Public investors loved SaaS stocks in 2019, and startups should be thankful

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

Today, something short. Continuing our loose collection of looks back of the past year, it’s worth remembering two related facts. First, that this time last year SaaS stocks were getting beat up. And, second, that in the ensuing

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Rivian adds $1.3 billion in funding for its electric utility and adventure vehicles

American automotive technology startup Rivian has raised $1.3 billion in new funding, the company announced today. The new investment is the fourth round of capital announced by the company in 2019 alone, following prior announcements of $700 million led by Amazon, $500 million from Ford (which includes a collaboration on electric vehicle

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Mastercard acquires security assessment startup, RiskRecon

Mastercard announced today that it is acquiring RiskRecon, a Salt Lake City startup that uses publicly available data to build security assessments of organizations. The companies did not share the purchase price.

It has become increasingly important for financial services companies like Mastercard to help customers navigate cybersecurity, and RiskR

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Eddy Travels closes pre-seed round led by Techstars to scale its AI travel assistant

Eddy Travels, an AI-powered travel assistant bot which can understand text and voice messages, has closed a pre-seed round of around $500,000 led by Techstars Toronto, Practica Capital and Open Circle Capital VC funds from Lithuania, with angel investors from the U.S., Canada, U.K.

Launched in November 2018, Eddy Travels claims to have more than

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IndiaHomeLane raises $30M to expand its one-stop shop for interior design

HomeLane, a Bangalore-based startup that helps people manage home renovations and interior design, today announced it has raised $30 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its proprietary technology.

The financing round, dubbed Series D, was led by Evolvence India Fund (EIF), Pidilite Group and FJ Labs. Existing investors Accel

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I’m not a venture capitalist. I don’t play one on TV, either (though I might if anyone asked!). Still, after many years of covering startups, including as an editor with TechCrunch, in a daily newsletter I publish called StrictlyVC and at numerous media outlets before that (anyone remember the early years of Red Herring magazine?), there have alw

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