Author: pekandesigns

MultiVu, a Tel Aviv-based startup that is developing a new 3D imaging solution that only relies on a single sensor and some deep learning smarts, today announced that it has raised a $7 million seed round. The round was led by crowdfunding platform OurCrowd, Cardumen Captial and Hong Kong’s Junson Capital. Tel Aviv University’s TAU […]

Tis the season to be raising in India and Southeast Asia. Hot on the heels of new funds from Strive and Jungle Ventures, so Singapore’s Vertex Ventures, a VC backed by sovereign wealth fund Temasek, today announced a first close of $230 million for its newest fund, the firm’s fourth to date. Vertex raised $210 […]

The enterprise software and services focused accelerator, Alchemist has raised $4 million in fresh financing from investors BASF and the Qatar Development Bank, just in time for its latest demo day unveiling 20 new companies. Qatar and BASF join previous investors including the venture firms Mayfield, Khosla Ventures, Foundation Capital, DFJ, and USVP, and corporate […]

Replex wants to help track cloud spending, but with a cloud native twist, and today it announced a $2.45 million seed round. The company previous raised $1.68 million in 2017 for a total of $4.15 million so far. As companies shift to a cloud native environment, and move ever more quickly, it is increasingly important […]

Facebook is updating the News Feed ranking algorithm to incorporate data from surveys about who you say are your closest friends and which links you find most worthwhile. Today Facebook announced it’s trained new classifiers based on patterns linking these surveys with usage data so it can better predict what to show in the News […]

Walmart’s investments in e-commerce are paying off. The retailer today announced its U.S. e-commerce sales grew by 37% in the first quarter, largely thanks to its booming online grocery business and growth in both the home and fashion categories on Walmart.com. The company also beat analyst estimates for the quarter, with earnings per share of […]

Startups are ultimately vessels of speculation, of new products, new markets, and innovations the world has never seen. While data and information are important components for exploring the frontiers of the possible, perhaps the best way is through stories and fiction, and especially speculative fiction. We’ve been fortunate at Extra Crunch to have noted novelist […]

SugarCRM announced today that it has acquired Atlanta-based Salesfusion to help build out the the marketing automation side of its business. The deal closed last Friday. The companies did not share the purchase price. CEO Craig Charlton, who joined the company in February, says he recognized that marketing automation was an area of the platform […]

February’s acquisition of Anchor was a savvy move on Spotify’s behalf. It’s a clever and rapidly growing company that will help the music service get a big leg up in its bid to build podcast operation. For the looks of it, however, the big buy out isn’t making Anchor complacent when it comes to building […]

Instagram’s pivot to Stories continues with an overhaul of Explore designed to let users dig deeper into their niche interests. Stories are now eligible to show up in the Explore tab for the first time, giving creators a way to get discovered through their intimate, silly, behind-the-scenes content instead of just their manicured feed posts. […]