News
The internet and search engines like Google have made the world our oyster when it comes to sourcing information, but in the world of business, there remains a persistent need for more targeted market intelligence, a way to get reliable data quickly to get on with your work. Today, one of the startups hoping to build a lucrative operation of its own around that premise is announcing a round of funding to get there.
Crunchbase — a directory and database of company-related information that originally got its start as a part of TechCrunch before being spun off into a separate business several years ago — has raised $30 million, a Series C that it plans to use to continue expanding its base of paid subscribers and expanding its product to include more predictive, personalised information for its users by way of more machine learning and other AI-based technology.
CEO Jager McConnell, who has long viewed Crunchbase as the “LinkedIn for company profiles,” said that of the 55 million people who visit the site each year, the company currently has “tens of thousands” of subscribers — subscriptions are priced at $29/user/month varying by size of company contract — which works out to less than 1% of its active users. That’s “growing quickly,” he added, speaking to site’s potential.
Indeed, he noted that since its last round in 2017, when it raised $18 million, Crunchbase has tripled its employees to 120 and has 10 times more annual revenue run rate. It’s also more than doubled its traffic since being spun out.
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Total technology industry M&A deals in September 2019 worth $9.4bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database.
The value marked a decrease of 71.1% over the previous month and a drop of 69.2% when compared with the last 12-month average, which stood at $30.46bn.
In terms of volumes, North America emerged as the top region for technology industry M&A deals globally, followed by Europe and then Asia-Pacific. The top country in terms of M&A deals activity in September 2019 was the US with 161 deals, followed by the UK with 41 and Canada with 24.
In 2019, as of the end of September 2019, technology M&A deals worth $245.01bn were announced globally, marking a decrease of 24.5% year on year.
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Starling Bank has announced that it has launched the Starling Business Euro Account, giving business and personal customers the power to spend directly in pounds or euros with a single debit card.
The dual currency card feature goes live on the same day as Starling launches its Business Euro Account. The new account will help Starling’s 77,000 business customers make transactions across the Eurozone and reduce currency exchange costs.
The new multi-currency account can also help to reduce exchange rate risks, and unlike similar offerings on the market with other banks, there are no fees for euro to euro transactions.
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British travel tech company Duffel has raised $30m from investors to launch its innovative new booking platform with some of the world’s biggest airlines, including American Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa Group, Aegean Airlines, Vueling, Iberia.
Duffel enables travel agencies to plug in directly to airlines’ reservation systems via an API so that they can pull real-time flight offers, make bookings, access live seat availability, and buy extra services.
Until now, new digital and mobile travel agencies – Duffel’s target market – have long lead times and high costs to access clunky flight booking systems, legacy APIs and outdated, cryptic screens.
By giving agents a way to connect instantly with airlines, Duffel represents the biggest shakeup of the travel sector since the launch of budget air travel.
Index Ventures, the backers of Adyen, Dropbox and Slack, led the Series B round, and were joined by existing investors Benchmark Capital and Blossom Capital.
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Encouraging footfall is key to the success of physical stores these days and Next is aiming to boost its visitor traffic in select stores in a deal with O2.
It means Next shoppers will be able to buy a new smartphone or renew their O2 contract at the same time as they buy some clothes or homewares, or even as they pick up an order they’ve placed online.
The company has around 500 stores, but only two trial locations have the 650 sq ft O2 concessions in them so far (Warrington and Southampton), although two more (Swindon and Nottingham) will debut next month.
Deals such as this don’t only boost visitor traffic though. There’s the fee that concessionaires pay, of course, and they also help physical retailers make best use of the expensive space in their stores.
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Manchester fintech startup GoodBox has reached its £1 million funding target on leading investment platform Seedrs to expand the team in all areas. This round is part of a larger Series A following a £1.3 million investment earlier this year. The share price for crowd investors remains the same.
Backed by WorldPay and Visa executives, GoodBox is the startup helping charities embrace digital payments by providing a single point of entry through its pioneering hardware, payments and banking platform.
The platform has been designed and developed specifically to manage, grow and maximise the £583 billion of philanthropic transactions made globally each year.
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With UK inflation running at around 2%, a study predicting just a 0.8% increase in Christmas spending this year is bad news for retailers. And it could be worse if a no-deal Brexit happens as the prediction would then be scaled back to 0.2%.
2018’s Christmas season had seen a weak rise that also undershot the inflation figure, but at 1.2%, it was much better than is being forecast for 2019’s not-so-festive season. 2017 had seen a 1.4% rise.
Interestingly though, the research also showed that it’s not only the UK where consumer confidence is absent with Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain also seeing consumer confidence at 10-year lows.
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Fintech startup Revolut has announced a new partnership with Mastercard to launch Revolut cards in the US by the end of the year, as part of an expansion of their relationship enabling the issuance of cards in any market around the world where Mastercard is accepted.
Mastercard has built a strong partnership with Revolut since its launch in 2015 and their participation in the network’s accelerator program, Start Path.
Mastercard and Revolut have had a lot of success in Europe – providing financial services to consumers, from day-to-day money management to market leading foreign exchange solutions.
Today’s announcement confirms the two businesses will partner on a minimum of 50% of all existing and future cards that Revolut will issue in Europe.
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Beauty buffs who frequently find themselves opening multiple tabs in the name of online research may have found the answer to their prayers, in a newly-launched search engine called Mira.
The extensive search engine has been specifically designed to empower users to find beauty products that meet their needs, with the aim of championing transparency and inclusivity in the industry.
Mira lets users compare multiple beauty products, assess their ingredients, access millions of customer reviews and click through to purchase what they want from a selection of retailers, with price comparisons.
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Digital brands remain top of mind for consumers, but its the luxury sector that saw the most growth in 2019, according to the latest Interbrand ranking of the Best Global Brands, released on Thursday.
According to the Interbrand report, Apple, Google and Amazon retained their hold on the top three rankings. Facebook, however, which first entered the Best Global Brands report in 2012, dropped five places from #9 in 2018 to #14 this year.
Other tech names that dominated the top 10 include Microsoft at #4, as well as Samsung at #6, while other long-standing favourites were also able to hold their positions - Coca-Cola (#5), Toyota (#7), Mercedes-Benz (#8), McDonald’s (#9) and Disney (#10) – as top brands.
Still, the power of luxury should not be underestimated, as this sector saw the highest average brand value change against last year’s figures, recording an 11 percent growth rate.
Top performers include Gucci, which ranked #33, jumping 23 percent compared to last year, with a valuation of USD $15,949 million.
Louis Vuitton was equally in the top 25 at #17, before Chanel, which took home the #22 spot.
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