Author: TechBrunch
Hyperplane, a San Francisco-based data intelligence startup building an infrastructure model for banks, announced on Wednesday that it has been acquired by Brazil's Nubank, just seven months after announcing a $6 million seed round of funding. Hyperplane was founded in 2022 by Daniel Silva, Felipe Lamunier, Rohan Ramanath, and Felipe Meneses. When the company emerged from stealth last year, Ramanath explained that its primary focus was building a personalization layer for banks around the world. “Hyperplane's goal is, if banks around the world have a ton of first-party data, what does it take to build a data intelligence layer so…
The arrival of Napster in the late 1990s made it easy for people to obtain music files without compensating content owners. The iPod and iTunes Music Store changed that by allowing artists and publishers to earn money by reusing content in the digital environment. Now, there are companies that scrape content without permission to train large language models. Dappier, an early-stage startup that wants to ensure publishers are compensated when their content is used, today announced a $2 million seed round of funding and the launch of a marketplace where publishers can set a price for using their content in…
Since its launch in 2017, Retool has made a name for itself as one of the best low-code tools for building browser-based internal line-of-business applications. The well-funded startup's services are currently used by thousands of companies, including Amazon, OpenAI, Pinterest, Plaid, Snowflake, Taco Bell, and Volvo. Now, the company is broadening its focus from internal apps to external apps as well. Dubbed “Retool for External Apps,” the new service is now generally available and aims to empower any business to quickly and efficiently build secure, high-performing apps for a much wider audience than ever before. Retool CEO and co-founder David…
Rainforest, a startup that builds payment processing into other software platforms, has raised $20 million in Series A funding, less than a year after announcing the closing of its seed funding round. While successive rounds of funding were more common in 2021, they are less common in this new environment. Rainforest's traction likely helped it attract new investor Matrix Partners, as well as returning investors including Accel, Infinity Ventures, BoxGroup, The Fintech Fund, Tech Square Ventures and Ardent Venture Partners. In total, the company has raised $31.75 million. Rainforest says it has seen a 17-fold increase in payment volume in…
Samsara Eco produces and sells fossil-free polymer resins that can be integrated into supply chains, potentially replacing plastic packaging and textiles with more sustainable alternatives. The Australian startup took a major step forward on Wednesday, securing an additional $65 million (A$100 million) in all-equity funding. The round was co-led by Temasek and Mainsequence, an Australian deep tech investment fund. The investment also included new and existing backers including DCVC, Hitachi Ventures, Lululemon, Titanium Ventures and Wollemi Capital, bringing the total amount Samsara has raised since its founding in 2020 to $73 million (A$164 million). Samsara CEO and founder Paul Riley…
Captions, the video editing app backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Captial, has launched a new feature that takes existing unedited videos and adds custom graphics, zooms, music, sound effects, transitions and motion backgrounds based on the content. AI editing has some limitations: The video must be vertical with only one person in the frame, speaking. Importantly, if you don't have such a video or it's not your style of videography, you can still create a short prompted video using Captions' AI avatar and later send that video to the AI editing feature to create a fully edited video…
While artificial intelligence startups continue to garner attention with big venture capital rounds, there's also ample opportunity for companies building tools that make it easier to work with data-heavy applications like AI. This is especially true for organizations that still have one foot (or both) in the traditional data camp. In the latest example of such an opportunity, data connectivity solutions provider CData has raised a whopping $350 million in growth funding, a round that values the company at more than $800 million after the funding, a source close to the company confirmed to TechCrunch. CData has about 7,000 large…
No-code CRM and workflow automation platform Creatio announced Wednesday that it has raised $200 million in funding led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from StepStone Group and current investors Volition Capital and Horizon Capital. “The problem we're trying to solve is serving the needs of knowledge workers,” said Catherine Kostereva, co-founder and CEO of Creatio, “and we're talking about 1.7 billion people around the world. [who we want to help] Automate your workflows with the power of no-code. Image credit: Creatio Demand for software continues to grow, but the number of developers hasn't kept up, she noted. Of course, Creatio…
The airline industry is on track to hit a record $996 billion in revenue this year, driven by a surge in travel demand, but profit margins remain razor-thin: Total airline costs are expected to hit $936 billion, according to industry group IATA, and revenue per passenger is expected to be about $6.14 — roughly the price of a latte in New York. Looking to boost profits, more airlines are turning to controversial dynamic pricing techniques, which vary fares and amenity prices based on travelers' willingness to pay. Despite a lukewarm response from consumers, 258 airlines now use some form of…
Activity tracking platform and community Strava is shutting down Fatmap, the Europe-based 3D mapping platform it acquired last January. In an email sent to users this week along with an online support page, Fatmap said its website and app will be shut down on October 1, 2024, and that in the meantime, users will have the option to transfer their Fatmap routes to Strava. The company says it's “bringing Fatmap's 3D mapping and other features to Strava,” but digging into the details makes it clear that a number of features will be omitted in the move. “Google Maps for the…