Tamara, a buy now pay later platform for consumers in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region, has raised $340 million in a financing C round that values the fintech at $1 billion.
Both startups, albeit competitors, highlight the surging growth in BNPL usage, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the market that makes up more than 80% of Tamara and Tabby’s customer base.
“Saudi Arabia and the GCC deserves its place on the world stage for financial technology.
Before launching Tamara, Alsukhan co-founded Nana, a digital grocery shopping platform where he was the chief financial officer for three years.
Tamara is also allocating part of the investment to introduce new products and services beyond BNPL and capitalizing on opportunities in shopping and financial services across Saudi Arabia and the GCC.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to raising money, but David walks through some of the options to help you choose the right one for your business.
— Emerging EntrepreneurHere’s where founders screw up their pitch decks most oftenResident pitch expert Haje Jan Kamps trained an AI model on thousands of pitch decks; the tool analyzes pitch decks and offers feedback.
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Before choosing your deep tech fund manager, it’s probably a good idea to answer some questions like: Does their investment approach make sense?
A good CRM can help you track interactions, remind you to follow up with people, and produce in-depth reports.
Seed-stage startups — and their investors — react to higher hurdles for Series A funding Lightspeed Venture Partners is formalizing its scale-up efforts, as other outfits make similar movesThe hurdle for Series A funding is a lot higher than it was a year ago — and investors in seed-stage companies are having to respond.
When the market abruptly turned in the spring of 2022, late-stage companies were the first to feel the pain.
The European venture firm Breega touts its “scaling squad” to help support its many seed bets.
Pear VC, a Bay Area-based seed-stage venture firm, is constantly rolling out new programming aimed at supporting and educating the nascent teams that it backs.
VC heavyweight Lightspeed Venture Partners is also stepping up its game.
Entrepreneurs navigating the later stages of a startup face a minefield of funding options, and not all of them are suitable for their business.
I’ve seen too many brilliant and hard-working entrepreneurs end up with too little, so it’s critical to understand the different financing options available to you.
As the founder and CEO of Runway Growth Capital, I’ve had the pleasure of working with hundreds of startups (large and small) and witnessing the wide range of funding options available to founders.
Funding a late-stage startupThe disparity in what different forms of financing can mean has profound implications for founders, yet too little is known about them.
The disparity in what different forms of financing can mean has profound implications for founders, yet too little is known about them.
LineNext, a web3 unit of the Japanese messaging app Line, raised $140 million in its funding led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a Peter Thiel-backed private equity firm in South Korea, to expand its web3 platform.
The new funding comes nearly a year after LineNext released its browser-only beta service — a consumer-to-consumer(C2C) marketplace launched on its non-fungible token (NFT) platform DOSI.
The company plans to use the new capital to launch its official NFT platform DOSI and web3 services in January next year.
LineNext will also release a new social app allowing users to communicate via AI avatars and launch new Web3 games utilizing Line’s character Brown and Friends.
LineNext Korea manages Web 3 business strategy, while Line Next U.S. operates the NFT platform business.
The investment arm of the UK retail bank M&G has led a funding of $340 million into Udaan, a business-to-business e-commerce startup, in one of the largest financing rounds secured by an Indian startup in 2023.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which helps merchants in smaller Indian cities and towns secure inventories from major brands as well as gain access to working capital, said the new funds include some convertible debt.
Existing backers Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global have also participated in the new round, which awaits regulatory nod.
Udaan competes with a number of players, including Mukesh Ambani’s $100 billion Reliance Retail, the largest retail chain in India.
Udaan didn’t share how M&G and other investors valued the startup in the new round.
LineNext, a web3 unit of the Japanese messaging app Line, raised $140 million in its funding led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a Peter Thiel-backed private equity firm in South Korea, to expand its web3 platform.
The new funding comes nearly a year after LineNext released its browser-only beta service — a consumer-to-consumer(C2C) marketplace launched on its non-fungible token (NFT) platform DOSI.
The company plans to use the new capital to launch its official NFT platform DOSI and web3 services in January next year.
LineNext will also release a new social app allowing users to communicate via AI avatars and launch new Web3 games utilizing Line’s character Brown and Friends.
LineNext Korea manages Web 3 business strategy, while Line Next U.S. operates the NFT platform business.
LineNext, a web3 unit of the Japanese messaging app Line, raised $140 million in its funding led by Crescendo Equity Partners, a Peter Thiel-backed private equity firm in South Korea, to expand its web3 platform.
The new funding comes nearly a year after LineNext released its browser-only beta service — a consumer-to-consumer(C2C) marketplace launched on its non-fungible token (NFT) platform DOSI.
The company plans to use the new capital to launch its official NFT platform DOSI and web3 services in January next year.
One of the things that sets LineNext apart from its competitors is its global infrastructure and know-how based on its global services, Kim noted.
LineNext Korea manages Web 3 business strategy, while Line Next U.S. operates the NFT platform business.
Now, one of the companies building security tools for SMBs has raised a round of funding to expand its business, underscoring the demand in the market for better defenses.
It’s no longer selling directly to SMBs but is working with managed service providers that in turn sell and manage IT services for SMBs.
MSPs, it found, were the primary route to getting their product to get used by SMBs (meaning direct business was not taking off).
“Guardz has developed an impressive, holistic, and user-friendly cybersecurity and cyber insurance risk-assessment platform that is cleverly tailored to MSPs, who serve the often-overlooked long-tail small business market.
We are excited to lead this funding round and join the Guardz team on their journey to secure the digital world for those who today need it most.”
TUNL, a South African parcel shipping platform, has secured $1 million in pre-seed funding from investors, including Founders Factory Africa, Digital Africa Ventures, E4E Africa, and Jozi Angels.
The current challenges in cross-border shipping cost African businesses an estimated $50 billion annually in missed opportunities.
TUNL’s founders identified a recurring issue among small- and medium-sized South African merchants during the pandemic: Shipping costs sometimes surpassed the value of their products.
On the TUNL platform, merchants offer customers various shipping options during checkout.
South Africa is known for its wine industry, with exports reaching 368.5 million liters last year.
