Tado, the German smart home startup that specializes in thermostats and more recently moved into flexible “time of use” energy tariffs based on loadshifting technology, is today announcing the next step in its life as a business. It’s going public by way of a SPAC deal. GFJ ESG Acquisition, a German SPAC entity focused specifically […]
HeyCharge’s underground charging solution raises $4.7M Seed led by BMW i Ventures
EV charging continues to be a high-growth business, for obvious reasons. Since 2007, one of the largest players has been ChargePoint, the floated US company which with a widespread EV charging network. But plenty of startups are snapping at its heels. One of them is Germany-based HeyCharge, which realised there was a problem with how […]
Global Processing Services adds $100M to its coffers to grow its embedded finance and API payments platform
Embedded finance continues to be the engine driving the growth of fintech, with one group of companies building core banking, payments and other financial technology, and a much bigger group tapping that technology through APIs to build customer-facing businesses. Today, one of the bigger players on the core technology side — Global Processing Services — […]
African tech took center stage in 2021
Two years ago, the African tech ecosystem saw newfound attention from global players that translated to the continent’s best year of receiving venture capital. From varying sources, it is estimated up to $2 billion went into African tech startups in 2019. With high-profile visits from the most famous Jacks (Ma and Dorsey), a long-awaited first […]
Could Supernova be an ‘ethical alternative’ to the social media giants?
Supernova is a new app that has now gone live on the Apple and Android app stores billing itself as a new “ethical alternative” to Instagram and Facebook, where most of the ad revenues go to charities. Does it have a chance? It would be fair to say that after many years of either watching […]
India’s Cars24, a used-vehicle sales platform, raises $400M, now at a $3.3B valuation, to double down on growth
With supply chains in the automotive industry continuing to be disrupted due to Covid-19, demand has surged in the used-car market. Today, one of the startups that’s seeing a lot of growth as a result of that is announcing a big round of funding to further tap the opportunity. Cars24, a startup out of India […]
‘PayPal for Crypto’ wannabe Ramp raises $52.7M Series A round led by Balderton Capital
In the same way that PayPal and Stripe radically changed online payments by allowing any online service to embed payments, the race is on to have the same impact on crypto assets. To this end, players such as Wyre (raised $29.1M) and MoonPay (raised $555M) have risen to the fore. But in the Summer of […]
Earnr is a new finance and tax app aimed at UK ‘side-hustle’ businesses
Earnr is a new finance and tax service aimed at the UK creator economy and people doing ‘side-hustle’ businesses. It’s now secured £650,000 to launch an app aimed at ‘solopreneurs’. The round was led by 7percent Ventures, and was joined by Antler and FJ Labs. The startup deals with the financial and tax admin side […]
Flink, the Berlin-based instant grocery startup, is now valued at $2.85B after raising $750M in a round led by DoorDash
Instant grocery delivery continues to be a very frothy market, but today comes news of a major funding round for one player in it that investors believe will still be standing after the hype has died down. Flink, the Berlin-based startup that sells food and other essentials at supermarket prices and aims to deliver them […]
TechCrunch+ roundup: Credit Karma post-exit, recruiting developers, re:Invent recap
The very day in Feb. 2020 that Credit Karma planned to announce that it had been acquired by Intuit for over $7 billion, the stock market tanked, spooked by news that a virus could start a pandemic.