Top tech startup news for today, Wednesday, January 29, 2020: Apple, FundingCircle, GoDaddy, Concentric, Attentive, Sendy

Good morning! Below are the top tech startups news for today, Wednesday, January 29, 2020.

Apple generated $56 billion in iPhone sales in just 3 months. Apple’s iPhone strength is back. Yesterday, Apple reported iPhone revenue of $56 billion for its fiscal first quarter, exceeding analysts’ estimates, proving that the new iPhone 11 is off to a strong start. IPhone revenue for the quarter rose 8% from a year earlier and climbed from the fourth quarter when Apple generated $33.36 billion in iPhone sales. Analysts were expecting revenue for the devices to come in at $51.62 billion in the first quarter. Notwithstanding, Apple is gradually turning its focus toward other areas of its business like wearables and services, amid broader stagnation in the smartphone market.

Kenyan on-demand logistics startup Sendy raises $20M Series B round backed by Toyota, others. Sendy, a Kenyan on-demand logistics startup that allows customers to order courier services over their mobile phones, today announced it has raised a $20 million Series B led by Atlantica Ventures, with participation from Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a trade and investment arm of Japanese automotive company Toyota. Sendy is a delivery partner for moving packages in Kenya. Sendy provides a mobile app and web platform that enables individuals and small businesses to connect with Drivers and request on-demand or scheduled package delivery services anytime, any day, 24/7. Its app links delivery drivers with customers, is embarking on a second round of fundraising to expand in East Africa. Founded in 2014 by Don Okoth, Evanson Biwott, Malaika Judd, and Meshack Alloys, Sendy offers on-demand door-to-door package delivery services in Nairobi, Kenya.

Funding Circle Closes $252 Million Securitization, Continuing Issuance of US Small Business Loans. Funding Circle, a fintech startup and one of the leading small business loans platform in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands, today announced it has closed its second asset-backed securitization (ABS) of US small business loans originated through its platform. The $252 million deal is the seventh securitization of Funding Circle business loans globally, and the second in the US after a first securitization in August 2019. Since launching in 2010, more than 72,000 small businesses have borrowed $10.2 billion in Funding Circle’s four geographies — the UK, US, Germany, and the Netherlands. Investors on the Funding Circle platform include more than 90,000 retail investors, banks, asset management companies, insurance companies, government-backed entities, and funds.

GoDaddy acquires social content startup Over to expand beyond domain names and websites. GoDaddy, the company known for its controversial ads in the Super Bowl and the world’s largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures, has GoDaddy has reached an deal to acquire South Africa-based Over, the startup behind the popular Over app that helps businesses create the photos and videos they need for social media. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. This acquisition also follows GoDaddy’s relaunch and re-branding of its website-building tools in September of 2019 under the new name Websites+Marketing. With the acquisition, GoDaddy will be able to help everyday entrepreneurs easily create engaging visual content online.

NYC SaaS startup Attentive closes $70 million in Series C funding. Attentive, a NYC-based personalized mobile messaging SaaS platform for brands and organizations, raised $70m in Series C funding to further accelerate its new platform functionalities and continue its market expansion in response to widespread demand in several new industry verticals. The round, which brings the total capital raised to $124m, was led by Sequoia and IVP with participation from existing investors Eniac Ventures and NextView Ventures. Founded in 2016 by the team behind TapCommerce, the global leader in mobile app retargeting, which was acquired by Twitter in 2014 and led by Brian Long, CEO, Attentive provides a personalized mobile messaging SaaS platform for brands and organizations.

ActiveCampaign scores $100M Series B to develop next-gen customer experience automation and disrupt traditional marketing campaigns with AI. ActiveCampaign announced it has raised $100 million in a Series B growth round led by Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE). Silversmith Capital Partners, which was the sole investor in ActiveCampaign’s $20 million Series A in 2016, also participated in this round. ActiveCampaign will use the funding to develop the CXA category through product innovations that advance beyond legacy marketing automation, traditional CRM, and service technology, while continuing international expansion and building on its customer success team and partner ecosystem. Based in Chicago, IL, ActiveCampaign is a provider of customer experience automation (CXA) Platform that helps over 90,000 businesses in 161 countries to meaningfully engage with their customers.

Concentric emerges from stealth with $7.5 million to stop threat and protect sensitive enterprise data with AI. Concentric, a tech startup solving one of the most pressing data security challenges facing the modern enterprise of identifying and securing business-critical data within unstructured data, has come out of stealth with $7.5 million in funding to stop the threat of unprotected and overshared business-critical data. Backers include Clear Ventures, Engineering Capital, Homebrew and Core Ventures. Concentric also announced the availability of a new approach to the most significant security challenge facing the enterprise today – business-critical unstructured data, stored on-premises or in the cloud, that is impossible to identify and protect manually.