rare

Apps, Enterprise, Gadgets, Startups, Venture

“Pigment’s Unprecedented Success: Record-Breaking $145M Funding for Innovative Business Planning Startup in France’s Tech Industry”

Pigment Eleonore Crespo And Romain Niccoli Cropped

Paris-based startup Pigment has raised a $145 million funding round just five years after its inception. This funding round comes as a bit of a surprise as large rounds have been few and far between in France. Before Pigment, Crespo worked for VC firm Index Ventures and Google. We’ve developed a lot of modules that enable us to serve HR teams, supply chain teams and sales teams,” Crespo said. Like many software companies, Pigment has also added AI features.

Dylan Williams
April 4, 2024

Venture

“Exploring Creative Techniques for VCs to Return Investor Funds in Times of Limited Liquidity”

Today on The Exchange, we’re digging into continuation funds, counting down through some of our favorite historical Exchange entries, and discussing what we’re excited to report on for the rest of the year! It is also a very topical one: “The greatest source of liquidity now is going to be continuation funds,” VC Roger Ehrenberg predicted in a recent episode of the 20VC podcast. If you have been following the last few months of venture capital activity, the “why now?” is easy to answer. “It’s a viable strategy for a decent swath of the venture industry,” Ehrenberg told 20VC host Harry Stebbings. We went from tallying monster rounds and a blizzard of IPOs to watching venture capital dry up and startup exits become rarer than gold.

Kira Kim
February 24, 2024

CES, Crypto, Enterprise, Venture

Kiln Rakes In $17M During Uncommon Crypto Fundraising Efforts for Revolutionary Staking Tech Provider

According to PitchBook data, VC investments in crypto companies are down by 68% in 2023 compared to 2022. But that’s a small number compared to 2022, the year during which crypto companies raised $30 billion. French crypto startup Kiln just closed a $17 million funding round in December 2023. As a reminder, staking consists in locking crypto assets in a blockchain to secure a blockchain and its transactions. Several proof-of-stake blockchains let its users stake crypto assets, such as Polygon, Solana and Avalanche.

Kira Kim
January 18, 2024

Startups, Venture

The Return of Unicorns: A Miracle Spotting!

Unicorn births declined 89% in Q1 from their peak, the worst result since Q3 2017 This slowdown in unicorn creation is likely due to a number of reasons. First and…

Dylan Williams
April 11, 2023

Apps

Tweetbot & Twitterrific App Store Refund Exception Not Automatically Granted

Tweetbot and Twitterrific ask customers to decline refunds in rare App Store exception

In the aftermath of Twitter’s recent ban on third-party clients, two developers have made it their mission to update their apps with new functionality. However, rather than asking for refunds…

Dylan Williams
March 1, 2023

Hardware

Apple Shares Plunge Following Big Earnings Miss

Apple stock drops on rare Q4 earnings miss • TechCrunch

Amidst the declines of top tech competitors like Amazon and Alphabet, Apple continues to post year-over-year losses. The Cupertino-based company attributed its first yearly loss since the pandemic to a…