Lysto, a blockchain startup that is building verification tools for gamers, has raised $12 million in a pre-Series A funding round. Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Tuesday, Lysto said v...
Tag: Venture capital
NFT media management platform Pinata raises $21.5 million
Pinata, a firm building a decentralized media management system for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has raised a total of $21.5 million dollars in venture capital. Greylock, Pantera Capital and Offline ...
Serena Williams announces her retirement from tennis
Serena Williams of the US waves as she walks off the court after losing against Japan’s Naomi Osaka during their women’s singles semi-final match on day eleven of the Australian Open tenni...
Apple Card growth, vendors blamed for mishaps in Goldman card business
Apple CEO Tim Cook introduces Apple Card during a launch event at Apple headquarters on Monday, March 25, 2019, in Cupertino, California. Noah Berger | AFP | Getty Images When it was unveiled in 2019,...
Former Coinbase employee raises $4.5 million for his web3 data startup Coherent: Exclusive
Coherent, a blockchain data startup founded by former Coinbase employee Carl Cortright, has raised $4.5 million in a seed funding round. The round was co-led by Kindred Ventures, Matchstick Ventures a...
Cosmos liquid staking protocol Stride raises $6.7 million within months of founding
Cosmos staking protocol Stride announced the closing of a $6.7 million seed round co-led by investors North Island VC, Distributed Global and Pantera Capital. Vishal Talasani only set up Stride with ...
Europe dominates blockchain venture deals in Q2 as growth drops in Asia and the US
With venture funding for blockchain startups declining globally, crypto startup founders struggling to source funding might want to instead head to Europe, a region that’s bucking the trend. Glo...
Dixon takes over Katie Haun’s board seat at OpenSea
a16z’s Chris Dixon has joined the board of non-fungible token trading platform OpenSea, according to a blog post published Saturday. “I’m excited to formally welcome Chris Dixon to the Op...
Andy Fang, Co-Founder & CTO Of DoorDash, On Turning A School Project Into Feeding America
American Dreamers is a series of conversations with leading Asian American entrepreneurs and business leaders in which they open up about everything from their startup stories and company building to ...
Aurora protocol Aurigami raises $12 million in token rounds
Aurigami, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol based on the Aurora network, has raised $12 million in token rounds. Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Thursday, Aurigami said out of the...
Variant raises $450 million for two new venture funds
Crypto venture investment firm Variant has raised $450 million across two new funds targeting the beleaguered market for Web3 and decentralized finance. In a Thursday announcement shared with The Blo...
PayPal veteran Jim Magats is named CEO of MX, the startup that connects banks and fintech players
Jim Magats, former PayPal executive who is being named CEO of the startup MX Photo: Tom Cook MX, the startup competing against Plaid to help connect financial institutions and fintech players, is nami...
JPMorgan hires scientist Charles Lim to head quantum computing unit
Dr. Charles Lim, Global Head of Quantum Communications and Cryptography, JP Morgan Chase Courtesy: JP Morgan Chase JPMorgan Chase has hired a Singapore-based quantum computing expert to be the bank...
Sesame Solar is selling clean-energy nanogrids for disasters
Michigan-based startup Sesame Solar is producing what it deems the world’s first fully-renewable mobile nanogrid for natural disaster relief. Its units can be used as mobile communications and c...
Goldman-backed digital bank Starling reports first annual profit
The Starling Bank banking app on a smartphone. Adrian Dennis | AFP via Getty Images British digital bank Starling on Thursday reported its debut annual profit as revenues at the firm almost doubled. T...
Christie’s launches venture fund, makes first investment in web3 company
Christie’s, the renowned British art and luxury business, has launched an investment fund that will aim to support emerging technology and fintech companies related to the art market. The new fu...
UK fintech Starling withdraws European bank license application
Starling CEO Anne Boden. Harry Murphy | Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images LONDON — British digital bank Starling is ending its bid to obtain a European banking license, dealing a significant ...
UK Treasury disclosures for first quarter reveal meetings with top crypto execs
UK Treasury disclosures for the first quarter of 2022 reveal a number of meetings between top officials and crypto companies. The HMT Ministers’ Meetings log, published on the UK government web...
Blockchain venture funding declined roughly 22% in Q2
For the first time since 2020, venture funding in the blockchain sector took a dive this quarter — declining roughly 22% from $12.5 billion to $9.8 billion. That’s according to a new report from The ...
Richard Branson takes stake in Lightyear, Europe’s answer to Robinhood
The Lightyear app. Lightyear Lightyear, a European challenger to trading platform Robinhood, has raised $25 million of funding in an investment round backed by British billionaire Richard Branson. Sil...
Klarna valuation plunges 85% as ‘buy now, pay later’ hype fades
Currently, most buy now, pay later services don’t impact a person’s credit score. That’s now set to change in the U.K. Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images Klarna saw its valuati...
Crypto Rout Deflates Some Web3 Startups Buoyed by Push Into Digital Tokens
The cryptocurrency rout has spread to startups that offer users digital tokens, pushing down digital asset prices and driving away hordes of users. The startups—part of what has been called Web3—allow...
Lower Valuations, Shut-Downs, Investment Pause. What’s A Founder To Do? Eight Investors Weigh In
Altitude Accelerator Mohammad Hussain This article was written in collaboration with Taylor McAuliffe, Researcher and Writer from Altitude Accelerator, a non-profit innovation hub and business incubat...
Chipotle’s $50 million search for the future of fast food
Chipotle is testing out an autonomous kitchen assistant, Chippy, which offers a robotic solution for making chips in restaurants. Courtesy: Chipotle The lengthy lunchtime lines at Chipotle Mexican Gri...
Despite The Crypto Dip, Bitcoin Infrastructure Startups Are Ripe For Investment
A wave of bitcoin infrastructure startups are building the foundations for an entirely new financial … [+] system Photo by Kanchanara on Unsplash Bitcoin investors have been hiding behind the so...
Here are the China trends investors bet money on so far in 2022
A factory in Suqian, Jiangsu province, China, on May 9, 2022. Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images BEIJING — By the numbers, manufacturing companies in China snagged the most investmen...
Here’s what’s hot — and what’s not — in fintech right now
There has been something of a rotation out of certain pockets of fintech that were hyped by venture capitalists last year, such as crypto and “buy now, pay later,” and into less sexy areas...
JetBlue Raises Offer to Buy Spirit Airlines—Again
JetBlue Airways Corp. isn’t backing down in its fight to buy Spirit Airlines Inc. raising its offer yet again in an effort to outmaneuver rival Frontier Airlines. JetBlue on Monday proposed a $400 mil...
Forget Klarna? Investors bet new startups will in ‘buy now, pay later’
Klarna is in talks to raise funds at a sharp discount to its last valuation, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. A spokesperson for the firm said it doesn’t comment on “spe...
Elon Musk joins the growing chorus fearing a U.S. recession. But there are stocks for that.
Look out above, the dip buyers are back in town. Stocks are soaring — for now — as Wall Street returns from a long holiday weekend, with Fed Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifying in front of Congress...