Why can’t we build anything?
Last week, California governor Gavin Newsom announced that he was intending to aggressively scale back plans for the state’s high-speed rail system, which in its most ambitious routing would have… Read more »
Category: Softbank
E-commerce startup Zilingo raises $226M to digitize Asia’s fashion supply chain
If you’re looking for the next unicorn in Southeast Asia, Zilingo might just be it. The 3.5-year-old e-commerce company announced today that it has raised a Series D round worth… Read more »
Startups Weekly: Even Gwyneth Paltrow had a hard time raising VC
I spent the week in Malibu attending Upfront Ventures’ annual Upfront Summit, which brings together the likes of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC’s elite for a two-day networking session… Read more »
Grab raises $200M from Thailand-based retail conglomerate Central Group
Grab’s fundraising push continues unabated after the Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm announced that it has raised $200 million from Central Group, a retail conglomerate based in Thailand. Central’s business covers restaurants, hotels… Read more »
Wellness startup Hims enters the unicorn club with $100M investment
Hims, known by many for its phallic New York subway advertisements, has raised an additional $100 million in venture capital funding on a pre-money valuation of $1 billion. The round was… Read more »
Go-Jek makes first close of $2 billion round at $9.5 billion valuation
Southeast Asia-based ride-sharing firm Go-Jek is making progress with its plan to raise up to $2 billion in fresh capital to fund its battle with close rival Grab . Indonesia-headquartered… Read more »
Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Bukalapak raises $50M
The chances are you may be familiar with Tokopedia, especially after it commanded a $7 billion valuation last November when it raised $1.1 billion from investors like Alibaba and SoftBank’s… Read more »
Startups Weekly: Will Trump ruin the unicorn IPOs of our dreams?
The government shutdown entered its 21st day on Friday, upping concerns of potentially long-lasting impacts on the U.S. stock market. Private market investors around the country applauded when Uber finally filed documents… Read more »
Postmates lines up another $100M ahead of IPO
Postmates, one of the earlier entrants to the billion-dollar food delivery wars, has raised an additional $100 million in equity funding at a $1.85 billion valuation, as first reported by… Read more »
Go-Jek’s Southeast Asia expansion runs into a roadblock in the Philippines
Southeast Asian ride-hailing challenger Go-Jek has expanded into three new markets as it bids to expand beyond its native Indonesia, but it is having major issues getting into a fourth…. Read more »
Alibaba-backed Hellobike bags new funds as it marches into ride-hailing
2018 has been a rough year for China’s bike-sharing giants. Alibaba-backed Ofo pulled out of dozens of international cities as it fought with a severe cash crunch. Tencent-backed Mobike puts a… Read more »
Four ways to bridge the widening valley of death for startups
Shahin Farshchi Contributor Shahin Farshchi is a partner at Lux Capital. More posts by this contributor Building a great startup requires more than genius and a great invention Investing in… Read more »
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is preparing to invest $1 billion in Grab
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is set to continue its recent spree of investments in Asian tech unicorns. The mega fund — which is targeted at $100 billion — is planning to invest… Read more »
TikTok parent ByteDance sues Chinese news site that exposed fake news problem
There’s worrying news from China’s online media world as ByteDance, the $75 billion company behind popular video app TikTok is taking a news site to court for alleged defamation after… Read more »
Payment service Toss becomes Korea’s newest unicorn after raising $80M
South Korea has got its third unicorn startup after Viva Republica, the company beyond popular payment app Toss, announced it has raised an $80 million round at a valuation of $1.2… Read more »
Here’s what caused yesterday’s O2 and SoftBank outages
It appears that most mobile carriers, including O2 and SoftBank, have recovered from yesterday’s cell phone network outage that was triggered by a shutdown of Ericsson equipment running on their… Read more »
NEA spinout NewView Capital raises $1.35B for its debut growth fund
Companies are staying private longer and longer and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has a new plan to combat the negative implications of the trend. The storied venture capital firm has… Read more »
Insurance startup Bright Health raises $200M at ~$950M valuation
A flurry of digital-first insurers are betting they can surpass industry incumbents with a little help from technology and a lot of help from venture capitalists. The latest to land… Read more »
Meituan, China’s ‘everything app’, walks away from bike sharing and ride hailing
A major player in the race to transport Chinese people around is losing steam. Meituan Dianping, the Tencent-backed all-encompassing platform for local services, continues to put the brakes on bike-sharing… Read more »
WeWork is getting serious about China
Since its entry into China in 2016, WeWork has extended from four to around 60 locations across the country’s megacities like Shanghai, Beijing, and most recently, Shenzhen. That’s one-sixth of… Read more »
Korean e-commerce firm Coupang raises $2 billion from SoftBank’s Vision Fund
Just days after a CIA report concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, SoftBank’s Vision Fund — the gargantuan investment vehicle anchored by… Read more »
SoftBank’s Deepcore and accelerator Zeroth team up to hunt early stage AI opportunities
Two early stage AI programs are joining forces because, even in the world of artificial intelligence, two heads are better than one. Hong Kong-based accelerator Zeroth — which recently grabbed… Read more »
Unicorns aren’t special anymore
When Aileen Lee, the former Kleiner Perkins partner and founder of the seed-stage venture capital firm Cowboy Ventures, coined the term “unicorn” in 2013 on this very site, there were… Read more »
Chinese WeWork rival Ucommune raises $200M to go after international growth
China’s Ucommune, the country’s largest rival to WeWork, has been on a busy acquisition spree to build out its domestic business and now it is looking at overseas opportunities after… Read more »
In venture capital, it’s still the age of the unicorn
Howie Xu Contributor Share on Twitter Howie Xu is the vice president of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Zscaler. He previously co-founded TrustPath and served as an entrepreneur in… Read more »
Rakuten has SoftBank in its sights
This week, I’ve tried to do something new at TechCrunch with this experimental column — getting obsessed about a topic broadly in tech and writing a continuous stream of thoughts… Read more »
Japan is cracking down on SoftBank’s revenue
First, a couple of quick follow-ups to our coverage of Form Ds yesterday, and then a deeper dive into the challenges SoftBank is facing with regards to its revenue in… Read more »
SoftBank’s debt obsession
We are experimenting with new content forms at TechCrunch. This is a rough draft of something new. Provide your feedback directly to the authors: Danny at danny@techcrunch.com or Arman at… Read more »
Tink Labs, which gives free-to-use smartphones to hotel guests, is raising $300M
Tink Labs, a Hong Kong startup that develops smartphones that hotels provide to their guests for free, is raising a new round of up to $300 million to further its… Read more »
Social Capital’s Chamath Palihapitiya says ‘we need to return to the roots of venture investing’
In the first of many annual letters Chamath Palihapitiya will be penning as part of his firm’s new era as a technology holding company, the founder of Social Capital criticized the venture… Read more »