Social media startup ShareChat’s valuation has cratered below $2 billion from nearly $5 billion in a new funding round, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch, marking a steep decline for the nine-year-old Indian startup that boasts over 400 million users in the South Asian market.
It did not disclose the valuation at which the funds were raised but strongly denied that its new valuation was below $2 billion, asserting there was “no valuation” attached to the round.
Existing investors including Lightspeed, Temasek, Alkeon Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures and HarbourVest have invested in the new round, the startup said.
Their debt will convert to equity at a valuation below $2 billion in the next round, according to a source with direct knowledge of the terms.
ShareChat was valued at $4.9 billion in a funding round it raised in mid-2022.
Noname Security, a cybersecurity startup that protects APIs, is in advanced talks with Akamai Technologies to sell itself for $500 million, according to a person familiar with the deal.
Noname was co-founded in 2020 by Oz Galan and Shay Levi and is headquartered in Palo Alto but has Israeli roots.
The startup raised $220 million from venture investors and was last valued at $1 billion in December 2021 when it raised $135 million in a Series C led by Georgian and Lightspeed.
While the sale price is a significant discount from that valuation, the deal as it currently stands would be for cash, the person said.
In February, Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported that Noname was in negotiations with several potential buyers, including Akamai.
Guesty — which has built a platform for accommodation managers to manage all aspects of their business on platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo and directly to travellers — has raised $130 million.
Guesty’s close competitor Hostaway raised $175 million in May last year (its first ever big funding round).
And Mews, which like Guesty builds SaaS but for hoteliers, raised $110 million at a $1.2 billion valuation last month (March 2024).
First of all, Guesty wants to continue expanding its existing platform for current customers.
Third of all, Soto said that Guesty wants to consider more acquisitions.
It last raised a $50M Series C funding round in 2021.
TransferGo claims the new investment doubles its valuation to around $600M, from the $200M-$300M Dealroom valued it at back in September 2021.
We achieved sustainability of the business and became profitable and we still have proceeds from the last funding round.
We don’t need external capital to grow.”However, he saw the opportunity to raise funding from Asia to expand there.
“We are still taking customers from incumbents: 75% come from cash, banks, and Western Union — that’s still the gorilla in the room.”He puts TransferGo’s growth down to focusing on the consumer experience.
Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is in talks to raise capital for his new startup, Indian fintech Navi.
Bansal is talking to investors to raise at a valuation of around $2 billion, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The Bengaluru-headquartered startup Navi has been largely self-funded up to now — Bansal owns 97% of the company — and this would be its first large outside fundraise since it was founded in 2018.
After a particularly rough 2023 in which overall startup funding fell 73% in the country, this could be a signal that growth stage funding rounds are back on the table.
Even if this might become Navi’s first external raise, that doesn’t mean Bansal has not been talking to interested parties.
Thailand’s HD is building chatbots aimed at one such industry: healthcare.
The company started as a marketplace for third-party healthcare and surgery services, and sees a strong case for developing conversational AI for the healthcare customer journey.
Even though each product has a description on HD’s marketplace HD Mall, Ho says people still prefer to ask first.
M Venture Partners, FEBE Ventures, Partech Partners, Ratio Ventures, Orvel Ventures, and TA Ventures also participated in the round.
AI for Southeast AsiaHo says HD is working on building the “Sierra AI of the Southeast Asian healthcare industry.”Over five years, Ho and his team saw that the faster HD’s representatives responded to inquiries, the higher the conversion rate.
Now, Coro — one of the startups building tools specifically for smaller businesses — is announcing a big round of funding after seeing its recurring revenues shoot up 300% in the last year.
Sources close to the deal tell TechCrunch that its valuation is over $750 million post-money.
And among SMBs responding to a survey from Digital Ocean, 74% named data privacy a top concern.
The opportunity in the security market for SMBs that Coro has identified is that these businesses typically lack the teams and internal IT budgets to dedicate to building and managing their defenses.
Its round last year, in April 2023, was $75 million at a $575 million valuation (also post-money).
Alex Chatzieleftheriou founded Blueground in 2013 after being frustrated with the dearth of short-term furnished apartments in Europe.
In 2022, the company gained a strong foothold in Latin America by buying Tabas, an operator of over 9,0000 furnished apartments in Brazil.
Blueground leases apartments in popular neighborhoods and then equips and furnishes them for renters.
The company didn’t reveal its new valuation, but Chatzieleftheriou said that the company’s value has increased since its previous round.
Sales jumped by 70% to $560 million in 2023 over 2022’s $300 million in gross revenue, Chatzieleftheriou said.
AI is a data problem.
Now Cyera is raising up to $300M on a $1.5B valuation to secure itA cybersecurity startup called Cyera is betting that the next big challenge in enterprise data protection will be AI, and it’s raising a big round of funding as demand picks up for it.
Previous to this, Cyera — pronounced “Sierra” and headquartered in San Mateo and with roots in Israel — had raised a total of $160 million with its current $500 million valuation dating from last year.
Cyera, Coatue and Sequoia declined comment.
A source said that AI right now is a “huge driver” for business at Cyera.
The Browser Company, which makes the Arc browser, has raised $50 million in a round led by Pace Capital at a $550 million valuation, TechCrunch has learned exclusively.
However, in January, the company released the Arc Search app on iOS, focusing on putting AI-powered search at its center.
This is ingrained in the DNA of The Browser Company.
Paul Frazee, who built a decentralized browser called Beaker, said that scaling a browser product is hard as people are set in their way and making them switch is tough.
The Browser Company has a big ambition to build an “internet computer” for users.
