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PayPal Ventures donates $20 million to Gynger, which offers companies a “buy now, pay later” option to purchase technology

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PayPal Ventures leads $20M round into Gynger, which offers companies ‘buy now, pay later’ for technology purchases

Gynger, a platform that lends capital to companies to purchase technology, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures, TechCrunch reported exclusively.

The financing brings the New York startup’s total enterprise capital to $31.7 million and includes participation from Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused enterprise fund), Velvet Sea Ventures, BAG Ventures and Deciens Capital.

In addition to increasing equity capital, Swings finalized a $25 million loan from Community Investment Management (CIM) under an agreement that enables it to borrow up to $100 million in total.

Gynger was incubated in June 2021 with m)x(v Capital, an early-stage enterprise capital fund from New York founded by Mark Ghermezian. Ghermezian also previously founded Braze, a cloud-based customer engagement platform for omnichannel marketing. There, as he told TechCrunch throughout the company’s last raise, he saw how difficult it was to sell software and, then again, how difficult it was for buyers to buy software.

Gynger works with each buyers and sellers of technology. It claims to help companies “finance, pay and manage” all expenses related to purchasing technology, including software, hardware, cloud and infrastructure. It does this by giving companies access to unsecured lines of credit, which Ghermezian says gives them the chance to extend their runway and save money.

Gynger says it uses advanced artificial intelligence and data analytics to underwrite and approve loans for patrons. According to Ghermezian, it mechanically detects technology expenses and recommends financing options that best meet the needs of each buyers and sellers.

The company claims that the appliance process takes lower than 10 minutes and that companies receive credit decisions as soon as the following day “and immediate access to funds once approved” with a number of payment term options. Gynger pays its customers’ suppliers on their behalf, and the shoppers pay them back later. Think of it as a “buy now, pay later” service for companies purchasing technology.

Gynger, then again, offers technology vendors a way to offer built-in financing through its receivables platform, which provides “flexible” payment terms, Ghermezian said.

“This gives suppliers an extremely effective tool for accelerating sales, increasing revenues and reducing key financial indicators,” added Ghermezian. Sellers receive an annual payment from Gynger upfront, while their customer pays Gynger “however they want.”

The market is large, Ghermezian said, pointing to a recent Forrester research report that found global technology spending is anticipated to reach USD 4.7 trillion in 2024

All of those expenses translate into growth for Gynger. According to Ghermezian, revenues increased by greater than 700% 12 months over 12 months. However, sales didn’t start until the second quarter of 2023, so growth is ranging from a small base. Ghermezian said the corporate also increased its customer base fivefold from the previous 12 months. He declined to release hard revenue numbers, saying only the corporate was on a “clear near-term path to profitability.” To date, Gynger has enabled 1000’s of payments for its customers from lots of of providers, including AWS, Google Cloud, Okta, Cisco, Salesforce, HubSpot, Oracle, GitHub, Snowflake, and Amplitude.

Like all companies operating on the BNPL business model, the corporate charges interest on its loans and likewise earns money from buyers from loan origination fees in addition to interchange fees under its card program. It also generates revenue from vendors in the shape of service fees, and plans to generate revenue from SaaS/platform fees later this 12 months, according to Ghermezian.

Image credits: Swings

At the time of the corporate’s latest raise, Ghermezian told TechCrunch that he saw Gynger competing closely with fintechs like Pipe and Capchase, which started off by providing companies with financing beyond equity and enterprise debt. For its part, Capchase expanded its offer to “buy now, pay later” in May 2023 after the launch of Capchase Pay. But today, Ghermezian said he not sees the companies as competitors. There are companies that do a few of what Gynger does. Some of them, like Tropic, Zip and Vendr, have gone the SaaS procurement route, Ghermezian also noted. There are also companies like Brex and Ramp that supply corporate expense cards to use for purchases, including technology. However, he believes that Gynger’s most important competitor is Bill.com.

The company currently employs 25 employees, up from 13 a 12 months ago.

Gynger will use its recent capital to scale its operations and finance loans.

“As we mature, we see our customer base growing, from early-stage startups to more mature companies, from Series A to pre-IPO,” Ghermezian said. “We also tap into other industries outside of technology, such as real estate, retail, healthcare and artificial intelligence.”

PayPal Ventures managing partner James Loftus believes Gynger’s model gives it a “unique advantage.”

