Balance raises $25M in a Ribbit Capital-led Series A to grow its ‘consumer-like B2B checkout platform’

Balance, a payments platform aimed at B2B merchants and marketplaces, has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Ribbit Capital. Avid Ventures participated in the financing, in addition to existing backers Lightspeed Ventures, Stripe, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, SciFi VC and UpWest. Other individual investors that put money in the round […]

Macro relaunches its Zoom skin to focus on self-expression and inclusion

Productivity has been a focal point for many enterprise businesses since before the pandemic hit, and even more so since its onset. But Macro founders Ankith Harathi and John Keck are taking a different tack. The startup’s Zoom SDK-powered product has been reimagined by its team, and is relaunching today. When Macro first launched into […]

OnlyFans’ policy change is a tale as old as the internet

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For our Wednesday show this week, Natasha and Alex and Danny had colleague Amanda Silberling on the show to help us parse through OnlyFans‘ precedent-setting move to ban sexually explicit content on its service. The decision was a bolt from the blue for […]

OnlyFans ‘suspends’ decision to ban explicit content

OnlyFans has suspended its decision to ban sexually explicit content after it received widespread backlash over the planned policy change. Although Onlyfans was not created specifically for porn, the content has become the platform’s most visible use case. “Thank you to everyone for making your voices heard. We have secured assurances necessary to support our […]

Messenger celebrates its 10th anniversary with new features and a plan to become the ‘connective tissue’ for real-time experiences

To celebrate its 10-year anniversary, Messenger today announced a handful of new features: poll games, word effects, contact sharing and birthday gifting via Facebook Pay. But beyond the fun features, Facebook has been testing a way to add voice and video calls back into the Facebook app, rather than on Messenger. “We are testing audio […]