Animoca Brands, an eight-year-old, 600-person Hong Kong-based outfit that has managed to put its stamp on many of the world’s most popular NFT and metaverse brands, has raised roughly $360 million in fresh funding at a valuation of more than $5 billion, the company announced today. It’s a big leap from the $2.2 billion valuation…
Two of the world’s largest e-commerce players are joining joined hands. Major Chinese online retailer JD.com has formed a strategic partnership with Ottawa-based Shopify to help global brands tap China’s enormous appetite for imported goods, as well as helping Chinese merchants sell overseas. The news is turning heads in China’s cross-border e-commerce community. The first…
The digital banking space in Africa is taking shape as neobanks on the continent grow in numbers like their global counterparts. Venture capital bet from institutional investors in this class of fintechs is massive and in the latest development from Africa, it seems individual investors appetite is increasing likewise. Finclusion Group, a fintech that uses…
Crypto.com, a popular cryptocurrency exchange, has extended its venture arm’s fund size to $500 million as it looks to more aggressively back early-stage startups to help the nascent ecosystem grow, following similar moves by rivals Binance, Coinbase and FTX. The broadening of Crypto.com Capital comes less than a year after the Singapore-headquartered firm unveiled its…
Ford Motor Company has signed a five year agreement with Stripe, an online payment processor, to scale the automaker’s e-commerce capabilities. Stripe will facilitate transactions for vehicle orders and reservations, handle financing options for Ford’s commercial customers and route customer’s payments from the automaker’s website to the correct local Ford or Lincoln dealer. Ford plans…
Istanbul has become a city to watch when it comes to casual gaming startups, boosted by the likes of Peak (acquired by Zynga for $1.8 billion) and Dream (valued at $1 billion in a funding round last year). Now, a new startup is announcing a major round of funding to make its own mark on…
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms can include anxiety, chronic boredom, impulsiveness, trouble concentrating, controlling anger, and even depression. But ADHD suffers can face lengthy waiting periods for assessment and prohibitively expensive treatments. Now a startup, which launched in 2020, hopes to address this by luring the knowledge of a team of clinicians and coaches…
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the…
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the…
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the…
