Startups Weekly: Which investor wrote the first check?

Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here. Which startups investors are actually first to backing the best companies? If you know this information before fundraising, you can avoid pitching investors who were always going to tell you that you’re “too early” anyway. The problem is that everyone claims credit for success, and by the time you pick through databases, investor sites, blogs, tweets and news clippings, you have no real idea who...

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Startup Battlefield bonus: Application deadline extended one week

This one goes out to all the early-stage startup founders. Whether you’re overwhelmed by the state of the world, overworked — or procrastination is simply an intrinsic part of your DNA — it matters not. Here’s reason to smile. We’re giving you an extra week to apply to compete in Startup Battlefield during Disrupt 2020. Fill out your application before the new deadline expires on June 26 at 11:59 pm (PT). This is your moment to grab a double fistful of opportunity and step into a global spotlight. The virtual Disrupt 2020 represents our largest...

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Only one week left to save on tickets to TC Early Stage

Early-stage founders, July 21 – 22 is coming up fast and that means it’s time get ready for TC Early Stage — the virtual startup conference designed with you in mind. We’ve packed this two-day event with more than 50 breakout sessions covering topics and issues early-stage startup founders need to succeed — even more so in these unprecedented times. You have just one week left to buy an early-bird ticket and save $50. Don’t wait — prices increase on June 26 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Early-stage founders have so much to learn. Building a startup is no...

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4 months into lockdown, Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz sees ‘exciting signs of recovery’

“Eventbrite is in the unique club that nobody wants to be in,” says CEO and co-founder Julia Hartz. “Which is the first affected and one of the most directly affected businesses of the COVID-19 era.” Hartz, who co-founded the company with her husband Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage, joined ExtraCrunch Live recently to discuss moving forward when your core business isn’t just threatened, but wiped out completely. “You never as a founder — at least I never — ever wondered what would happen if the whole basis of our mission was tested,” she said. The...

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Clockwise CEO Matt Martin: How we closed an $18M Series B during a pandemic

Matt Martin Contributor Share on Twitter Matt Martin is CEO and co-founder of Clockwise, a San Francisco-based software company. More posts by this contributor Recession-proof your software engineering career It all started with an email from a customer: “Do you know why Bain Capital Ventures is reaching out to me about Clockwise?” That email would mark the beginning of a journey toward closing $18 million in new funding that will dramatically accelerate my company, Clockwise. It would require getting to know a partner in lockdown,...

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Germany tightens online hate speech rules to make platforms send reports straight to the feds

While a French online hate speech law has just been derailed by the country’s top constitutional authority on freedom of expression grounds, Germany is beefing up hate speech rules — passing a provision that will require platforms to send suspected criminal content directly to the Federal police at the point it’s reported by a user. The move is part of a wider push by the German government to tackle a rise in right wing extremism and hate crime — which it links to the spread of hate speech online. Germany’s existing Network Enforcement Act (aka...

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5 resources Black entrepreneurs can leverage to build and grow

Delali Dzirasa Contributor Share on Twitter Delali Dzirasa is CEO and founder of Fearless, a full-stack digital services firm in Baltimore, MD with a mission to create software with a soul — tools that empower communities and make a difference. Building a business is hard; about 50% of businesses fail in the first five years. The early years of an entrepreneur’s journey can be difficult and lonely. When starting my digital services firm Fearless, I convinced my wife to rent out our home and move in with my mother so we could have an extra...

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It’s not just about e-mail, stupid

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Your humble Equity team is pretty tired but in good spirits, as there was a lot to talk about this week. But, first, three things to start us off: First: Read this piece from TechCrunch’s Megan Rose Dickey about Juneteenth and tech companies. This podcast is going out on Juneteenth, so before you hit play, please take a minute to learn more about the day and its significance. Second: Danny and Arman from...

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How Reliance Jio Platforms became India’s biggest telecom network

{rss:content:encoded} How Reliance Jio Platforms became India’s biggest telecom network https://ift.tt/2ARGXEr https://ift.tt/3ddNTJq June 19, 2020 at 01:18PM It’s raised $5.7 billion from Facebook. It’s taken $1.5 billion from KKR, another $1.5 billion from Vista Equity Partners, $1.5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, $1.35 billion from Silver Lake, $1.2 billion from Mubadala, $870 million from General Atlantic, $750 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, $600 million from TPG, and $250 million from L Catterton. And...

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Trump shared a deceptive video blaming ‘fake news.’ Twitter just labeled it as fake

The same day that Facebook removed a set of Trump campaign ads for violating the company’s rules against hate symbols, the president continued to push the envelope with his social media presence. On Thursday night, Trump shared a crudely edited video of two children with a fake CNN chyron reading “Terrified todler [sic] runs from racist baby.” Ironically, the video goes on to declare “America is not the problem, fake news is.” The video, which had 7.9 million views at the time of writing, quickly earned Twitter’s “manipulated media” warning label,...