“We believe that embedding payments and financing in both the buying and selling process for SaaS will allow Gynger to create tremendous network effects and create deep relationships that will ultimately enable the company to realize its goal of becoming the next big AR (accounts receivable)/ AP (accounts with suppliers),” he said. “Access to built-in financial solutions that ‘work’ for both buyers and sellers simply didn’t exist at scale until Gynger.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The company is currently developing washing machines for humans

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Forget about cold baths. Washing machines for people may soon be a brand new solution.

According to at least one Japanese the oldest newspapersOsaka-based shower head maker Science has developed a cockpit-shaped device that fills with water when a bather sits on a seat in the center and measures an individual’s heart rate and other biological data using sensors to make sure the temperature is good. “It also projects images onto the inside of the transparent cover to make the person feel refreshed,” the power says.

The device, dubbed “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” (the human washing machine of the longer term), may never go on sale. Indeed, for now the company’s plans are limited to the Osaka trade fair in April, where as much as eight people will have the option to experience a 15-minute “wash and dry” every day after first booking.

Apparently a version for home use is within the works.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Zepto raises another $350 million amid retail upheaval in India

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Zepto, snagging $1 billion in 90 days, projects 150% annual growth

Zepto has secured $350 million in latest financing, its third round of financing in six months, because the Indian high-speed trading startup strengthens its position against competitors ahead of a planned public offering next yr.

Indian family offices, high-net-worth individuals and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, maintaining Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria and Kalyan, in addition to stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are amongst those backing the brand new enterprise, which is India’s largest fully national primary round.

The funding push comes as Zepto rushes so as to add Indian investors to its capitalization table, with foreign ownership now exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported on the brand new round’s deliberations last month. The Mumbai-based startup has raised over $1.35 billion since June.

Fast commerce sales – delivering groceries and other items to customers’ doors in 10 minutes – will exceed $6 billion this yr in India. Morgan Stanley predicts that this market shall be value $42 billion by 2030, accounting for 18.4% of total e-commerce and a pair of.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players including Flipkart, Myntra and Nykaa to cut back delivery times as they lose touch with specialized delivery apps.

While high-speed commerce has not taken off in many of the world, the model seems to work particularly well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever-present.

High-speed trading platforms are creating “parallel trading for consumers seeking convenience” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.

Zepto and its rivals – Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Tata-owned BigBasket – currently operate on lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to realize contribution margins of 7-8% and adjusted EBITDA margins to greater than 5% by 2030. (Zepto currently spends about 35 million dollars monthly).

An investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch shows that Zepto, which handles greater than 7 million total orders every day in greater than 17 cities, is heading in the right direction to realize annual sales of $2 billion. It anticipates 150% growth over the following 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next yr.

However, the rapid growth of high-speed trading has had a devastating impact on the mom-and-pop stores that dot hundreds of Indian cities, towns and villages.

According to the All India Federation of Consumer Products Distributors, about 200,000 local stores closed last yr, with 90,000 in major cities where high-speed trading is more prevalent.

The federation has warned that without regulatory intervention, more local shops shall be vulnerable to closure as fast trading platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.

Zepto said it has created job opportunities for tons of of hundreds of gig employees. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation building, create millions of jobs and offer better services to Indian consumers,” Palicha said in an announcement.

Regulatory challenges arise. Unless an e-commerce company is a majority shareholder of an Indian company or person, current regulations prevent it from operating on a listing model. Fast trading corporations don’t currently follow these rules.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Wiz acquires Dazz for $450 million to expand cybersecurity platform

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Wizardone of the talked about names within the cybersecurity world, is making a major acquisition to expand its reach of cloud security products, especially amongst developers. This is buying Dazzlespecialist in solving security problems and risk management. Sources say the deal is valued at $450 million, which incorporates money and stock.

This is a leap within the startup’s latest round of funding. In July, we reported that Dazz had raised $50 million at a post-money valuation of just below $400 million.

Remediation and posture management – two areas of focus for Dazz – are key services within the cybersecurity market that Wiz hasn’t sorted in addition to it wanted.

“Dazz is a leader in this market, with the best talent and the best customers, which fits perfectly into the company culture,” Assaf Rappaport, CEO of Wiz, said in an interview.

Remediation, which refers to helping you understand and resolve vulnerabilities, shapes how an enterprise actually handles the various vulnerability alerts it could receive from the network. Posture management is a more preventive product: it allows a company to higher understand the scale, shape and performance of its network from a perspective, allowing it to construct higher security services around it.

