Ingrid Lunden
Managing Editor, Global
The Latest from Ingrid Lunden
The fall of Babylon: Failed telehealth startup once valued at $2B goes bankrupt, sold for parts
It’s the end of the road for Babylon Health, the London telehealth startup once valued at nearly $2 billion after being backed by the likes of the founders of DeepMind and deep-pocketed health i
Ivy raises $20M to take open-banking payments international
Open banking — where traditional banks open up their data with APIs to build new financial services for their customers — has the potential to be one of the payment world’s big disru
Dice books $65M for its event discovery and ticketing platform
Live, in-person activity has come back in force in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a London startup that built an events tech business is today announcing funding to capitalize on that. Dice, a
Viome, a microbiome startup, raises $86.5M, inks distribution deal with CVS
Research on the human microbiome — microorganism communities that live in a part of your body such as your mouth or gut — has led to a number of insights and spurred further investigations
Check Point buys Perimeter 81 for $490M to enhance its security tools for hybrid and remote workers
There is yet more M&A coming out of the security industry. In the latest development, Check Point, the enterprise cybersecurity company, has picked up Perimeter 81 to beef up its tools for remote
Rubrik acquires Laminar to expand in data security across public clouds
Cybersecurity startups, in particular those hatched in Israel, have been getting scooped up at a rapid pace by larger tech companies looking to bolt on new capabilities to address business customers&#
SoftBank posts loss, with a cumulative loss of $6.3B in its Vision Fund business
As SoftBank prepares to dive deeper into AI investments, the group posted an unexpected consecutive quarterly overall loss, as well as a continued loss in its existing investment business. The Vision
SoftBank launches an OpenAI for Japan: SB Intuitions, building LLMs and generative AI in Japanese
AI may have found a center of gravity in the Bay Area, but we’re seeing a lot of activity elsewhere among those who believe that there is a market opportunity ensuring that the pace of innovatio
Hopin, the struggling virtual conference unicorn, sells events and engagement units to RingCentral
Hopin, the virtual events startup that saw its star (and valuation) rise quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic, is most definitely coming down to earth. Today the company announced that it has sold its
Tradeshift raises $70M, launches financing JV with HSBC focused on B2B trade
Global trade has been in a slump, in part due to ongoing economic pressures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with some glimmers of recovery on the horizon, a startup that’s built busin
NATO announces $1B fund to back startups supporting ‘safety, freedom and human empowerment’
After announcing plans nearly two years ago, defense alliance NATO has officially closed its first fund to back startups that are building technology strategic to NATO’s own goals in defense and
Rapyd acquires a piece of PayU from Prosus for $610M to scale its fintech-as-a-service platform
Rapyd, the fintech-as-a-service startup that provides APIs to enable payments, card issuing, digital wallet and other financial services to companies like Uber and Ikea, is taking a significant step f
Airalo locks in $60M to expand its eSIM-based global roaming ‘marketplace’
Travel is back on the agenda after a COVID-19 hiatus, and today a mobile startup is announcing a healthy round of funding to capitalize on that. Airalo — which uses software-based eSIM connectiv
Cash-strapped instant delivery giant Getir, trying to close funding, pulls out of Spain, Italy and Portugal
More tough times for the instant-delivery startups that once flooded the markets of Europe. Getir, the company backed by Sequoia and other big investors and once valued at upwards of $12 billion, toda
AutogenAI, a generative AI tool for writing bids and pitches, secures $22.3M
Business is regularly won and lost on the strength of a proposal. Now, a startup out of London called AutogenAI has built a tool based on generative AI that it claims can help businesses write stronge
Source: CrowdStrike is close to acquiring Bionic.AI for between $200M and $300M
It sounds like another M&A deal is about to go down in the world of cybersecurity. Sources tell TechCrunch that CrowdStrike is in advanced negotiations to acquire Bionic.AI — a security post
Bunq, the Dutch neobank, has raised $111M at a flat $1.8B valuation to break into the US
Remote working and digital nomads became two very prominent aspects of the world of work during the pandemic, shedding light on the millions of people who live in one country but earn money in another
OpenAI’s head of trust and safety Dave Willner steps down
A significant personnel change is afoot at OpenAI, the artificial intelligence juggernaut that has nearly single-handedly inserted the concept of generative AI into global public discourse with the la
Preply, the language app known for its live tutors, closes out Series C at $120M and doubles down on AI
Language learning platform Preply made a name for itself for connecting students with a selection of some 35,000 tutors and group classes across some 50 languages. Now it’s looking to the future
Neura Robotics picks up $55M to ramp up in cognitive robotics
Neura Robotics, a German startup that since 2019 has been building cognitive robots — machines that possess memory, the ability to operate across a complex and changing mix of variables, and can