Browsing Category: Startups

  • Uber eats Uber Eats, embedding it in the main app

    Uber’s best hope to beat all its ride sharing and food delivery competitors is that it does both. Through cross-promotion, it can combine activities people might only do a few times per week or month into a product they open daily. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said cryptically on the company’s first earnings call last month …

    June 5, 2019 | by Raheel
  • VCs bet $12M on Troops, a Slackbot for sales teams

    Slack wants to be the new operating system for teams, something it has made clear on more than one occasion, including in its recent S-1 filing. To accomplish that goal, it put together an in-house $80 million venture fund in 2015 to invest in third-party developers building on top of its platform. Weeks ahead of …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Dilution: The good, the bad and the ugly

    Bernard Moon Contributor Bernard Moon is co-founder and partner at SparkLabs Group, a network of accelerators and venture capital funds. More posts by this contributor Fintech is playing the long game What’s trending in the IoT space Since 2013, SparkLabs Group has invested in more than 230 companies, and my general advice to our founders …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Sequoia-backed Whole Biome wants to heal your gut with medical-grade probiotics

    Whole Biome has pulled in $35 million in Series B financing from a list of investing titans, including Sequoia, Khosla, True Ventures, the Mayo Foundation and AME Ventues — just to name a few. The goal? To heal what ails you using microscopic bugs. Medical science has caught on in the last few years about …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Verified Expert Growth Marketing Agency: Bell Curve

    Bell Curve founder Julian Shapiro describes his team as talented growth marketers who have a long tail expertise of various channels and who aren’t afraid to play part-time therapists. As an agency, they’re comfortable grounding founder expectations by explaining “No, virality isn’t a dependable growth strategy,” but “Hey, we can come up with a better …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Majelan is a personal podcast player with premium content

    Meet Majelan, a French startup that wants to make podcasts more accessible. Behind the scene, Majelan is the startup created by former Radio France CEO Mathieu Gallet and Arthur Perticoz. The app is launching today on iOS and Android in the coming days. Given that Gallet was previously at the head of all French public …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Africa Roundup: Jumia’s post-IPO earnings, Gokada’s $5.3M raise, Facebook’s fake-news purge, Joe Montana’s fintech investment

    Jumia held its first post-IPO earnings call and weathered a short-sell assault in May, with Wall Street showing confidence in the Pan-African e-commerce company. On the numbers, key takeaways were that Jumia’s Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) — the total amount of goods sold over the period — grew by 58% to €240 million. Marketplace revenue …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Tink, the European open banking platform, announces PayPal as a strategic investor

    Tink, the European open banking platform that recently raised €56 million in new funding, is disclosing that PayPal has become a strategic investor. The online payments giant joins a long list of existing backers that includes U.S.-based Insight Venture Partners, Sunstone, SEB, Nordea Ventures and ABN AMRO Digital Impact Fund. Individuals such as Christian Clausen, …

    June 4, 2019 | by Raheel
  • Fitness startup Mirror nears $300M valuation with fresh funding

    Today, Peloton is a bonafide success. The company, which sells $2,245 internet-connected exercise bikes, boasts a $4 billion valuation and a cult following. That hasn’t always been the case. For years, Peloton battled for venture capital investment and struggled to attract buyers. Now that it’s proven the market for tech-enabled home exercise equipment and affiliated …

    June 3, 2019 | by Raheel