Category: TC
Our favorite startups from YC’s Summer 21 Demo Day, Part 1
Search in ideas, greenification and the beauty of Zillow surfing Y Combinator kicked off its fourth-ever virtual Demo Day today, revealing the first half of its nearly 400-company batch. The presentation, YC’s biggest yet, offers a snapshot into where innovation is heading, from not-so-simple seaweed to a Clearco for creators.…
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Daily Crunch: Databricks reaches $38B billion valuation with $1.6B Series H
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 31, 2021. Today the TechCrunch machine was busy covering the first day of Y Combinator’s Demo Day event, so…
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CryptoPunks creator inks representation deal with major Hollywood talent agency
One of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies is getting into the NFT game. Larva Labs, the creator of CryptoPunks, just signed with United Talent Agency (UTA) in a representation deal that will bring one of the earliest and most iconic NFT projects into the entertainment and branding worlds. “I would say…
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Peak raises $75M for a platform that helps non-tech companies build AI applications
As artificial intelligence continues to weave its way into more enterprise applications, a startup that has built a platform to help businesses, especially non-tech organizations, build more customized AI decision making tools for themselves has picked up some significant growth funding. Peak AI, a startup out of Manchester, England, that…
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LoftyInc Capital launches third fund at $10M for a more diverse portfolio of African startups
LoftyInc Capital, a pan-African VC firm, announced today that it is launching its third fund — LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3 — at $10 million for tech startups in Africa. The firm has reached the first close of $5.5 million. Some of the limited partners in the vehicle include those from…
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Prosus acquires Indian payments giant BillDesk for $4.7B, will merge with its PayU fintech group
More major consolidation underway in the world of payments: Prosus — the Dutch tech giant that bundles together Naspers’ fintech, e-commerce and other international investments and businesses outside of South Africa (including a big stake in Tencent) — today announced that it would pay $4.7 billion to acquire BillDesk, a…
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