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Crosschq Secures $30M in Tiger Global Led Series A Financing To Expand and Scale AI-Powered Talent Intelligence Cloud™

Crosschq, pioneers of the Talent Intelligence Cloud™ powering a revolution in data-driven hiring and people analytics, announced today an extension to its Series A financing bringing the total round to $30 million. Led by Tiger Global, this $16.5 million expansion included returning investors GGV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, SAP.iO, rocketship.vc, and new investors including Jack Altman, current CEO of Lattice.

“Our talent landscape is changing with unprecedented velocity and the need for advancements to drive better hiring decisions has never been greater,” said Mike Fitzsimmons, Co-Founder and CEO of Crosschq. “Our Talent Acquisition and DEI leaders are hungry for reliable data and analytics to source and retain the best talent. We are proud to be emerging as the Talent Intelligence vendor of choice for this increasingly complex environment.”

Over the past year, Crosschq’s Talent Intelligence Cloud™ has rapidly been adopted by talent leaders across all core sectors. In the last month alone, users of Crosschq’s platform have nearly doubled, up by 86%. In addition to attracting major players in the Enterprise Tech, Fin-Tech, and Media industries including Snowflake, Blend, Hubspot, and Dish Networks, the company has recently expanded solutions in the Life Sciences and Health Care sectors. Adoption by new customers including Carbon Health, CityBlock Health, and Hengrui, China’s largest pharmaceutical company, reflects this growing market segment for the company.

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Airwallex raises $200M at a $4B valuation to double down on business banking

Business, now more than ever before, is going digital, and today a startup that’s building a vertically integrated solution to meet business banking needs is announcing a big round of funding to tap into the opportunity. Airwallex — which provides business banking services directly to businesses themselves as well as via a set of APIs that power other companies’ fintech products — has raised $200 million, a Series E round of funding that values the Australian startup at $4 billion.

Lone Pine Capital is leading the round, with new backers G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management, and previous backers 1835i Ventures (formerly ANZi), DST Global, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital China also participating.

The funding brings the total raised by Airwallex — which has head offices in Hong Kong and Melbourne, Australia — to $700 million, including a $100 million injection that closed out its Series D just six months ago.

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Airwallex Raises Funds at $4 Billion Valuation for Expansion

Airwallex Cayman Ltd. raised $200 million to accelerate its expansion in global payments as it taps investors keen on fast-growing fintechs. The Australian company attracted funding from investors led by Lone Pine Capital, boosting its valuation to $4 billion after the series E round, the company said in a statement on Monday. Other new investors include G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management.

“We want to accelerate our growth in the U.K., Europe and U.S.,” Jack Zhang, chief executive officer of Airwallex, said in a phone interview. He added that the company wants to “become a dominant leader in global payments.”

Airwallex’s fundraising comes just months after a round in March that gave the firm a valuation of $2.6 billion, underscoring the rapid growth in online payments. Last month Square Inc., the digital-payments platform led by Twitter Inc. founder Jack Dorsey, agreed to buy Australian buy-now, pay-later company Afterpay Ltd. for $29 billion.

Airwallex helps businesses set up bank accounts, process multicurrency payments and manage expenses. While the company has numerous Chinese clients including Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat, retailer JD.com Inc. and online learning platform 51Talk, its focus on cross-border payments has kept it clear of a regulatory crackdown on other parts of the country’s financial system.

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Recruiting technology company Humanly.io raises $4.2 million in seed funding round

A technology company that uses artificial intelligence in recruiting job candidates has raised $4.2 million, including funding from two local venture capital firms.

Humanly.io is headquartered in Seattle and Sacramento, and it raised the recent seed fund from investors including Moneta Ventures of Folsom and Growth Factory Capital in Rocklin.

“We will use the money to scale up the team and the product,” co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Gardner told the Business Journal.

The company currently has 10 employees, most of whom work remotely, though the company has small offices in Seattle and Sacramento.

The funding this week was led by Zeal Capital Partners in Washington, D.C., and also included Spark Growth Ventures, Basecamp Fund and Y Combinator.

According to venture capital tracking website Crunchbase, Humanly.io has raised a total of $5.3 million since its launch in 2019.

Humanly.io uses artificial intelligence software to automate screening and scheduling of hiring for companies and recruiters. It also has a suite of software that helps recruiters and hiring managers be more efficient during job candidate interviews and virtual interviews over teleconferencing.

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Amberdata Raises $15M Series A Led by Citi

Amberdata, the digital asset data company, announced it has raised $15 Million Series A led by Citi. Franklin Templeton, Galaxy Digital, Rovida Kruptos Assets, and executives at GoldenTree Asset Management also participated in the capital raise. They are joined by HWVP who previously led Amberdata’s Series Seed.

Amberdata will use the funds to double R&D headcount and expand go-to-market both in the United States and internationally.

