Top tech startup news for today, Thursday, May 30, 2019

Good afternoon! Below are some of the top tech startup news stories for Thursday, May 30.

ByteDance, the Chinese tech company behind TikTok game, is now valued $75 billion. TikTok app game has gone viral among teens. The Chinese app TikTok is now the third-most downloaded app in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2019. As the popularity of the game grows so is the value of ByteDance, the maker of TikTok. The company is now worth a massive $75 billion. TikTok is not ByteDance’s only product, the company has created some very popular apps from social media services to news aggregators. ByteDance’s products are now available in over 150 markets and 75 languages. Right now it makes money mainly from advertising. The company is reportedly  planning to make its own smartphone and launch a new music streaming service.

Dashlane closes $110 million in Series D funding led by Sequoia Capital. Dashlane, a credential and digital identity management solution startup, has closed a $110 million Series D funding round  to enhance its core product, add new capabilities to better address the needs of consumers and businesses of all sizes, and build a category-defining brand. The round was led by Sequoia Capital with Jim Goetz of Sequoia joining the company’s board of directors, and second, has appointed Joy Howard as Chief Marketing Officer. Existing investors Rho Ventures, FirstMark Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated in the round. With offices in New York City, Paris, and Lisbon, Dashlane has raised over $185 million in capital to create a safe and effortless solution for all citizens of the digital world.

CloudApp secures $4.3 million in seed funding to advance video led collaboration for enterprises. CloudApp announced a seed investment of $4.3 million to invest in the fast growing enterprise led product that already includes Chrome, Mac, and Windows applications and to scale sales and marketing. The round, which was led by Kickstart Seed Fund, will also include previous investor Cervin Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Kyle York, VP Strategy at Oracle, and new entrants SAP.iO, Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith, Traeger CEO Jeremy Andrus, the CEO (Karl Sun), COO (Dave Grow), and Head of Sales (Dan Cook) from Lucid Software, and the co-founders of Teem, (Dan Caffee and Shaun Ritchie), a WeWork company. In conjunction with the funding, CloudApp also announced that Gavin Christensen, Managing Director of Kickstart fund, will join its board of directors.

Biometric authentication startup ID R&D announces closes $5.7M Series A funding round, led by GSR Ventures and others.  ID R&D, a biometrics technology provider offering AI-based voice and behavioral biometrics and voice and face anti-spoofing technologies, today announced it has raised $5.7 million in Series A funding. The funding round, led by new investor GSR Ventures, and with participation from existing investor Gagarin Capital, comes amid rapid adoption of ID R&D authentication technology and company growth. Operating cash flow positive since 2017, ID R&D is adding GSR Ventures as an investor to meet the increasing demand for the company’s portfolio of award-winning multimodal biometric solutions.

OwnBackup closes $23.25 million Series C funding round. OwnBackup, a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery tech startup, has closed a $23.25 million in Series C financing to expand its operations. The round was co-led by Insight Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures, with participation from existing investors Innovation Endeavors, Oryzn Capital and Salesforce Ventures. Founded in 2012 by Ariel Berkman, Daniel Gershuni, and Eran Cohen, OwnBackup provides secure, automated, daily backups of SaaS & PaaS data as well as sophisticated data compare & restore tools for disaster recovery.

“Therapy for all” startup Talkspace bags $50 million in Series D funding. Talkspace, a tele-behavioral health startup, raised $50m in Series D funding to accelerate the growth of its commercial business. The round was led by Revolution Growth, with participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Qumra Capital, Spark Capital and Compound Ventures. Founded by Roni Frank and Oren Frank in 2012, the New York City-based Talkspace is a telebehavioral healthcare company. Its signature psychotherapy product connects individual users with a network of over 5,000 licensed therapists through an HIPAA-compliant web and mobile platform. Within its platform, users can send their dedicated therapists unlimited text, video, picture and audio messages from anywhere, at anytime.