Ingrid Lunden, Author at TechCrunch

Poolside is raising $400M+ at a $2B valuation to build a supercharged coding co-pilot

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 18:30:58 +0000

Paris has quickly established itself as a major European center for AI startups, and now another big deal is in the works.

Semperis, a specialist in Active Directory security now worth more than $1B, raises $125M

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:33:06 +0000

Active Directory, the Microsoft directory service for connecting users with network resources, is used by more than 90% of all Fortune 1000 companies and many more besides. So it’s no surprise that it’s a giant target for malicious hackers. That also means a lot of attention for the security companies that are building tools to […]

PQShield secures $37M more for ‘quantum resistant’ cryptography

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 07:22:15 +0000

Malicious hacking is getting increasingly sophisticated, and that’s leading to a very clear trend in security technology. To keep people and organizations safe, security also has to continue improving. Security startup PQShield has gotten an early start on that concept with a focus on “post-quantum” cryptography: Software and hardware solutions that, in theory, are future-proofed, […]

France leads the pack for generative AI funding in Europe

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:43:17 +0000

Like it or hate it, artificial intelligence — especially generative AI — is the technology story of 2024. OpenAI, with its rollouts of viral services like ChatGPT and billions in funding, may have gobbled up the lion’s share of attention and money so far. But according to a new report out from top VC Accel […]

Finbourne taps $70M for tech that turns financial data dust into AI gold

Ingrid Lunden — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 00:14:23 +0000

Finbourne, founded out of London’s financial center, has built a platform to help financial companies organize and use more of their data in AI and other models.

From sperm freezing to accounting tools, Finaloop scores $35M to solve e-commerce retailers’ bookkeeping headaches

Ingrid Lunden — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 16:27:43 +0000

Finaloop’s solution is a platform that uses automation in the background to track transactions covering three different functions in one.

Perplexity AI searches for users in Japan, via SoftBank deal

Kate Park, Ingrid Lunden — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 12:16:53 +0000

After announcing a strategic partnership with SoftBank in April, Perplexity — the AI search engine that has ambitions to take on Google — is now using the deal to expand its user base, and data touchpoints, in SoftBank’s home market of Japan. SoftBank and two of its mobile operations, Y!mobile (SoftBank’s mobile phone operator) and […]

LinkedIn leans on AI to do the work of job hunting

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

LinkedIn is launching new AI tools to help you look for jobs, write cover letters and job applications, personalize learning, and a new search experience.

AccountsIQ takes in $65M to boost bookkeeping with AI

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 06:38:04 +0000

AccountsIQ, a Dublin-founded accounting technology company, has raised $65 million to build “the finance function of the future” for midsized companies.

Black Semiconductor nabs $273M in Germany to supercharge how chips work together

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 07:01:18 +0000

Black Semiconductor, which is developing a chip-connecting technology based on graphene, has raised $273M in a combination of private and public funding.

Amazon slammed with £1.1B data abuse lawsuit from UK retailers

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 16:14:57 +0000

The British retailers association also takes aim at Amazon’s “Buy Box,” claiming that Amazon manipulated which retailers were selected for the coveted placement.

Sirion, now valued around $1B, acquires Eigen as consolidation comes to enterprise AI tooling

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 14:26:48 +0000

There’s a lot of buzz about generative AI and what impact it might have on businesses. But look beyond the hype and high-profile deals like the one between OpenAI and PwC last week, and you’ll see that the world is already years into using customer-facing, no-code AI tools for extracting information and working faster. Now, […]

Storyblok raises $80M to add more AI to its ‘headless’ CMS aimed at non-technical people

Ingrid Lunden — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 11:13:27 +0000

The startup targets the middle ground between platforms that offer rigid templates, and those that facilitate a full-control approach.

Filing shows Salesforce paid $419M to buy Spiff in February

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 30 May 2024 11:32:05 +0000

Salespeople live and die by commissions. It's no surprise, then, that Salesforce paid a premium to buy a platform that simplifies managing commissions.

Firefly forges on after co-founder murdered by Hamas

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 29 May 2024 16:56:48 +0000

A startup called Firefly that’s tackling the thorny and growing issue of cloud asset management with an “infrastructure as code” solution has raised $23 million in funding. That comes on the heels of strong demand for its tech and increasing revenue fourfold in 2023. The firm’s latest success also comes on the heels of tragedy, […]

OpenAI signs 100K PwC workers to ChatGPT’s enterprise tier as PwC becomes its first resale partner

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 29 May 2024 08:59:54 +0000

PwC, the management consulting giant, will become OpenAI’s biggest customer to date, covering 100,000 users.

LumApps, the French ‘intranet super app,’ sells majority stake to Bridgepoint in a $650M deal

Ingrid Lunden — Tue, 28 May 2024 12:33:45 +0000

The deal will give LumApps a big nest egg to make acquisitions and scale its business.

Bugcrowd, the crowdsourced white-hat hacker platform, acquires Informer to ramp up its security chops

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 23 May 2024 11:31:25 +0000

On the heels of raising $102 million earlier this year, Bugcrowd is making good on its promise to use some of that funding to make acquisitions to strengthen its security chops. The company — which crowdsources skills from more than half a million hackers to find and fix security vulnerabilities and other operational loopholes in […]

Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 22 May 2024 14:54:18 +0000

A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cybercriminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup called Bolster that has built a novel approach to tackle that trick has raised $14 million in funding to expand its work, both across a […]

AI language translation startup DeepL nabs $300M on a $2B valuation to focus on B2B growth

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 22 May 2024 12:57:41 +0000

DeepL, which builds automated text translation and writing tools, has raised a $300 million round led by Index Ventures.