Amberdata delivers comprehensive data and insights into blockchain networks, crypto markets, and decentralized finance. Founded in 2017, Amberdata analyzes over 8 million blockchain network transactions and more than $500 Billion in trading activities daily. The platform powers financial institutions with data for research, trading, risk, analytics, reporting, and compliance.  It serves as a critical piece of infrastructure for investors entering the asset class and participating in digital asset markets.  Institutional customers can easily integrate real-time and historical data and metrics via FIX, REST, WebSockets, and RPC and gain access to reference rates, Indexes, and analytics.

“Partnering with the exceptional group of strategic investors gives us unprecedented insights into institutions’ roadmap and challenges,” said Shawn Douglass, CEO at Amberdata. “Blockchain technology enables entirely new financial products to be created and offered at a much lower cost with global market reach. We see growing institutional interest and demand in crypto assets. Our customer list and investors are a stamp of approval for the value we are creating for institutions.”

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Zippin Raises $30M to Drive Adoption of Frictionless Checkout

Checkout-free technology provider Zippin has closed a $30 million Series B funding round with participation from new and existing investors that include OurCrowd, Maven Ventures, Evolv Ventures and SAP. The new round brings Zippin’s total funding to more than $45 million.

This follows Zippin’s significant progress in recent months, including signing numerous new accounts, launching multiple new public checkout-free stores and further solidifying its leading technology within the future of retail, according to the company.

The company currently powers checkout-free stores across four continents in formats such as convenience stores, grocery stores, sports stadiums, hotels and residential buildings. With this funding round, Zippin expects to scale its checkout-free platform and power tens of thousands of stores by 2025.

“Zippin has seen increased demand and rapid adoption of checkout-free technology during the pandemic,” said Krishna Motukuri, Zippin co-founder and CEO. “Shoppers want contactless experiences everywhere they go. As retailers realize that frictionless checkout-free technology is also contactless by design, they see a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. With a checkout-free platform like Zippin, retailers can offer shoppers what they are looking for today, and future-proof their business, both at the same time.”

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Love checkout-free stores? This S.F. company just landed $30M to compete with Amazon Go’s technology

San Francisco startup Zippin, which develops technology powering checkout-free retail stores in the style of Amazon Go, has tripled its funding with a new $30 million round to scale its platform across “tens of thousands of stores” by 2025.

The Series B trough — courtesy of new and existing investors OurCrowd, Maven Venture, Evolv Ventures and SAP — brings its total backing to more than $45 million. The company said the new money will fund further development of maintenance functions and time-to-deployment.

Zippin’s technology facilitates entry and purchases for customers via a smartphone app and utilizes overhead cameras and shelf sensors to monitor goods.

It is used by retailer clients such as Lawson, Japan’s ubiquitous and third-largest convenience store chain, Aramark Corp., Compass Group, and Brazil’s largest retailer, Americanas. The platform was operational in 29 stores in the U.S. and around the world as of June, per its website, and CEO and co-founder Krishna Motukuri said demand has increased during the pandemic as retail stores sought to limit physical touch points.

Investors said in a statement they were impressed by the technology’s performance in high-traffic settings such as sports venues, which might see 500 customers in one hour.

“Zippin’s continued growth in such challenging environments is evidence of their superior technology,” said Jon Medved, CEO and founder of OurCrowd, a Jerusalem-based platform for investments in early-stage startups. “(It’s) also a competitive advantage, allowing their AI to train on some of the richest datasets provided by those challenging environments.”

Zippin opened its own check-out free store and showcase for its technology in SoMa in 2018 but shuttered it in June after opting not to renew its lease June 30, the company said in a blog post this summer.

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Cashierless checkout company Zippin raises $30M

The cashierless technology shift continues apace with today’s news that Zippin has raised $30 million in a series B round of funding. The San Francisco-based company is one of several players in the space to gain traction for a technology that seeks to not only make supermarket queues obsolete, but also generate big data insights for retailers.

Founded in 2018, Zippin leverages AI, cameras, and smart shelf sensors to enable shoppers to place items in their cart and walk out without waiting. The company opened its first checkout-free store in San Francisco back in 2018, and it has since entered into partnerships with the likes of Aramark, Sberbank, and the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center to power cashierless stores globally.

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On-Demand Coaching Platform Bravely Announces $15M Series A Funding Round

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Bravely, the technology platform connecting people to on-demand professional coaching and development, announced a $15 million funding round led by Telescope Partners. This funding round will further Bravely’s rapid growth and advance its mission to transform the way companies support inclusive, high-performing teams by providing universal access to coaching.

“The world of work is undergoing the biggest change we’ve seen in our lifetimes,” says Sarah Sheehan, Co-Founder and President of Bravely. “The competition for talent right now is unprecedented, and there’s more attention than ever on the tools companies offer to support their employees’ growth and development. The choice is: rise to meet the new standards, or lose your most valuable asset, which is your people.”