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Somehow, Twitter does not have a team dedicated to accessibility

Twitter does not have a team dedicated to accessibility, the company confirmed after a developer alluded to the fact. It’s a baffling omission for a company that employs some 4,000 people and a CEO who is often heard talking about doing the right thing. This is not to say that Twitter is a wasteland for accessibility features, though like any major platform it has a lot of room for improvement. But features that make a site easier for everyone to navigate — not just people who use screen readers or captions — require more than part-time input from...

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Implement DevSecOps to transform your business to IT-as-code

Michael Fraser Contributor Share on Twitter Michael Fraser is an Air Force Veteran and co-founder of Refactr, a DevSecOps automation platform that helps tech teams modernize towards IT-as-code. Conduct an online search and you’ll find close to one million websites offering their own definition of DevSecOps. Why is it that domain experts and practitioners alike continue to iterate on analogous definitions? Likely, it’s because they’re all correct. DevSecOps is a union between culture, practice and tools providing continuous delivery to...

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Bellman raises $4.5 million for its property management platform

French startup Bellman has raised a $4.5 million (€4 million) seed extension round led by Lakestar with existing investors Connect Ventures and Financière Saint-James also participating. Bellman is focused on improving residential building management. But the startup doesn’t think you can replace this job with software altogether. Instead, Bellman thinks it can greatly improve the experience by building a tech platform and hiring in-house property managers. In France, most residential buildings are managed by private companies specialized in property...

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DroneBase nabs $7.5 million in a slight down round to double down on its work in renewable energy

DroneBase, a Los Angeles-based provider of drone pilots for industrial services companies, has raised $7.5 million during the pandemic to double down on its work with renewable energy companies. While chief executive Dan Burton acknowledged that the company was fundraising prior to the pandemic, the industrial lockdown actually accelerated demand for the company’s services. Even with the increased demand, the company had to make some changes. It laid off six employees and refocused its business. “In the past three months it’s become clear that...

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Daily Crunch: Twitter rolls out audio tweets

Twitter tries to make audio tweets a thing, the U.K. backtracks on its contact-tracing app and Apple’s App Store revenue share is at the center of a new controversy. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 18, 2020. 1. Twitter begins rolling out audio tweets on iOS Twitter is rolling out audio tweets, which do exactly what you’d expect — allow users to share thoughts in audio form. The feature will only be available to some iOS users for now, though the company says all iOS users should have access “in the coming weeks.” (No word on an Android or web...

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Intercom announces the promotion of Karen Peacock to CEO

Three years ago almost to the day, Intercom announced that it was bringing former Intuit exec Karen Peacock on board as COO. Today, she got promoted to CEO, effective July 1st. Current CEO and company co-founder Eoghan McCabe will become Chairman. As it turns out, these moves aren’t a coincidence. McCabe had been actively thinking about a succession plan when he hired Peacock. “When I first started talking to Eoghan three years ago, he shared with me that his vision was to hire someone as COO, who could then become the CEO at the right time and...

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Brazil’s BizCapital raises $12 million for its online lending service

BizCapital, an online lender based in Brazil, has raised $12 million from a clutch of investors, including the German development finance institution, the corporate venture capital fund of MercadoLibre and existing investors Quona Capital, Monashees, Chromo INvest and 42K Investments. “This latest round reinforces investors’ confidence in BizCapital’s ability to innovate in the Latin American credit market amid challenging circumstances caused by Covid-19,” said Francisco Ferreira, the company’s chief executive, in a statement. “We have seen four...

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Geek+, the Amazon Kiva of China, lands $200 million Series C

Geek+, a Beijing-based startup that makes warehouse fulfillment robots similar to those of Amazon’s Kiva, said Thursday that it has closed over $200 million in a Series C funding round. That bumps total capital raised by the five-year-old company to date to nearly $390 million. The new round, completed in two parts, was separately led by GGV Capital and D1 Capital Partners in the summer of 2019, and V Fund earlier this year. Other participants included Warburg Pincus, Redview Capital and Vertex Ventures. The company said it will continue to develop...

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After IPO delays, DoorDash confirms $400M raise

DoorDash has confirmed that it is raising “approximately $400 million” in a Series H round of funding. Earlier today, Axios reported that the company was looking for roughly $400 million round at a post-money valuation of $16 billion. DoorDash clarified in a statement provided to TechCrunch that the valuation is slightly under the $16 billion mark. The round was expected, though the final valuation of the deal came in $1 billion higher than earlier reports had indicated. DoorDash, the popular American food delivery company, has aggressively raised...

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