Author: TechCrunch News

The travel industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, and startup Headout was no exception. A marketplace that let tourists make same-day bookings for tours, events and activities, the app expanded around the world after launching in 2015. Then COVID-19 hit. But business is growing again thanks to rebounds in domestic travel and…

Cao Cao Mobility, the ride-hailing unit of Chinese automaker Geely Automobile Holdings, has announced a $589 million (RMB 3.8 billion) Series B raise that the company says will help it upgrade its technology and expand its fleet, according to a statement released by the company (in Chinese). The raise, which Cao Cao announced on Monday,…

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome back to the Daily Crunch for Tuesday, September 7, 2021! Your regular host Alex Wilhelm is AFK for the next few days, so I (Greg Kumparak) will be handling…

Francophone Africa has its first unicorn, and if you’ve been following tech on the continent, you will be very unsurprised to hear that it’s coming from the world of fintech. Wave, a U.S. and Senegal-based mobile money provider, has raised $200 million in Series A round of funding. The investment is the largest-ever Series A…

Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber is in advanced stages of talks to raise a new financing round at up to $2 billion in valuation, several sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. If the talks materialize in a deal, CoinSwitch Kuber will become the second crypto startup in the world’s second largest internet market to…

Nigerian automotive tech company Autochek today is announcing the acquisition of Cheki Kenya and Uganda from Ringier One Africa Media (ROAM) for an undisclosed amount. Per a statement, Autochek will finalize the deal in the coming weeks. With the acquisition, Autochek completes its expansion into East Africa and follows the first acquisition made almost a…

Indian logistics firm Delhivery has courted one more high-profile investor before its expected IPO in the next two quarters: Lee Fixel’s Addition. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm has disclosed in a regulatory filing that Addition has invested $76.4 million in the startup. The new investment is part of a Series I round, according to the filing, provided by…

UK tech accelerator Founders Factory is joining forces with a European counterpart to launch the Founders Factory Sustainability Seed program. Launched in partnership with G-Force (the G is for Green) based out of Bratislava, Slovakia, the program will look to invest in and accelerate climate-tech startups. The program will invest in entrepreneurs with startups that…

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, the gaming industry again became a target of Beijing, which imposed arguably the world’s strictest limits on underage players. On the other hand, China’s…

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by what the weekday Exchange column digs into, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Hey team! Alex here. I am off next week. Anna, my regular co-pilot on the weekday column,…