Online marketplace OfferUp raises $120M, acquires top competitor letgo
OfferUp, a top online and mobile marketplace app, announced this morning it’s raising $120 million in a new round of funding led by competiting marketplace letgo’s majority investor, OLX Group, and others. As a part of the deal, OfferUp will also be acquiring letgo’s classified...
To make locks touchless, Proxy bluetooth ID raises $42M
We need to go hands-off in the age of coronavirus. That means touching fewer doors, elevators, and sign-in iPads. But once a building is using phone-based identity for security, there’s opportunities to speed up access to WIFI networks and printers, or personalize conference rooms and...
Mark Cuban backs ChatableApps, developer of a hearing assist app that removes background noise
ChatableApps, a U.K. startup commercialising the work of auditory neural signal processing researcher Dr Andy Simpson, has quietly picked up seed backing from Mark Cuban. The company has built a smartphone app that provides hearing assistance by removing background noise in near real-time. Alongside Simpson,...
Emma, the personal finance tracker, scores $2.5M seed led by Connect Ventures
Emma, the personal finance management app that bills itself as your best “financial friend,” has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Connect Ventures led the round, with participation from Ithaca Investments, Tiny.vc and existing investor, Aglaé Ventures. The fintech previously raised $700,000 in angel funding...
Sensel raises a $28M Series A to bring pressure sensing tech to more mobile devices
I was honestly surprised to find out from Sensel that the company is only just recently raising its Series A. The Sunnyvale-based hardware startup has been around since 2013, bringing its first product, the modular music and computing Morph peripheral, to market a few years...
mParticle raises $45M to help marketers unify customer data
mParticle, which helps companies like Spotify, Paypal and Starbucks umanage their customer data, is announcing that it has raised $45 million in Series D funding. Co-founder and CEO Michael Katz told me that the company has benefited from broader shifts — like new privacy regulation...
End Game, the startup behind Zombs Royale, raises $3M
End Game Interactive CEO Yang C. Liu has a refreshingly straightforward description of what he and his co-founder Luke Zbihlyj are up to: “We’re just building games. And to be honest, we don’t know what we’re doing.” Despite this self-proclaimed ignorance, End Game has just...
Teen hit Yolo raises $8M to let you Snapchat anonymously
It wasn’t a fad. Yolo became the country’s No. 1 app just a week after launch by letting teens ask for anonymous replies to questions they posted on Snapchat. But nine months later, Yolo is still in the top 100 iOS apps and has 10...
Secret’s founder returns with anti-loneliness app Ikaria
“I don’t feel good about that. That sucks” Chrys Bader-Wechseler reflects when asked about the bullying that went down on the anonymous app Secret he co-founded in 2013. After $35 million raised, 15 million users, and a spectacular flame out two years later, the startup...
HQ Trivia shuts down after acquisition falls through
HQ Trivia is dead. Today the company laid off its full staff of 25 and will cease operation of its trivia, sports, and word guessing games, a source close to the company confirmed. HQ Trivia had a deal in the works to be acquired, but...
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