500 startups

500 Global closes $143M fund for Southeast Asia startups

500 Global, the venture firm and seed accelerator, has closed $143 million in financing for what it claims is its largest Southeast Asia early-stage fund to date. The new tranche, 500 Southeast Asia I

500 Global’s take on the rising competition among startup accelerators

500 Global, a startup accelerator formerly known as 500 Startups, has rebranded to become a venture firm. Here's how it impacts startups.

As Russians head for the exits, Immigram platform launches to scale professional migration

The number of applications for international visas in the U.K. and elsewhere, in order to leave Russia, has exploded following the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s estimated that since Febru

Stax gets $2.2M for its app that lets Africans make transactions via automated USSD codes

Stax, a startup that allows Africans to buy airtime, send and request money, and transfer funds between accounts via automated USSD codes, has raised a $2.2 million seed extension round. U.S.-based VC

DOJ seizes $3.6B in bitcoins after busting entrepreneur couple in Bitfinex laundering scheme

The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) has seized over 94,000 bitcoins that were allegedly stolen in the 2016 hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex and arrested a married couple suspected to have laundered the

Lawtrades aims to change how your company utilizes legal resources

Its technology enables legal professionals and companies to create profiles and be matched to available work, monitor projects and pay through the platform.

Startup accelerators’ definition of ‘value add’ is due for a refresh

Much has changed about the way launch pads for startups look, feel and show value today. The earliest investors are rethinking signaling risk, dilution and even the worth of a traditional demo day.

SQream acquires no-code data platform Panoply

SQream, a well-funded Israel-based data analytics platform, today announced that it has acquired no-code data platform Panoply in an effort to expand its cloud services. At the core of SQream’s

Kalendar AI wants its sales bots to win your next customers

Kalendar AI, a San Francisco-based startup that’s been building on top of GPT-3‘s language model — developing a SaaS for automating lead generation and sales outreach to make it easi

As Southeast Asia starts to boom, an accelerator backed by Silicon Valley execs jumps in

By today’s standards, $10 million isn’t a lot of capital to invest. But Iterative, which describes itself as a YC-style accelerator focused exclusively on Southeast Asia, says the $10 mill

Productfy raises $16M to build ‘DeFi for traditional finance’

Productfy Inc., a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that aims to build “DeFi for traditional finance,” has raised $16 million in a Series A round of funding led by CM Ventures. Existing backers

Flat.mx raises $20M from VCs, proptech unicorn founders to fix Mexico’s ‘broken’ real estate market

Flat.mx, which wants to build a real estate “super app” for Latin America, has closed on a $20 million Series A round of funding. Anthemis and 500 Startups co-led the investment, which included pa

Y Combinator, 500 Startups, Plug and Play invest in Odiggo’s $2.2M seed round

Servicing one’s car personally is a time-consuming, expensive and painstaking process. It’s a cycle that can lead to more expensive repairs and safety issues down the line, and no car owne

Canopy raises $15M Series A after posting 4.5x customer growth in H1 2021

Canopy's leaders expect focused fintech products to win out over large bundles of services.

Raise, a startup building Africa’s Carta, gets backing from 500 Startups

As startups in Africa continue to grow and raise money at a ridiculous pace, so too will their cap tables expand. Most African startups’ bulk of VC money is from foreign investors, making it imp

Butlr Technologies, developing anonymous people sensors, inks $7.9M seed round

New funding boosts Butlr's ability to apply real-time people-sensing technology beyond real estate and retail uses to monitor falls and other movements for active seniors who are aging in place.

Una Brands launches with $40M to roll up brands on multiple Asia-Pacific e-commerce platforms

One of the biggest funding trends of the past year is companies that consolidate small e-commerce brands. Many of the most notable startups in the space, like Thrasio, Berlin Brands Group and Branded

Offering a service that prioritizes the highest-paying gigs in the gig economy, Stoovo raises funding

Semih Korkmaz and Hantz Févry launched Stoovo in 2019 as a way to help gig workers make the best use of their time. Févry, who immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti, knew firsthand the struggles that co

3 adtech and martech VCs see major opportunities in privacy and compliance

There seems to be plenty of activity in adtech and martech, particularly across the commerce ecosystem with tools that support monetization for small merchants.

TechCrunch’s favorite companies from 500 Startups’ latest demo day

TechCrunch tuned into 500 Startups' 27th demo day today, keen to get our eyes on the accelerator's latest companies.
Load More