Flipkart in early talks to raise $1 billion ahead of IPO
Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has hit the market to raise about $1 billion at up to $30 billion valuation before its public listing, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The Bangalore-based startup, which sold majority stake to Walmart in 2018, began exploring funding opportunities with some of its investors earlier this year. In […]
Walmart’s Flipkart to cover insurance for all sellers in India and waive additional fees
Walmart-owned Flipkart is exempting storage and cancellation fees for sellers on its marketplace and also providing them with insurance coverage as the top e-commerce platform in India looks to maintain cordial relationships with more than 300,000 sellers who are facing severe disruption amid an unprecedented rise in the spread of coronavirus infections in the South […]
Berlin’s Razor Group raises $400M to buy and scale Amazon Marketplace merchants
The market remains very hot for startups building e-commerce empires by consolidating independent third-party merchants that have gained traction on Amazon’s Marketplace, and in the latest development, Razor Group — a Berlin-based startup buying up promising Amazon sellers and scaling them into bigger, multi-channel businesses — has closed financing of $400 million to scale its […]
Amazon’s over-the-top business, including IMDb TV and Twitch, tops 120M monthly viewers
Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service IMDb TV is getting its own mobile app. The company announced the news today at its first-ever NewFronts presentation to advertisers, where it also shared that its over-the-top streaming businesses combined — meaning, IMDb TV, Twitch, live sports like Thursday Night Football, Amazon’s News app and others — have now […]
Cloud infrastructure market keeps rolling in Q1 with almost $40B in revenue
Conventional wisdom over the last year has suggested that the pandemic has driven companies to the cloud much faster than they ever would have gone without that forcing event with some suggesting it has compressed years of transformation into months. This quarter’s cloud infrastructure revenue numbers appear to be proving that thesis correct. With The […]
India’s ElasticRun raises $75 million to grow its commerce platform for neighborhood stores
A startup that is helping over 125,000 neighborhood stores in India secure working capital, inventory from top brands, and work with e-commerce firms to boost revenues said on Thursday it has raised a new financing round as it looks to further its reach in the world’s second largest internet market. Pune-based ElasticRun said it has […]
Alchemy raises $80M at a $505M valuation to be the ‘AWS for blockchain’
Blockchain developer platform Alchemy announced today it has raised $80 million in a Series B round of funding led by Coatue and Addition, Lee Fixel’s new fund. The company previously raised a total of $15.5 million, so the latest financing brings its total raised to $95.5 million since it launched in 2017. The latest round caught […]
PayPal’s ambition and uphill battle in China
Over the last few months, PayPal has been quietly gearing up for its expansion in China. At the recent Boao Forum for Asia, China’s answer to Davos, the American payments giant said its strategy for China is not to challenge the duopoly of Alipay and WeChat Pay. Instead, it wants to focus on cross-border business […]
Look out Amazon Go — A Lisbon startup plans to offer autonomous stores to other retailers
Look out Amazon Go. A Lisbon startup plans to offer the same autonomous store technology to other retailers. Lisbon-based Sensei, a computer vision startup that allows convenience stores to offer check-out-free purchasing has secured a seed round of $6.5 million (€5.4M). The funding was led by Seaya Ventures and Iberis Capital, with participation from 200M […]
Amazon announces it’s open sourcing DeepRacer device software
When Amazon debuted AWS DeepRacer in 2018, it was meant as a fun way to help developers learn machine learning. While it has evolved since and incorporated DeepRacer competitions, today the company announced it was adding a new wrinkle. It’s open sourcing the software the company created to run these miniature cars. At its core, […]
Kids-focused fintech Greenlight raises $260M in a16z-led Series D, nearly doubles valuation to $2.3B
Greenlight, the fintech company that pitches parents on kid-friendly bank accounts, has raised $260 million in a Series D funding round that nearly doubles its valuation to $2.3 billion. The funding comes just months after the Atlanta-based startup landed $215 million in funding at a $1.2 billion valuation. With the latest round, Greenlight has now […]