article thumbnail

Rec Room raises $145M at a $3.5B valuation for its user-generated, immersive gaming platform

TechCrunch

The funding is being led by Coatue Management, with participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Madrona Venture Group, and it is coming in at a $3.5 It has now racked up 37 million users who build and play games in “rooms” where they virtually hang out with other users.

article thumbnail

Kodland, which teaches kids digital skills, grabs $9M to scale its online coding school

TechCrunch

The round is led by Redseed Ventures, with participation from Baring Vostok, Kismet, Flyer One Ventures and Alexander Nevinsky, a partner at New York-based I2BF. We are very excited to support Kodland on their journey.” Kodland’s remote courses for children aged 6-17 are currently available in the U.K.,

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Daily Crunch: Investors back away from Dispo

TechCrunch

After a recent story in Business Insider brought allegations to light that a member of David Dobrik’s vlog squad had sexually assaulted an extra during a shoot, Spark Capital announced that it would “sever all ties” with Dobrik’s photo-sharing startup Dispo, as did fellow investors Unshackled Ventures and Seven Seven Six.

article thumbnail

a16z, Avenir and Google back South African mobile games publisher Carry1st in $20M round

TechCrunch

Carry1st , a South African publisher of social games and interactive content across Africa, has raised a $20 million Series A extension led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). A couple of prominent individual investors, including Nas and the founders of Chipper Cash , Sky Mavis and Yield Guild Games, took part.

article thumbnail

Why you have to pay attention to the Indian startup scene

TechCrunch

Data shows that India’s venture capital scene has grown sharply in recent years. 2019 was the country’s biggest ever in terms of venture dollars invested, with Bain counting $10 billion during the year. In 2020, the third quarter brought the country’s venture capital scene back to form. Let’s see what gets built. Market Notes.

startup 144
article thumbnail

Role’s video role-playing platform makes a $2.75M charm attempt on the burgeoning tabletop world

TechCrunch

. “The game lives in the minds of the people, a shared social experience. As an analogue, they referred to the social gaming explosion a decade ago. Because we had social media platforms and mobile phones then, we were socializing over those — so we naturally looked for ways to play over them,” they said.

article thumbnail

Skate Where the Puck is Going

Both Sides of the Table

Anyone who works in the venture business or frankly just lives in Silicon Valley will be used to hearing a buzz word rise up out of nowhere to capture the technology zeitgeist and find its way into every entrepreneur’s product development plan or every aspiring entrepreneur’s pitch deck.

pitching 296