Uruguayan payments startup dLocal quadruples valuation to $5B with $150M raise

Cross-border payments startup dLocal has raised $150 million at a $5 billion valuation, less than seven months after securing $200 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. This means that the five-year-old Uruguayan company has effectively quadrupled its valuation in a matter of months.

26 Apr 09:12

Want to take a road trip with Kevin Costner? Investors are betting you might

Woody Sears has long been interested in storytelling. After spending several years in sales after nabbing an MBA from Pepperdine — and following the debut in 2007 of the first iPhone — he founded a storytelling app called Zuuka that built up a library of narrated and illustrated kids’ books for the iPhone and iPad.

26 Apr 09:12

ConductorOne raises $5M in seed round led by Accel to automate your access requests

Over the course of their careers, Alex Bovee and Paul Querna realized that while the use of SaaS apps and cloud infrastructure was exploding, the process to give employees permission to use them was not keeping up. The pair led Zero Trust strategies and products at Okta, and could see the problem firsthand. For the […]

26 Apr 09:12

Hipmunk’s founders launch Flight Penguin to bring back Hipmunk-style flight search

Hipmunk’s founders are building a successor to their now-defunct flight search service. The startup was acquired by SAP-owned travel and expense platform Concur in 2016, and its CEO Adam Goldstein departed in 2018.

26 Apr 09:12

Aporia raises $5M for its AI observability platform

Machine learning (ML) models are only as good as the data you feed them. That’s true during training, but also once a model is put in production.

26 Apr 09:12

Plaid raises $425M Series D from Altimeter as it charts a post-Visa future

Plaid, a unicorn that helps connect consumers’ bank accounts to financial applications, has raised a $425 million Series D, it announced this morning. TechCrunch understands that the new capital infusion, led by Altimeter Capital, values the company at around $13.4 billion.

26 Apr 09:12

Authentic Artists is building virtual, AI-powered musicians

Chris McGarry, who previously led music integration at Facebook’s Oculus, is taking a new approach to bringing music into the virtual world with his startup Authentic Artists. McGarry pointed to virtual celebrities like Lil Miquela and virtual concerts like Travis Scott’s giant event in Fortnite as setting the stage for Authentic Artists. In a sense, […]

26 Apr 09:12

Spend management startup Ramp confirms $115M raise at a $1.6B valuation

This morning, Ramp, which provides corporate cards and spend management software, announced that it has closed $115 million across two investments, the latter of which valued the company at $1.6 billion. The Information first reported that Ramp was raising new capital.

26 Apr 09:12

Realworld raises $3.4M to help Gen Z navigate adulthood

Realworld has a big vision — founder and CEO Genevieve Ryan Bellaire told me her goal is “simplifying adulthood.” And the New York startup has raised $3.4 million in seed funding to make it happen. Apparently that’s something Ballaire struggled with herself in her early twenties. Despite being a lawyer with an MBA, she said […]

26 Apr 09:12

Vybe raises $2.9 million for its challenger bank for teens

French startup Vybe has raised a $2.9 million funding round (€2.4 million) to build a challenger bank for teens. The company is currently testing its product with a soft launch. Users get a Mastercard payment card paired with an e-wallet.

26 Apr 09:12

Elior acquires food delivery startup Nestor

Corporate catering company Elior has acquired French startup Nestor for an undisclosed amount. Nestor originally started with a simple idea to differentiate itself from food delivery giants, such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats and others. Every day, the startup offered a single menu for lunch.

26 Apr 09:12

Wonder Dynamics raises $2.5M seed to equip indie filmmakers with AI-powered VFX

Practically every film production these days needs some kind of visual effects work, but independent creators often lack the cash or expertise to get that top-shelf CG.

26 Apr 09:12

When wildfires rage close, Perimeter wants to tell you where to go

Out the window, a fire is raging — and it’s moving ever closer. Confusion. Fear. A run for the car. Roads open and then suddenly closed by authorities. Traffic jams. A fire break that stalls the flames and then suddenly the flames jump, changing direction.

26 Apr 09:12

Bloomscape’s Justin Mast explains how he built a thriving garden startup in Detroit

Justin Mast has a simple reason for starting his plant retail startup Bloomscape in Detroit. “This is home,” he told me. “This is where I have a really strong network and I knew I’d be able to find a lot of support.” =

26 Apr 09:12

Willo launches its tooth-brushing robot for kids

Are you 100% sure that your children are brushing their teeth properly? A New York-based startup called Willo has been working for several years on a device that should transform the tooth-brushing experience for children. Willo isn’t a new toothbrush — electric or not.

