10 Million Series B To Enter New Asian Markets

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 ...