Discord announces a big funding round, Google gets European approval to acquire Fitbit and Twitter launches a new voice-based feature. This is your Daily Crunch for December 17, 2020.
Discord raises $100M
The popular gaming chat platform confirmed today that it has raised $100 million and also announced that it has 140 million monthly active users, twice as many as a year ago.
“We are humbled and honored by the growth we’ve seen among so many incredible and diverse communities that have made Discord their place to hang out,” said CEO Jason Citron in a statement. “As we look to 2021, we are excited about what we have in store and plan to use this funding to help make Discord even better — both for our free service and our Nitro subscribers.”
The confirmation comes after TechCrunch reported that the company was raising up to $140 million at a valuation that could be as high as $7 billion.
The tech giants
Europe clears Google-Fitbit with a ten-year ban on using health data for ads — Under the terms of the EU’s clearance for the deal, Google has committed to not use Fitbit user data in the European Economic Area for ad targeting purposes for a 10-year period.
Twitter launches its voice-based ‘Spaces’ social networking feature into beta testing — During this initial testing period, the product will be limited to select individuals, largely from underrepresented backgrounds, Twitter says.
Google slammed for ‘monopoly power’ in new antitrust lawsuit from 35 states — Compared to the Texas-led suit against Google announced yesterday, the second lawsuit represents a broader coalition of 35 states.
Startups, funding and venture capital
Coinbase files to go public confidentially and we’re hyped — To be clear, I don’t consider myself part of the “we” that’s hyped, but Alex Wilhelm definitely is.
Spryker raises $130M at a $500M+ valuation to provide B2Bs with agile e-commerce tools — Spryker offers a platform to bring a company’s inventory online, as well as tools to analyze and measure how that inventory is selling and where.
Health insurer Oscar adds another $140M in what’s likely a pre-IPO round — The new capital means that Oscar has raised what would be the equivalent of $1 million a day for the entirety of 2020.
Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch
Virgin Orbit, Relativity Space and Astra dish on the economics and efficiencies of space launches — Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis, Astra CEO Chris Kemp and Virgin Orbit’s VOX Space President Mandy Vaughn all joined us at TC Sessions: Space to discuss their approaches to the small spacecraft launch market.
Just how bad is that hack that hit US government agencies? — Spoiler: It’s a nightmare scenario.
2020’s top 10 enterprise M&A deals totaled a staggering $165B — It was a blockbuster year for enterprise M&A.
(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)
Everything else
HBO Max finally lands on Roku devices — “Finally” gets overused in headlines, but it absolutely applies here.
You can now securely submit tips to TechCrunch using SecureDrop — We’re making it easier and more secure for you to contact TechCrunch reporters and editors.
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