-
Y Combinator signs up to Founders Pledge charity scheme for social causes
There’s always been an ongoing conversation amongst successful tech entrepreneurs about how to “give back.” Not everyone can afford to found an entire hospital, and yet many feel a desire to do something more than move on to the next startup. What probably needs to change is not so much the conversation around the “big exit” but the “conversation”… Read More
-
After a long journey, WAYN gets picked up by its dotcom-era brother, Lastminute.com
Fourteen years is a long time to be a startup, but long-time travel social network WAYN has finally cashed in its chips and sold to (almost equally old) online travel pioneer Lastminute.com Group. Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, so take that to mean what you will. WAYN’s founders and a team 20, based across the UK, Poland and South Africa, will transfer to the new… Read More
-
WorldRemit CEO Ismail Ahmed to speak at Disrupt London
TechCrunch Disrupt London is coming this December. The two-day conference runs December 5 to 6 in the Olympic Village’s Copper Box Arena and features Startup Alley and Startup Battlefield where one startup will take home £30,000. You can buy early-bird tickets for Disrupt London here. We’re delighted to announce that we will be joined by the founder and CEO of WorldRemit… Read More
-
OurCrowd raises another $72M to build out its equity crowdfunding platform
OurCrowd, the crowdfunding platform that gives backers equity in the companies they support, today announced that it has raised $72 million in a Series C round of funding, and expects the final figure to be closer to $100 million. Half of the capital will be used to build out its offices globally and develop its platform; and half will be used to match investments made on OurCrowd, according… Read More
-
European insurance tech startup FinanceFox closes $28M Series A
“We’re not a bunch of startup dudes saying we’re disrupting insurance… we’re not a bunch of arrogant pricks,” FinanceFox co-founder and CEO Julian Teicke told me during a call late last week. The company, which is announcing $28 million in Series A funding today, is one of a number of European ‘insurtech’ startups who are attempting to bring… Read More
-
DeepMind wants its healthcare AI to charge by results — but first it needs your data
Mark your Google calendars because from today ‘Don’t be evil’ rides again, via the DeepMind AI division of the Alphabet ad giant, as a hippocratic assurance to ‘Do no harm’… Read More
-
Angel.ai, a company that builds chat bots, acqui-hired by Amazon
It looks like Google, which yesterday acquired API.ai, a company that helps developers build conversational interfaces, isn’t the only major tech company hoovering up chat bot talent. TechCrunch understands that Angel.ai (formerly known as GoButler) has, at least partially, been acqui-hired by Amazon. Read More
-
Sainsbury’s exits digital entertainment, hands over e-book business to Kobo
Once again, a big retailer in the UK is pulling away from its ambitions to move into digital media. Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s is exiting the digital entertainment business. As part of that process, it will be outsourcing its e-book operations to Kobo, the online bookseller and maker of e-readers, owned by Japan’s Rakuten. The digital entertainment business, which is marketed… Read More
-
French online restaurant FoodChéri raises €6M Series A
French food delivery startup FoodChéri, which operates an online only restaurant along the lines of EatFirst in the UK or Munchery’s original model in the US, has raised €6 million in Series A funding led by 360 Capital Partners, and Breega Capital. Read More
-
StarOfService raises $10 million for its service marketplace
French startup StarOfService just raised another $10 million for its European Thumbtack alternative. Andrea Piccioni and Silvio Pagliani, ENERN Investments and Point Nine Capital participated in today’s round, as well as various business angels. When I first covered StarOfService, the company didn’t even try to hide from me that it was a Thumbtack copycat. The main difference is… Read More
-
Airbnb faces fresh crackdown in Barcelona as city council asks residents to report illegal rentals
Airbnb is facing a further squeeze on its activities in Barcelona, the Catalonian capital that’s hugely popular with tourists — ramping up tension with local communities dealing with inflating rents and rowdy behavior by visitors facilitated by the rapid rise of sharing-economy platforms. Read More
-
Aircall raised $8 million for its cloud phone system for teams
In case you missed it, Aircall announced last week that it had raised another $8 million dollars in funding for its call center software-as-a-service. Balderton Capital is leading this Series A round, with New York-based VC firm FJLabs and existing investors also investing. I’m a bit late to the news because last week was TechCrunch Disrupt SF. It’s worth mentioning that… Read More
-
Riot wants to be like Slack, but with the flexibility of an underlying open source platform
In the ‘old days’ there were plenty of messaging apps and aggregators, but they survived in an open source world. Today, business models dictate that platforms like Slack must keep their messages to themselves. It would be nice if open-source alternatives could bring back the days of flexibility, combined with today’s world of excellent user experience. What if Slack were… Read More
-
DueCourse, a cloud-based invoice financing service for SMEs, raises £6.25M
DueCourse, a cloud-based invoice financing service for SMEs, has raised £6.25 million in new funding. Read More
-
Bazillion Beings are AI-driven bots that have to earn their keep… or die
Back in March Microsoft CEO Nadella announced “Bots are the new apps” while The Economist calls chat bots “the next frontier”. So that’s the hype taken care of but what does a bot-driven world look like, especially in the context of the Artificial Intelligence that’s theoretically supposed to drive them? Bazillion Beings, a company exhibiting in Startup Alley… Read More
-
Here’s your chance to get into TechCrunch’s AI Pavilion at Disrupt London for free
According to one estimate, there are roughly 900 tech companies working in the AI field, covering everything from business intelligence to finance and security. The AI gold rush started in 2014 with a flurry of deals into AI companies. Last year there were some 300 deals into AI companies according to CB Insights and in the UK alone, companies like Ravelin, Signal and Gluru raised seed rounds. Read More
-
Here’s your shot at free exhibit space at TechCrunch’s Healthtech Pavilion at Disrupt London
While Europe’s technology ecosystem is growing, there’s sometimes a view that it lags behind the U.S. for healthtech or Health 2.0, or whatever you want to call it. But that’s basically bullshit. While Europe has been a slow starter, it’s catching up very fast. There are many new EU-based healthtech companies, and a brief analysis of CrunchBase shows that while the U.K. Read More
-
EU digital copyright reform proposals slammed as regressive
The European Commission’s proposals to reform the region’s copyright rules, published in draft form today, have been criticized by tech companies and digital rights groups as regressive and a missed opportunity to modernize hopelessly outdated rules. Read More
Message Us