Author: pekandesigns

BuzzFeed’s technical team has a new leader — incoming chief technology officer Peter Wang, who’s leaving his role as CTO of healthcare community The Mighty. Wang has plenty of experience in the media industry, having served as CTO at Refinery29 and at Narrativ, a startup that helps publishers make money through commerce. He told me […]

Lily AI, a startup focused on using deep learning to help brands better convert customers through emotionally tailored recommendations, announced this morning that it has raised a $12.5 million Series A led by Canaan Partners. Prior investors NEA, Unshackled and Fernbrook Capital also took part in the funding event. Prior to its Series A, Lily had […]

Sisense, an enterprise startup that that has built a business analytics business out of the premise of making big data as accessible as possible to users — whether it be through graphics on mobile or desktop apps, or spoken through Alexa — is announcing a big round of funding today and a large jump in […]

Last year Insight Partners invested $500 million in cloud data management company Veeam. It apparently liked the company so much that today it announced it has acquired the Swiss startup for $5 billion. Veeam helps customers with cloud data backup and disaster recovery. The company, which has been based in Baar, Switzerland, says that it […]

Joe Procopio Contributor Share on Twitter Joe Procopio is a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur. Joe is currently building Spiffy, and previously sold Automated Insights, sold ExitEvent and built Intrepid Media. More posts by this contributor How startups close their first big sales Here’s what happens when you decide to sell your startup I get tons of […]

It’s 2020 — a key election year in the U.S. — and Facebook is doubling down on its policy of letting people pay it to fuck around with democracy. Despite trenchant criticism — including from U.S. lawmakers accusing Facebook’s CEO to his face of damaging American democracy — the company is digging in, announcing as […]

Outlier.org, a startup that allows students to take online classes for college credit, is announcing that it has raised $11.7 million in Series A funding. GSV Ventures led the round, with participation from Harrison Metal, Tectonic Capital and Jackson Square Ventures. If you add this round to previously undisclosed seed funding led by Harrison Metal, […]

More changes have been announced in the senior leadership of French pro-privacy search engine Qwant. President and co-founder Eric Leandri (pictured above) will be moving from an operational to a strategic role on January 15, the company said today — while current deputy managing director for sales and marketing, Jean-Claude Ghinozzi, is being promoted to […]

Bux, the Amsterdam-based fintech that wants to make investing more accessible, has acquired the European “social” cryptocurrency investment platform Blockport. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although Bux says the move paves the way for the company to launch its own branded cryptocurrency investment app. Dubbed “BUX Crypto,” it will be available in the nine […]