Venture capital firm Runa Capital revealed today that it has raised $157 million for its Runa Capital Fund III, oversubscribed by $22 million over its initial goal of $135 million. Founders of current and previous portfolio companies, including Nginx, Brainly, Ecwid, Final and Rocketbank, invested in the fund. Founded in 2010, Runa Capital primarily invests in early-stage companies ...

Artificial intelligence robotics startup Covariant revealed today that it has raised $40 million in new funding to allow it to accelerate its partnerships, introduce AI robotics to new industries and hire more people. The Series B round was led by Index Ventures and Radical Ventures and included participation from Amplify Partners. Mike Volpi, a partner ...

GoDaddy Inc. has suffered a data breach affecting the web hosting accounts of 28,000 customers. The data breach involved an unknown person accessing accounts using Secure Shell or SSH cryptographic network protocol in October. It was only discovered late last month when GoDaddy noticed suspicious activity on several servers. Affected customers have had their hosting account ...

Distributed machine learning startup Boosted.ai announced today it has raised $8 million in new funding to develop out its platform. The Series A round was led by Portag3 Ventures with participation by Dunamu & Partners and Polar Equity Partners. Adam Felesky from Portag3 Ventures has joined Boosted.ai’s board. Founded in 2017, Boosted.ai offers Boosted Insights, a machine learning ...

Airbnb Inc. said today it’s laying off about 1,900 staff members, some 25% of its workforce, as the accommodation booking provider struggles to deal with a huge loss of business from the COVID-19 pandemic. The job cuts were announced in a letter to employees written by co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky, who explained ...

Israeli passwordless authentication startup Secret Double Octopus Ltd. said today it has raised $15 million in new funding to expand its platform of passwordless authentication and remote security in enterprise environments. The Series B round included Sony Financial Ventures, KDDI, Global Brain, Jerusalem Venture Partners, Benhamou Global Ventures, Liberty Media, Iris Capital and Yaniv Tal. Founded in 2015, ...

Uber Technologies Inc. is reported to be in talks to invest $170 million into electric scooter company LimeBike Inc. with an acquisition option, according to a report in The Information. The investment would value Lime at $510 million, down 79% from its $2.4 billion valuation as of the company’s last venture capital round of $310 million in ...

Free stock-trading app maker Robinhood Market Inc. said today it has raised $280 million in a new late-stage funding on an $8.3 billion valuation to allow it to invest in scaling up its platform. The Series F round was led by Sequoia Capital and included NEA, Ribbit Capital, 9Yards Capital and Unusual Ventures. Reports of the round surfaced ...

Decentralized applications startup Near Inc. today announced a $21 million token raise alongside the launch of its Protocol MainNet. The token funding was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z fund. It’s the fund’s first investment after the firm announced April 30 that it had raised $515 million for its second blockchain and cryptocurrency fund. Other investors included Pantera Capital, ...

The price of bitcoin has continued to rise over the last week and some analysts are now suggesting that the cryptocurrency is entering a strong bull run. Bitcoin was trading at $8,730,11 as of 9:30 p.m. EDT, down over the last 24 hours as some investors took profits but still well up on prices below ...