Startup Monday #26: Latest tech trends and news happening in the global startup ecosystem!

Startups / Founders / Venture Capital / Fintech

Startups in the USA

Walmart is going to create a fintech start-up with the investment firm behind Robinhood. The big-box retailer did not share the name of the new company or say when its services will be available. It said it will develop unique and affordable financial products for Walmart employees and customers. After this announcement, the shares of Walmart were up 1.5%. Walmart’s market cap is $416.7 billion. Read more

With many corporate offices closed because of the pandemic, many young professionals have left cities like New York and San Francisco for warmer, cheaper places. That situation is creating fresh demand for furnished housing on a short-term basis, a fast-growing niche that many property startups and their venture-capital backers are rushing to fill. One of them is a startup called Landing, which runs a network of furnished apartments across the U.S. When it launched in 2019, this San Francisco-based company initially planned to operate in about 30 cities last year. Due to Covid restrictions, instead, it expanded to 75, largely because demand grew much faster than expected. Read more

Smartphone chipmaker and wireless telecom equipment maker Qualcomm reportedly would acquire the chip start-up Nuvia for about $1.4 billion. Shares of the San Diego-based company were up 0.51% to $155.23 on Wednesday morning. The company said the acquisition “will further extend the leadership of Qualcomm Snapdragon platforms, and positions Snapdragon as the preferred platform for the future of connected computing.” Read more

Accolade, a health care technology company that helps employees navigate their medical plans, is buying telemedicine start-up 2nd.MD to bolster its ability to provide users with second opinions. Accolade is close to announcing the acquisition of Houston-based Innovation Specialists, the parent company of 2nd.MD, for about $460 million. Read more

As the pandemic continues to drive the use of services based on the gig economy, a local fintech startup landed an extra funding boost to help it grow its gig payroll platform. After landing $7.5 million in funding in October, last week, Dallas-based Gig Wage announced extending that Series A round to include new backer Foundry Group, bringing the round to about $10 million. Read more

Venture Capitals

Early-stage venture capital firm Harlem Capital will receive a $10 million investment as part of Apple’s diversity push. Apple announced the investment on Wednesday as part of its plan to allocate $100 million to address racial equity and justice. The funding will be coming over the next two decades and help Harlem Capital with its goal of investing in 1,000 diverse-led businesses in 20 years. Read more

Tiger Global Management, the New York-based investing powerhouse, is raising a new $3.75 billion venture fund called Tiger Private Investment Partners XIV that it expects to close in March. Read more

Silicon Valley’s share of total VC count in the U.S. will fall below 20% for the first time in history, while other cities around the country grab larger amounts of equity capital for their home-grown innovators, according to PitchBook. The pandemic has upended the U.S. economy and it has also had a far-reaching effect on Silicon Valley, the venture capital industry and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in America. In 2020, $156.2 billion of venture capital was raised in the U.S., PitchBook reports. Of the total, 22.7% of the dealmaking occurred in the Bay Area, and 39.4% of deal value was invested in Bay area-headquartered companies. Read more

Artificial Intelligence

The global healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 41.4% from 2020 to 2027 to reach $51.3 billion by 2027. The growth in the healthcare artificial intelligence market is mainly attributed to the factors such as rising venture capital investment for artificial intelligence in the healthcare sector, growing demand for personalized therapy, positive impact due to COVID-19, the rising demand to reduce healthcare costs, and rise in volume and complexities in healthcare datasets. Moreover, the growing potential of AI-based tools for the treatment of chronic illness and its growing implementation in clinical trials provide growth opportunities for players operating in the healthcare artificial intelligence market. Read more

Blockchain

China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) — a permissioned blockchain network for building decentralized applications and tokens — plans on releasing a beta central bank digital currency (CBDC) as early as the second half of 2021. The UDPN network will be available through API connection as well for “any information system such as banking, insurance, ERP, and mobile applications. . . to enable a standardized digital currency transfer method and payment procedure. Read more

BitMart, a premier global digital assets trading platform released of Cryptos of the Year 2020 Report. This report sheds light on ten altcoins listed on BitMart worth investors’ attention in the new year. The list recognizes outstanding projects that defined the year in blockchain, and thought influencers who come from DeFi ecosystems and the Web3 universe. The BitMart research team has reviewed all coins listed on their platform and selected the top ten coins that might be worth paying attention to, based upon their popularity with investors, year-to-date return rate, and the potential to increase in value over time. See full report

US Navy Commissions $1.5M Blockchain System for Tracking Critical Weaponry. Blockchain firm SIMBA Chain won a contract to build a system to anticipate demand for “critical” military weaponry parts. Read more

JPMorgan Provides $100M Financing Facility for Blockchain Mortgage Platform Figure. The facility covers both conforming and jumbo mortgages — loans in excess of the traditional lending restrictions. Read more

JPMorgan says bitcoin could rise to $146,000 long term as it competes with gold. Bitcoin’s market cap — calculated by multiplying the price by the total number of coins in circulation — currently stands at more than $575 billion. According to JPMorgan, it would have to climb by 4.6 times to match the $2.7 trillion of private sector gold investment. Read more

Startups in Europe

British financial technology firm Curve announced Tuesday that it’s raised $95 million to fuel an expansion into the United States. Founded in 2015, Curve is among a flood of upstarts in Europe that have gained a following among mainly younger consumers in the last few years thanks to their online-only banking services. Read more

Berlin-based sennder raises €131.2 million to accelerate the digitalization of European trucking and drive expansion. Read more

LAUNCHub Ventures, an early-stage European VC which concentrates mainly on Central Eastern (CEE) and South-Eastern Europe (SEE), has completed the first closing of its new fund at €44 million ($53.5 million), with an aspiration to reach a target size of €70 million. A final close is expected by Q2 2021. With this new fund, LAUNCHub aims to invest in 25 startups in the next four years. The initial investment range will be between €500,000 and €2 million in verticals such as B2B SaaS, fintech, proptech, big data, AI, marketplaces and digital health. The fund will also actively invest in the Web 3.0 / Blockchain space, as it has done so since 2014. Read more

Startups in Israel

Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd., one of Israel’s biggest money managers, plans to invest about $2 billion in financial technology over the next two years, broadening its search for higher yields at a time of globally low-interest rates. The Israeli insurer, which manages 308 billion shekels ($97 billion) worth of assets, has set up an investment arm to ferret out fintech companies and funds in Israel, North America, and Europe. Read more

Pune-headquartered Quick Heal Technologies on Thursday said it has invested $2 million in L7 Defense, an Israel-based cybersecurity startup. L7 Defense specializes in Application Program Interface (API) Security and Next Generation Web Application Firewall (NG-WAF). Read more

The Israeli startup Spetz.io, which has developed a platform to recruit employees on digital channels, was acquired by Paradox.ai which is also active in the management and human resources platforms in the U.S. market. The value deal is estimated to be valued at $5 million. The Israeli startup has so far raised $750,000 in private funding. Read more

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