26 Apr 09:12

PlexTrac raises $10M Series A round for its collaboration-centric security platform

PlexTrac, a Boise, ID-based security service that aims to provide a unified workflow automation platform for red and blue teams, today announced that it has raised a $10 million Series A funding round led by Noro-Moseley Partners and Madrona Venture Group. StageDot0 ventures also participated in this round, which the company plans to use to […]

26 Apr 09:12

Zeta in talks with SoftBank to raise at over $1 billion valuation

Banking tech startup Zeta is inching closer to the much sought-after unicorn status as it talks to investors to finalize a new round, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 is in talks to lead a ~$250 million Series D round in the five-year-old startup, the sources said.

26 Apr 09:12

Challenger bank N26 to offer insurance products

Fintech startup N26 is launching N26 Insurance as it plans to offer insurance products that you can access from the company’s mobile app and website. The first insurance product is a smartphone insurance plan for German customers. But the startup doesn’t plan to stop there.

26 Apr 09:12

Feels is a new dating app with profiles that look more personal

Meet Feels, a new French startup that wants to change how dating apps work. According to the company, scrolling through photos and reading descriptions tend to be a boring experience. Feels want to improve profiles so that navigating the app feels more like watching TikTok videos or browsing stories.

26 Apr 09:12

Sunday raises $24 million seed round to build a fast restaurant checkout flow

Meet Sunday, a new startup that is going to attract some headlines as it has raised a $24 million seed round at a $140 million post-money valuation. That’s a lot of money for a company that started just a few months ago but that’s because Sunday wants to move quickly.

26 Apr 09:12

Level raises $27M from Khosla, Lightspeed ‘to rebuild insurance from the ground up’

Level, a startup that aims to give companies a more flexible way to offer benefits to employees, has raised $27 million in a Series A funding round led by Khosla Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Operator Collective and leading angels also participated in the financing, along with previous backers First Round Capital and Homebrew. The […]

26 Apr 09:12

Squarespace files for a direct listing on the NYSE

Today Squarespace, a well-known software-and-hosting provider for SMB websites, released its S-1 filing. The company is pursuing a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE. It will trade under the ticker symbol “SQSP.”

26 Apr 09:11

Zoom launches $100M Zoom Apps investment fund

When Zoom launched Zoom Apps and the Marketplace as a place to sell them last year, it was a big signal that the company wanted to be more than just a popular video conferencing application. It wanted to be a platform, which developers could use to build applications on top of Zoom.

26 Apr 09:11

After a decade of bootstrapping, Octopus Deploy raises $172.5M from Insight Partners

Founded almost a decade ago, Octopus Deploy has grown to serve 25,000 organizations, including Microsoft, NASA, Xero, Disney and Stack Overflow, through bootstrapping. Today the company announced its first outside investment.

26 Apr 09:11

Druva raises $147M at a valuation north of $2B as the cloud rush continues

Druva, a software company that sells cloud data backup services, announced today that it has closed a $147 million round of capital. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a group that manages Quebec’s pension fund, led the round, which also saw participation from Neuberger Berman.

26 Apr 09:11

Tom Brady and Salesforce Ventures pour millions into Class, a Zoom-friendly edtech startup

Class, an edtech startup that integrates exclusively with Zoom to make remote teaching more elegant, has raised $12.25 million in new financing. The round brings Salesforce Ventures, Sound Ventures and Super Bowl champion Tom Brady onto its capital table.

26 Apr 09:11

Figma introduces a whiteboard tool called FigJam

Figma spent years in stealth before launching its web-based collaborative design tool. Since coming into the light, the company has been iterating quickly. Today, Figma launches its biggest product update to date. Meet FigJam, Figma’s new whiteboarding tool.

26 Apr 09:11

MasterClass co-founder’s Outlier.org raises $30M for affordable, virtual college courses

Outlier.org — a startup offering intro-level college courses online and at a relatively affordable price — is announcing that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding.

26 Apr 09:11

Queenly raises $2.3M for its dress marketplace

One of our favorite companies from the most recently Y Combinator batch has closed a seed round. This morning Quenly announced that it has closed a $2.262 million round, following its $800,000 pre-seed raise. TechCrunch covered the company in February, noting that the company was building something akin to the StockX for women’s formal wear. […]

26 Apr 09:11

Hyundai invests in teleoperations startup Ottopia as part of $9M round

After spending much of his career in mission-critical environments, including the Israeli Air Force, Israeli Intelligence and leading development of a cybersecurity product at Microsoft, Amit Rosenzweig turned his attention to autonomous vehicles.

26 Apr 09:11