HackerRank raises $30M to match developers with jobs

 HackerRank, the skills-based recruiting platform and online coding challenge community, today announced that it has raised a $30 million Series C funding round led by JMI Equity, a fund that specializes in helping software companies scale. Existing investors Khosla Ventures, Battery Ventures, Randstad and Chartline Capital Partners also participated in this round. As HackerRank co-founder and… Read More

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Andrew Ng officially launches his $175M AI Fund

 As the founder of the Google Brain deep learning project and co-founder of Coursera, Andrew Ng was one of the most recognizable names in the machine learning community when he became Baidu’s chief scientist in 2014. He left there in early 2017 and launched a number of new AI projects. What he was really working on, though, was his AI Fund. Read More

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Tigera raises $10M to help enterprises secure their cloud native applications

 Tigera, a San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses connect and secure their container-based applications, today announced that it has raised an additional $10 million in a funding round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from New England Associates (NEA) and Wing Venture Capital. Madrona managing partner Soma Somasegar will join the company’s board of directors.… Read More

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Natural home products startup Grove Collaborative bets niche wins over the Amazonization of everything

 Who needs Amazon when you can make your own online distribution channel? At least, that’s the idea behind Grove Collaborative, a natural home care products company that ships natural cleaning brands like Method and Mrs. Meyer’s. Co-founder Stuart Landesberg started the company in 2014 after working with retail brands during his time as an investor at TPG. He noticed how limited… Read More

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Peer-to-peer real estate marketplace Homie wants to replace your realtor with a bot

 Just a few weeks ago I was in Utah for the holidays, spending time with the many family members my husband and I both have there. At one family gathering, a cousin began talking about how he bought a brand new home and sold his own home all witho…

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Alkami raises $70 million for mobile banking software

 There’s a startup in Texas that’s been quietly building the technology that powers mobile banking apps. Plano-based Alkami has developed a white label service that credit unions and banks use across digital platforms. And Alkami’s 4.5 million users have generated enough revenue for the company to justify a $70 million Series D round, led by General Atlantic. Existing investors… Read More

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Convercent raises $25M to keep companies out of ethical quandaries

 Convercent, a company that provides ethics and compliance software to businesses, today announced that it has raised a $25 million funding round led by Rho Ventures. Additional investors include Sapphire Ventures and Tola Capital. The idea behind Convercent is to give businesses the tools to, in MBA-speak, “operationalize ethics.” In practice, this means that the companies mines… Read More

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Instana raises $20 million for its microservice monitoring and management service

 Instana, a company that helps enterprises monitor and manage their microservice deployments with the help of automation and artificial intelligence, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series B round led by Accel, with participation from existing investor Target Partners. This brings Instana’s total funding to $26 million to date. Launched in 2015, Instana bills itself as… Read More

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Fanchest raises $4M in seed funding to become the best gift for sports fans

 Here’s a great present for a sports fan this holiday season: Fanchest is a Brooklyn-based startup that curates and sends team-themed gift boxes as gift. The boxes start at $59 and include about $80 worth of apparel and gear from whatever pro or college team you choose. Today the startup has announced $4M in seed funding with a diverse group of investors like New Orleans Saints… Read More

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For founders and investors, it’s time for some “real talk” about money

 Consciously or not, founders’ attitudes toward money play an enormous role in how they run their startups. These attitudes shape whether to bet on a new line of business, how much to charge a customer, how to handle investor capital, even how to talk to employees about pay.
Not to mention the biggest decision of all: when (or if) to sell.
Picture a first-time founder who grew up with… Read More

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Fractyl Labs raises $44 million in Series D to develop a treatment for type 2 diabetes

 Fractyl Labs, a Lexington, Massachusetts-based startup developing treatments for diabetes, has raised $44 million in Series D financing from a slew of VC firms, including GV, True Ventures, the IDO Fund, General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partner…

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