Ingrid Lunden
Writer
The Latest from Ingrid Lunden
KaiOS raises $50M, hits 100M handsets powered by its feature phone OS
While Android and iOS have locked up the market for smartphone operating systems, a feature phone platform that has the distinction of being the world’s third biggest mobile OS is announcing a h
Zendesk acquires Smooch, doubles down on support via messaging apps like WhatsApp
One of the bigger developments in customer services has been the impact of social media — both as a place to vent frustration or praise (mostly frustration) and — especially over messaging
People.ai, the predictive sales startup, raises $60M at around $500M valuation
The best salespeople like to pride themselves on having both a sixth sense when it comes to closing a deal, and a healthy amount of persuasive magic to get a sale over the line. Now, a startup that sa
Payment card startup Marqeta confirms $260M round at close to $2B valuation
Startups that are disrupting and unlocking the lucrative world of financial services continue to unlock big funding rounds for themselves. Today, Marqeta — which helps third parties like Square,
Generation closes $1B growth fund targeting sustainable startups
Generation Investment Management, the firm co-founded by environmentalist and former Vice President Al Gore, was built on the premise of backing sustainable startups. Now, as the idea of sustainabilit
Aaptiv, the workout app, launches a new AI-based personal trainer called Coach
After raising at least $20 million last year from the likes of Amazon, Disney and Bose for a mobile app that offered workouts led by professional, human trainers, Aaptiv is now taking a tech turn. To
Wagestream closes $51M Series A to plug the payday gap without putting workers in debt
Getting your work wages on a monthly (not weekly nor biweekly) basis has become a more widespread trend as the price of running payrolls has gone up, and organizations’ cashflow has gone down. T
Clutter has picked up Omni’s storage business; Omni to focus on rentals
On the heels of Clutter announcing a large growth round of $200 million earlier this year, the storage startup is cleaning up the competitive field. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Clutter
MP Tom Watson wants UK competition authority to investigate Amazon’s Deliveroo stake
European restaurant delivery giant Deliveroo this morning announced that Amazon would be gobbling up a share in the company by leading a new $575 million round of funding in it. But it looks like the
GetYourGuide picks up $484M, passes 25M tickets sold through its tourism activity app
As we swing into the summer tourist season, a company poised to capitalise on that has raised a huge round of funding. GetYourGuide — a Berlin startup that has built a popular marketplace for pe
Instagram is killing Direct, its standalone Snapchat clone app, in the next several weeks
As Facebook pushes ahead with its strategy to consolidate more of the backend of its various apps on to a single platform, it’s also doing a little simplifying and housekeeping. In the coming mo
Accel closes $575M fund to double down on European and Israeli Series A deals
On the heels of Romanian-founded enterprise startup UiPath raising at a $7 billion valuation, the startup’s biggest investor is announcing a new fund to double down on making more investments in
Tealium, a big data platform for structuring disparate customer information, raises $55M at $850M valuation
The average enterprise today uses about 90 different software packages, with between 30-40 of them touching customers directly or indirectly. The data that comes out of those systems can prove to be v
Karat nabs $28M led by Tiger Global to grow its human-powered online interview platform for engineering jobs
A high demand for engineering talent in our digital world has driven companies that need to make these technical hires to cast their nets wider in the search for good people. Now, a company that has b
In travel tech, 4 rivals merge in Europe to form Altido for property management of Airbnb-style homes
The growth of Airbnb and other big travel startups has given a fillip to the wider travel industry, and today several smaller startups in the short-term property sector are announcing that they have m
Adobe ties up with Amazon to build D2C stores powered by Amazon’s commerce and fulfillment tools
E-commerce giant Amazon was built on the concept of a large marketplace that could be the home for all online shopping, whether it was for items and services it was selling itself or those sold by thi
LinkedIn integrates and updates jobs and hiring platforms, hits 20M job postings
LinkedIn, the social networking platform for the working world that’s now owned by Microsoft, has leveraged its role as a repository for people’s work profiles into making itself a job hun
Mailchimp’s Ben Chestnut on bootstrapping a startup to $700M in revenue
The well-known tech startup routine of coming up with an idea, raising money from venture capitalists and other outside investors in increasing rounds as valuations continue to rise, and then eventual
Mailchimp expands from email to full marketing platform, says it will make $700M in 2019
Mailchimp, a bootstrapped startup out of Atlanta, Ga., is known best as a popular tool for organizations to manage their customer-facing email activities — a profitable business that its CEO tol
Uber opens at a disappointing $42 per share
At long last, it's lift-off for Uber.