Bravely is the first coaching platform designed to scale whole-population support for companies of all sizes, and boasts the most highly-vetted coaching network in the industry. With this funding round, Bravely will both expand its global reach and develop powerful new data capabilities, allowing for an even deeper understanding of, and capacity to serve, diverse individual employee needs. In addition to new automation and personalization, this capital will also power research informing Bravely’s ethical, inclusion-focused use of data, as well as developing a People Science function at the company.

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SoftBank Invests in Marketing Startup Targeting Post-Cookie Data

Vienna-based marketing analytics startup Adverity has raised $120 million in an equity funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2, helping it to tap growing demand for consumer data. The startup sees an opportunity in allowing sellers to improve their marketing as Apple Inc. and Google make it harder for brands to track consumers, increasing the value of other sources of information.

“It’s a great opportunity for marketing teams to get ahead again because it’s leveling the field for everybody,” Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Alexander Igelsbock said in an interview.

Established in 2015, Adverity says it pulls in data from more than 500 sources to offer analysis and insights on a brand’s marketing efforts across platforms such as Amazon.com Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok.

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SoftBank Invests in Adverity in $120M series D round

Vienna-based marketing analytics startup Adverity has raised $120 million in an equity funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2, helping it to tap growing demand for consumer data.

The startup sees an opportunity in allowing sellers to improve their marketing as Apple Inc. and Google make it harder for brands to track consumers, increasing the value of other sources of information on how people behave online.

“It’s a great opportunity for marketing teams to get ahead again because it’s leveling the field for everybody,” Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Alexander Igelsbock said in an interview.

Established in 2015, Adverity says it pulls in data from more than 500 sources to offer analysis and insights on a brand’s marketing efforts across platforms such as Amazon.com Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok.

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Chicago-Based Startup Anthill Raises $3 Million in Seed Funding

Chicago-based startup Anthill AI, Inc., the talent management platform designed for the deskless workforce, announced it has raised $3 million in seed funding. Founded in 2020 by co-founders CEO Muriel Clauson and CTO Young Jae Kim, Anthill makes it possible for companies to connect with, develop, and retain deskless employees in manufacturing, distribution, and retail at scale. The HR SaaS startup has created a comprehensive talent platform based upon skills data and people science for employers paired with a mobile experience for employees. The startup’s goal is to better understand and develop the deskless workforce (those who do not work at a desk or computer), who are 80 percent of the global workforce.

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Accredify Integrates with SAP SuccessFactors to Assist Companies in Employee COVID-19 Health Verification

Accredify, a Singapore-based firm that creates and issues verifiable documents, today announced that it has signed an agreement with multinational software corporation SAP, to be integrated as an application on its Human Resource Management System, SAP SuccessFactors, which leverages SAP.iO open innovation model to revolutionise the future of work. By integrating Accredify as an app on the SuccessFactors marketplace, clients will be able to verify an employee’s COVID health credentials through Accredify’s verification portal.

The partnership follows concerns raised amongst corporations about the provision of an affordable and efficient method to verify an employee’s COVID health status as businesses prepare to reopen physical office spaces safely.

Employees simply have to upload their COVID medical credentials such as vaccination records or swab test results into Accredify’s verification portal on the SuccessFactors platform. Employers will be notified instantaneously once a COVID medical record has been uploaded and verified, and will be able to keep track of an individual employee’s COVID medical records on the platform.

Accredify’s app will be available to all clients subscribed to the SuccessFactors platform. As Accredify’s verification portal is agnostic to the different COVID medical standards and schema issued globally, enterprises using SuccessFactors will be able to verify medical records that have been issued by healthcare providers around the world. Currently, there are more than 7,400 clients around the globe who utilise SAP’s SuccessFactors platform.

“People are our business and core to the success of any organisations globally. Every employee experience matters, and more so as we are returning to the new normal. Workplace health and safety management measures will be top of mind, and companies who are intending to enhance existing policies or implement new processes will need to leverage technology to enable a seamless, exceptional employee experience,” said Eileen Chua, Managing Director, SAP Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore.

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EON announces strategic investment from SML — ushering in a new era for connected products across fashion retail

Fashion retail’s leading Connected Product Cloud, EON, has redefined the competitive landscape in retail when it revealed that SML, one of the world’s largest retail technology companies, has participated in the company’s recent $2.1 million investment round.

For EON, a software company that enables brands to connect to their products through Digital IDs, the strategic investment and partnership of SML, who pioneered retail’s existing product identification systems, is a powerful signal to the industry. Many of retail’s largest brands are already digitizing their products on the EON Cloud, which provides the technology essential to connect directly to customers through each product, and scale new applications, business models and services. Now backed by SML, EON is well-positioned to usher in a new era of retail – connecting brands and customers in ways never-before-possible and powering industry’s at-scale transformation to sustainable and circular commerce.

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