BreachQuest emerges from stealth with $4.4M to modernize incident response

BreachQuest, an early-stage startup with a founding team of cybersecurity experts building a modern incident response platform, has emerged from stealth with $4.4 million in seed funding. The investment was raised from Slow Ventures, Lookout founder Kevin Mahaffey, and Tinder co-founders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, who described BreachQuest as having a “disruptive vision and […]

Fika Ventures nearly triples its assets under management: ‘It’s definitely a crazy time’

Fika Ventures is a five-year-old, LA-based seed-stage fund that has been funding mostly business-to-business startups, as well as fintech companies and a sprinkling of healthcare IT startups — as long as they don’t involve hardware or FDA approval. The firm’s investors apparently think it’s doing a decent job. After raising $41 million for its debut […]

Bankers chase Byju’s for IPO, valuation pegged up to $50 billion

Nearly every top investment bank is chasing Byju’s and nudging the most valuable Indian startup to seriously explore the public markets as soon as next year. Most banks have given Byju’s a proposed valuation in the range of $40 to $45 billion, but some including Morgan Stanley have pitched a $50 billion valuation if the […]

testRigor scores $4M seed to turn a list of actions into a QA testing script

Imagine typing out a series of steps in plain English that would reflect a list of actions a human QA tester would undertake to test an app, then turning that list into an automated testing script. That’s exactly what testRigor, a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2021 cohort, has done. Today the early-stage startup […]

Why global investors are flocking to back Latin American startups

The Latin America startup ecosystem is having a great year, with mega-rounds being announced at breakneck speed and new unicorns minted almost monthly. This is mostly due to the clearly maturing startup scene in the region, with proven successes such as Nubank, Cornershop, Gympass and Loggi helping to bolster LatAm’s credibility. Interestingly, many of the […]

Automotive startup Upstream raises $62M Series C to scale cloud-based security

Back in 2015, researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely hacked into a Jeep Cherokee driven by a Wired reporter, Andy Greenberg, in an attempt to warn the auto industry of potential pitfalls in their software and inspire legislation around automotive cybersecurity. It did that and more. Fiat Chrysler, which owns Jeep, ended up recalling […]

Brazilian fintech Cora raises $116M Series B as Tiger Global, Tencent sign on as investors alongside Greenoaks

Cora, a Brazilian digital lender to small-and-medium-sized businesses, has raised $116 million in a Series B round led by Greenoaks Capital. This is a large Series B by any standards, but particularly so for a Latin American startup. It’s also notable that São Paulo-based Cora only raised its $26.7 million Series A round — led […]

ICON lands $207M Series B to construct more 3D-printed homes after seeing 400% YoY revenue growth

Creating single-family homes for the homeless using 3D printing robotics. Developing construction systems to create infrastructure and habitats on the moon, and eventually Mars, with NASA. Delivering what is believed to be the largest 3D-printed structure in North America — a barracks for Texas Military Department. These are just some of the things that Austin, […]