Fighting food waste, Full Harvest raises $8.5m to bring excess produce to commercial buyers

It’s a story that any urban millennial can (and will) complain about. You are looking for a non-caffeinated beverage, so you walk into a juice shop only to be shocked at the $13 price point for a couple of apricots and kale mixed in a blender. Yes, there is an intentional premium signaling going on, […]

View More Fighting food waste, Full Harvest raises $8.5m to bring excess produce to commercial buyers

This company wants to put “brains” in electric scooters and bikes to keep riders safer

Superpedestrian, a Cambridge, Ma.-based company, has been known until now for its electric Copenhagen wheel, which a user attaches to his or her bikes and operates through an app. It’s essentially a hub that houses a motor, a battery and sensors and is placed in the middle of the rear wheel, measuring how fast and how […]

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Q1 2018 global diversity investment report: Investing trends in female founders

In this report, we look at venture and seed investment trends in female-founded startups over the last five quarters.

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TravelPerk grabs $21M to make booking business trips suck less

TravelPerk, a Barcelona-based SaaS startup that’s built an end-to-end business travel platform, has closed a $21 million Series B round, led by Berlin-based Target Global and London’s Felix Capital. Earlier investors Spark Capital and Sunstone also participated in the round, alongside new investor Amplo. When we last spoke to the startup back in June 2016 — as it […]

View More TravelPerk grabs $21M to make booking business trips suck less

Making policing more responsive, Spidr Tech raises $2.5 million

Across the country, police brutality and the series of fatal shootings of mostly black men have soured many on the role that police officers play in the community. To combat those negative assessments police forces are turning to an array of new technologies from body cameras, new communications technologies, and social media monitoring services to […]

View More Making policing more responsive, Spidr Tech raises $2.5 million

Meet Lumi, the Los Angeles startup that just raised $9 million for a packaging business

 Alongside co-founder and longtime partner Stephan Ango, Jesse Genet has built a business with Lumi that’s already been profitable, and has just raised $9 million in venture funding to boost its growth.  Read More

View More Meet Lumi, the Los Angeles startup that just raised $9 million for a packaging business

Badi bags $10M to build out its room rentals platform in Europe

 Barcelona-based Badi launched a marketplace for urban room rentals in September 2015 with the goal of making it easier to find flatmates. The startup has now closed a $10M Series A investment, led by Spark Capital, with the aim of ramping up its …

View More Badi bags $10M to build out its room rentals platform in Europe

Mobile delivers high exit multiples despite broader market slowdown

 In the world of mobile apps, numbers come in two sizes: big and bigger. More than one billion people use Facebook’s mobile app every day. But what about the financial side of the mobile business; specifically, venture investment and returns? By looking at the numbers behind two different ends of the startup life cycle, a reasonable understanding of the mobile market today can be had. Read More

View More Mobile delivers high exit multiples despite broader market slowdown

Spark Capital leads $3.3m round into Boston-based, on-demand life sciences marketplace Clora

 On-demand labor marketplaces have been around for decades on the internet. Paying someone to identify a cat using Amazon Mechanical Turk or hiring someone to program a quick website on Upwork is easy — post a job, select someone, pay a few bucks and you’re done. While hiring individuals is reasonably straightforward, building teams to accomplish specialized projects is a far… Read More

View More Spark Capital leads $3.3m round into Boston-based, on-demand life sciences marketplace Clora

Pokémon Go creator raises $200 million ahead of Harry Potter game launch

 Pokémon Go creator Niantic has raised a new $200 million in funding, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Series B raise was led by Spark Capital, and includes participation from Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin Venture Capital, You & Mr. Jones and NetEase, Inc. Spark partner Megan Quinn is also joining Niantic’s board as part of the new financing deal.
Niantic is known for its… Read More

View More Pokémon Go creator raises $200 million ahead of Harry Potter game launch