Dazz will proceed to operate as a separate entity while it’s integrated into the larger Wiz stack. Wiz has made a reputation for itself as a “one-stop shop,” and Rappaport said the integrated offering will proceed to be a core a part of it.

He believes this contrasts with what number of other SaaS corporations are built. In the safety industry, there are, Rappaport said, “a lot of Frankenstein mashups where companies prioritize revenue over building a single technology stack that actually works as a platform.” It could be assumed that integration is much more necessary in cybersecurity than in other areas of enterprise IT.

Wiz and Dazz already had an in depth relationship before this deal. Merat Bahat — the CEO who co-founded Dazz with Tomer Schwartz and Yuval Ofir (CTO and VP of R&D, respectively) — worked closely with Assaf Rappaport at Microsoft, which acquired his previous startup Adallom.

After Rappaport left to found Wiz together with his former Adallom co-founders, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP of Product Yinon Costica and VP of R&D Roy Reznik, Bahat was one in all the primary investors. Similarly, when Bahat founded Dazz, Assaf was a small investor in it.

The connection goes deeper than work colleagues. Bahat and Rappaport are also close friends, and she or he was the second family of Mickey, Rappaport’s beloved dog, referred to as Chief Dog Officer Wiz (together with LinkedIn profile). Once the deal was done, the 2 faced two very sad events: each Bahat and Mika’s mother died.

“We hope for a new chapter of positivity,” Bahat said. The cycle of life does indeed proceed.

Rumors of this takeover began to appear earlier this month; Rappaport confirmed that they then began talking seriously.

But that is not the one M&A conversation Wiz has gotten involved in. Earlier this 12 months, Google tried to buy Wiz itself for $23 billion to construct a major cybersecurity business. Wiz walked away from the deal, which might have been the biggest in Google’s history, partly because Rappaport believed Wiz could turn into a fair larger company by itself terms. And that is what this agreement goals to do.

This acquisition is a test for Wiz, which earlier this 12 months filled its coffers with $1 billion solely for M&A purposes (it has raised almost $2 billion in total, and we hear the subsequent round will close in just a few weeks). . Other offers included purchasing Gem security for $350 million, but Dazz is its largest acquisition ever.

More mergers and acquisitions could also be coming. “We believe next year will be an acquisition year for us,” Rappaport said.

In an interview with TC, Luttwak said that one in all Wiz’s priorities now’s to create more tools for developers that have in mind what they need to do their jobs.

Enterprises have made significant investments in cloud services to speed up operations and make their IT more agile, but this shift has include a significantly modified security profile for these organizations: network and data architectures are more complex and attack surfaces are larger, creating opportunities for malicious hackers to find ways to to hack into these systems. Artificial intelligence makes all of this far more difficult when it comes to malicious attackers. (It’s also a chance: the brand new generation of tools for our defense relies on artificial intelligence.)

Wiz’s unique selling point is its all-in-one approach. Drawing data from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud environments, Wiz scans applications, data and network processes for security risk aspects and provides its users with a series of detailed views to understand where these threats occur, offering over a dozen products covering the areas, corresponding to code security, container environment security, and provide chain security, in addition to quite a few partner integrations for those working with other vendors (or to enable features that Wiz doesn’t offer directly).

Indeed, Wiz offered some extent of repair to help prioritize and fix problems, but as Luttwak said, the Dazz product is solely higher.

“We now have a platform that actually provides a 360-degree view of risk across infrastructure and applications,” he said. “Dazz is a leader in attack surface management, the ability to collect vulnerability signals from the application layer across the entire stack and build the most incredible context that allows you to trace the situation back to engineers to help with remediation.”

For Dazz’s part, once I interviewed Bahat in July 2024, when Dazz raised $50 million at a $350 million valuation, she extolled the virtues of constructing strong solutions and this week said the third quarter was “amazing.”

“But market dynamics are what trigger these types of transactions,” she said. She confirmed that Dazz had also received takeover offers from other corporations. “If you think about the customers and joint customers that we have with Wiz, it makes sense for them to have it on one platform.”

And a few of Dazz’s competitors are still going it alone: ​​Cyera, like Dazz, an authority in attack surface management, just yesterday announced a rise of $300 million at a valuation of $5 billion (which confirms our information). But what’s going to he do with this money? Make acquisitions, after all.

Wiz says it currently has annual recurring revenue of $500 million (it has a goal of $1 billion ARR next 12 months) and has greater than 45% of its Fortune 100 customers. Dazz said ARR is within the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars and currently growing 500% on a customer base of roughly 100 organizations.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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