The Latest from Ingrid Lunden
Freelancer marketplace Toptal sues Andela and ex-employees, alleging theft of trade secrets
The war for talent in the tech world can be brutal — and so, it turns out, can the war between platforms that help companies source it. In the latest developement, Toptal — a marketplace f
Fresha raises $100M for its beauty and wellness booking platform and marketplace
Beauty and wellness businesses have come roaring back to life with the decline of COVID-19 restrictions, and a startup that’s built a platform that caters to the many needs of small enterprises
Payments giant Stripe launches Stripe Tax to integrate sales tax calculations for 30+ countries
On the heels of acquiring sales tax specialist TaxJar in April, today Stripe is making another big move in the area of tax. The $95 billion payments behemoth is launching a new product called Stripe T
ChartHop raises $35M for its internal org chart and people analytics platform
Human resources is generally a salient cornerstone of any organization, but digitization has democratized a lot of the work that goes into HR, and that’s meant more people in businesses interest
Carlyle acquires 1E.com, an endpoint and hybrid working specialist, in $270M deal
Remote work was the order of the day for the past 16 months, but as we (fingers crossed) move out of the pandemic, it’s looking like a lot of people may move into a new era of hybrid work: less
Sinch snaps up MessageMedia for $1.3B to compete with Twilio in business SMS services
Sinch — the Swedish company that provides a suite of services for companies to build communications and specifically “customer engagement” into their services by way of APIs — has made yet ano
European neobroker Scalable Capital raises $180M+ at a $1.4B valuation
Neobrokers — startups that are disrupting the investment industry by providing a platform for a wider range of consumers to partake in the stock market by offering them more incremental investme
Whatfix nabs $90M to help workers onboard and get the most out of their IT stacks
“Digital transformation” has been on the mind of many an organization in the last year: the pandemic and the shift it’s brought to how we work are speeding up investments in new apps
Apple (finally) updates its weather app with dynamic backgrounds, maps and way more data
Weather remains one of the most-used apps on mobile devices, and yet so often it’s also one of the least dynamic when it comes to updates and new features (ironic especially if you live in a cou
Mendel raises $18M to tease out data structure from medicine’s disparate document trove
The medical industry is sitting on a huge trove of data, but in many cases it can be a challenge to realize the value of it because that data is unstructured and in disparate places. Today, a startup
Lightspeed buys Ecwid for $500M; NuOrder for $425M in ongoing e-commerce consolidation play
Lightspeed has picked up two more companies in what is shaping up to be an acquisition spree for the Canadian point-of-sale software provider. The company today announced that it would acquire e-comm
YouTube expands TikTok rival Shorts to the UK, Canada, Latin America, lets users tap all of YouTube for tunes
One of Google’s strong advantages in the world of online video has been the sheer size of YouTube: currently, the site has more than 2.3 billion monthly active users and over 500 hours of conten
Flink, the German grocery delivery startup, raises $240M after launching just 6 months ago
On-demand grocery delivery, which really came into its own with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, continues to command huge attention from investors. The jury is still out on how people will use
Facebook doubles down on business tools with WhatsApp API updates, Login Connect for Messenger and more
WhatsApp now has more than 2 billion users globally, and by comparison its efforts to cultivate more business usage have been quite modest: just over 175 million people message with WhatsApp Business
Facebook opens its Messenger API for Instagram to all
F8 Refresh, Facebook’s annual developer conference with a new twist — it’s more pared down than in years past, and virtual — is going to be kicking off later today, and ahead o
FlixMobility raises $650M+ at a $3B valuation to double down on buses and other transport in the US
As consumers around the world slowly start to get moving again — fingers crossed that new waves of COVID-19 cases do not set that back — one of the big players in on-demand mass transporta
Venn, a social networking and services platform for hyperlocal neighborhood groups, raises $60M
Facebook, Nextdoor and many others in tech have focused on the concepts of community and neighborhoods to build connections between people and in turn offer services relevant to them. Today, a startup
Etsy is acquiring UK-based social selling site Depop for $1.625B in a mostly cash deal
Very big news today coming out of Europe in the world of e-commerce. Etsy, the New York-based marketplace where crafty creators and those interested in their styles can discover and buy those goods, t
Cognigy raises $44M to scale its enterprise-focused conversational AI platform
Artificial intelligence is becoming an increasingly common part of how customer service works — a trend that was accelerated in this past year as so many other services went virtual and digital
Redacted comes out of stealth with $60M in funding and a new take on fighting cybercrime
The cybersecurity industry has no shortage of technology to fight against network intruders, app corrupters, email hackers and other cyber criminals. Today a startup called Redacted is coming out of s