Mike Butcher
TechCrunch
Contact Mike
Discover and connect with journalists and influencers around the world, save time on email research, monitor the news, and more.
| Recent: |
|
Recent articles by Mike:
Wayve raises $200M Series B led by Eclipse for its AI for autonomous delivery vehicles –
British autonomous vehicle startup Wayve has raised a $200 million Series B funding round from investors to scale its technology and expand its partnerships with commercial fleets. Wayve is aiming to be a major player in the arena of Robo-deliveries and logistics. It’s now raised a total of $258 million to date, for its technology, […] → Read More
LiveHive wants to be a ‘one stop shop’ for online yoga teachers, PTs and other coaches –
Yoga, personal trainers and other kinds of online coaches have a bewildering array of platforms on which they can launch their class, either in platforms specializing in verticals (PTs) or more general ones. A new UK player hopes – perhaps a little optimistically – hopes to make inroads into this market with a ‘one stop […] → Read More
Burnt Finance raises $8M led by Animoca Brands, launches DeFi-oriented NFT marketplace –
Burnt Finance is a crypto startup which, as a stunt, burnt a Banksy artwork and but then the NFT they’d minted for it for $400,000, double what it cost on the ‘normal’ open art market. Based on the idea that auctions for NFTs could be improved, it went on to raise $3 million for a […] → Read More
InFlow, a science-based app for ADHD, raises $2.3M Seed led by Hoxton Ventures –
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 … → Read More
UK class action lodged against Meta seeks $3.1Bn for breach of competition law –
A competition legal expert, backed by a powerful litigation fund, is to mount a multi-billion class action for breach of competition law against Facebook/Meta on the basis that it abused its dominance of social networking in the UK for several years. If successful, the action would see Facebook having to pay out $3.1 billion (£2.3 […] → Read More
Payment orchestration platform Gr4vy pulls in another $15M in a Series A extension –
Retailers often build their own “orchestration” platforms for payment processing and routing, but these can be complex to maintain. Spreedly and modo play in this space, and, last year, new startup Gr4vy launched in the US to do this in an even more fleet-of-foot manner, it claimed. It raised in a $11.1M Series A last […] → Read More
Germany’s SoSafe raises $73M Series B led by Highland to address human error in cyber –
As we’ve learned in the last few years, ‘human error’-led cyber security breaches are the ones companies often find it hardest to guard against. Surveys suggest some 85% of attacks can be traced back to the human factor. Thus startups built to alleviate this gap — such as the UK’s Cybsafe which raises $7-9m last […] → Read More
HeyCharge’s underground charging solution raises $4.7M Seed led by BMW i Ventures –
EV charging continues to be a high-growth business, for obvious reasons. Since 2007, one of the largest players has been ChargePoint, the floated US company which with a widespread EV charging network. But plenty of startups are snapping at its heels. One of them is Germany-based HeyCharge, which realised there was a problem with how […] → Read More
Omnichannel customer messaging platform Superchat raises $15.6M round led by Blossom –
While last year’s WhatsApp outage is still sending shivers down the spine of its 2 billion users, the same is also true for the millions of businesses now using it to connect with their customers. As we now know, messaging across all platforms is a new area from which many startups are emerging. One of […] → Read More
Masters, an app for training with celeb athletes, closes a $2.7M Seed funding round –
It’s now 2022 and there are many, many apps out there that allow you to do cardio or build muscle by taking classes inside smartphone apps. We are all familiar with the success of platforms like Peloton (IPO’d), but there are of course new upstarts such as FiiT (raised £9M) or Fitplan (raised $9.9M). Plus […] → Read More
Fast-charge EV battery maker StoreDot pulls in $80M led led by Vietnam’s VinFast –
StoreDot, the Israeli next-generation battery technology startup touting an “extreme fast charging” (XFC) battery for electric vehicles, has secured the first close of its latest funding round led by Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer, VinFast. The Series D round is due to close at up to $80 million. The capital will be used for the completion […] → Read More
GoStudent Raises $340M Series D funding round as it pushes into international markets –
Fresh from raising a $244 million Series C (that valued the company then $1.7 billion) back in June, K12 online tutoring marketplace GoStudent has now raised a $340 million Series D round led by new investor Prosus, an Amsterdam-based investment firm best known for investing in Latin American and US-based LatinX internet properties. GoStudent expanded […] → Read More
Purple Dot, a waitlist and pre-order platform for the fashion industry, raises $4M –
Because of the unpredictable nature of the fashion industry, fashion brands often have to ‘guestimate’ demand for their products, and if they get that demand wrong, they have to deal with the wasted inventory. All too often clothes end up being incinerated unnecessarily, adding to their environmental impact. UK startup Purple Dot has an ecommerce […] → Read More
New European deep tech-focused fund Outsized Ventures hits first €60M close of inaugural fund –
So-called ‘Deep Tech’ venture capital has been experiencing a wave of interest in the couple last years with several new funds launching. Many are focused on the European market, which has a deep bench (no pun intended) of talent and innovation, thanks in part to its many excellent universities. The latest is Outsized Ventures, a […] → Read More
Sage acquires remaining stake in retail management platform Brightpearl for $340M –
Enterprise software giant Sage has acquired the remaining stake in Brightpearl, originally a UK-based startup in cloud retail management, for $340m. Brightpearl provides a SaaS-based retail operating system, enabling real-time business insights. Sage previously owned 17% of the Bristol, UK-based startup, which MMC Ventures, a UK Series A investor, backed in 2014. The startup had […] → Read More
“Pfeffel” artist satirizes Boris Johnson with parody NFTs, sending 52% of proceeds to charity –
As crazy as the NFT market has become, there’s been an increasing range of other things to do with NFTs other than pimp images of apes and punks – even if they have become enormously valuable. We’ve seen the auction of apartments as NFTs, for instance. And now we’re seeing charities starting to benefit from […] → Read More
Fintech startup LiveFlow raises $3.5M Seed to automate financial data flows –
Fintech startup LiveFlow has raised a $3.5M Seed round which was led by Moonfire Ventures with backing from Y Combinator, Seedcamp and WndrCo. Also participating was Victor Jacobsson, co-founder of Klarna; Bradley Horowitz, former VP Product at Google; Oliver Jung, former VP International Expansion at AirBnB, Phillip Chambers, Peakon founder & CEO, and others. LiveFlow […] → Read More
Woola raises €2.5M Seed led by Future Ventures to replace bubble wrap with wool –
Some 55 billion parcels are shipped in bubble wrap every year. Plastic bubble wrap is reliant on fossil fuels and 98% of plastic packaging is single-use. You can imagine the adverse environmental impact of all this plastic. The founders of Woola were running an online e-commerce store and saw the packaging problem first-hand. The lack […] → Read More
Voi scooters raises $115M Series D round as it preps to enter new cities – and for an IPO –
The European e-scooter market is currently the main battleground for companies playing in the micro-mobility space, taking advantage as they are of Europe’s relatively compact cities and the desire of populations to move to more sustainable transportation. In 2021, players like Tier, Voi and Dott continued to raise VC backing. But the war for funding […] → Read More
Real-time soil-testing AgTech startup Stenon raises $20M Series A funding round –
Stenon, an AgTech company that has a real-time soil-sensing solution, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round from Founders Fund, David Friedberg’s The Production Board, and existing investors including Cherry Ventures and Atlantic Labs. Founded in 2018 in Potsdam, Germany, Stenon’s digital soil data is produced without the need for a laboratory, making […] → Read More