Bilt Rewards, whose platform aims to allow consumers to earn rewards on rent and daily neighborhood spend, has raised $200 million at a $3.1 valuation, the company announced today.
General Catalyst led the financing, which more than doubles the New York-based company’s valuation compared to its $150 million October 2022 raise.
Ken Chenault, chairman and managing director of General Catalyst, is joining Bilt’s board of directors as part of the new funding.
It launched its rewards program in April of 2022.
Bilt also offers a co-branded Mastercard, issued by Wells Fargo, that can be used to pay rent and earn Bilt Points with no transaction fees.
TravelPerk, a business travel management platform targeted at SMEs, has raised $105 million in a fresh equity-based round of financing led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
“In today’s climate, where startup funding is down by half and valuations are down across the board, this is a healthy and sober valuation,” Meir told TechCrunch.
Well-traveledFounded in 2015, Barcelona-based TravelPerk sells an all-in-one platform for companies to book, manage, and report all their domestic and international travel.
Customers can also extend the platform through integrations with expense management systems like Spendesk and HR software such as HiBob.
“[An] IPO has never been an objective per se for TravelPerk,” Meir said.
AC Ventures has already started investing from Fund V in startups like Indonesian electric vehicle maker MAKA Motors and sustainable farming startup Koltiva.
Fund V will add around 25 companies to AC Ventures’ current portfolio of 120 startups.
One of AC Ventures’ priorities is investing in firms that have high environmental and social impacts.
It says that its third fund, Fund III, had an overall impact ratio of +37% as measured by Finland’s The Upright Project, putting it above the Nasdaq Small Cap Index average of +29%.
Wong says AC Ventures is a signatory of the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles and IFC’s Invest2Equal program.
This new impediment to securing financing opportunities for BIPOC entrepreneurs is disconcerting.
Confronted with these challenges, angel investors and investment groups that fund BIPOC entrepreneurs must remain committed to keeping vital early-stage capital flowing.
This inherent color blindness removes a structural impediment that blocks minority investing within the conventional venture capital fund structure.
Eleven percent of all campaigns on the platform Honeycomb have been run by Black founders, and SeedInvest has seen 12% of campaigns run by Black founders.
Defining intentionally inclusive criteria in your fund/syndicate may also open the door to additional funding opportunities for BIPOC entrepreneurs.
Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges globally, bit back on Wednesday during a hearing to decide whether it committed securities violations.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed the suit in June 2023, just one day after it sued Binance, the largest crypto exchange by volume, over securities matters.
In the SEC’s claims against Coinbase, it also alleged that the 13 cryptocurrencies available for trading on the exchange were securities.
Although separate, the Binance suit also had 12 crypto assets mentioned as securities.
The judge requested that the securities-focused agency explain what elements of crypto assets constitute investment contracts.
We’ve gone over how venture capital investment fared across the world over the past few days, but today we wanted to provide a more comprehensive look at the numbers.
The TechCrunch+ team has charted data from PitchBook on venture capital investment flows across the world, and in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Global venture capital resultsThis chart doesn’t appear too dramatic at first glance.
However, Q4 2023 was particularly bad: Q4 2017 was the last time we saw venture investment in the last three months of the year fall so low.
That’s not good, especially as venture investment continued to drop in every quarter of 2023.
The European Union is checking whether Microsoft’s investment in generative AI giant OpenAI is reviewable under the bloc’s merger regulations, it said today.
“Finally, the European Commission is checking whether Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI might be reviewable under the EU Merger Regulation,” it added.
Commenting in a statement, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said:Virtual worlds and generative AI are rapidly developing.
They also told us there are no “particular concerns” the EU has identified yet vis-a-vis competition and generative AI as yet.
Per the spokesperson, a transaction would be notifiable to the Commission under the EU Merger Regulation if it involves ” a change of control on a lasting basis”.
VinFast, Vietnam’s electric vehicle manufacturer, plans to initially invest $500 million to set up an integrated facility in India and break into the world’s third-largest automobile market.
The memorandum of understanding with the state government of Tamil Nadu, unveiled on Saturday, earmarks an investment of up to $2 billion, the company said without giving a concrete timeframe.
“We are delighted that VinFast has chosen to invest in Tamil Nadu to establish its integrated EV facility.
Nonetheless, India has been an attractive market for global EV players as the country aims to have 30% electrification by 2030.
Its India deal announcement follows VinFast naming its founder and biggest backer, Pham Nhat Voung, as CEO earlier on Saturday.
Even though news of potential interest rate cuts has led to optimism that the IPO window might reopen and things might improve in Startup Land, it appears the global venture capital market has yet to level-out: Early data from PitchBook indicates global VC investment in startups continued to slide in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.
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While things are down sharply in the United States compared to the heady days of 2021, investment trends seem to have largely reached a new normal — U.S. startups raised $37.5 billion in Q4 2023, which wasn’t much less than the $37.6 billion they raised in Q2 2023 and $39.8 billion in Q4 2022.
In contrast, here’s what’s happening globally:We are still going down, folks!
Hopes that it would become easier for startups to raise capital in 2023 were left unmet as the year ended.
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.
New data from business database PitchBook paints a modestly dim picture of venture capital investment activity in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Per PitchBook’s preliminary count, startups in the U.S. raised 2,879 rounds worth about $37.5 billion in the fourth quarter — the lowest quarterly deal value since Q3 2019, and the lowest deal count since Q4 2017.
Across stages, venture capital investment activity in the United States is flagging, and this extends past aggregate figures — for example, we saw less total capital invested in U.S. startups last year than in 2020.
