Top startup news for today, Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Good morning! Here are some of the top technology startup news stories for today, Wednesday, February 6.

Spotify is going all in on podcasts with 2 new startup acquisitions; eyes $500 million in new acquisitions in 2019. Spotify announced it has bought two privately-held podcast startup companies Gimlet Media & Anchor. The acquisition will help position Spotify as the leading platform for podcast creators around the world and the leading producer of podcasts. The company said it plans to spend $400 million to $500 million in podcast acquisitions in 2019. As of late last week, the deal with Gimlet was expected to close north of $200 million, according to sources familiar with the acquisition. As part of its Q4 2018 financial reports,  Spotify said it has reached 96M premium subscribers and 207M monthly active users. For the first time, the company netted the first-ever quarterly operating profit of $107.1 million (94 million Euros.)

German fintech startup Raisin raises $114M in Series D Funding.  Raisin, a Berlin, Germany-based pan-European fintech marketplace for savings and investment products, closed a $114m Series D funding round for strategic acquisitions and further internationalization. The round was led by existing investors Index Ventures, PayPal, Ribbit Capital and Thrive Capital. To date, Raisin has raised a total of $200 million in funding. Raisin is also planning to add at least two additional markets to its platform this year following launches in the Netherlands and the UK last year. Founded in 2012 by Dr. Tamaz Georgadze (CEO), Dr. Frank Freund (CFO) and Michael Stephan (COO),  Raisin is the first and only pan-European deposit marketplace. The company has created a pan-European marketplace in retail banking through partnership with 62 banks.

Procter & Gamble acquires women’s health brands startup This is L. As we just reported, Procter & Gamble (P&G), the biggest consumer goods company in the world, has acquired This Is L., a period care startup that manufactures organic pads and tampons and one of the fastest growing feminine care brands in the U.S. The total amount of the deal is undisclosed. The acquisition will enable P&G to meet growing consumer demands for period products in the naturals segment. Its portfolio primarily includes beautifully designed, high quality tampons, pads, liners and wipes made with organic cotton. This is L has sold over 200 million L. products sold since founded in 2017.

DiscoverOrg acquires marketing & sales intelligence tool startup ZoomInfo. DiscoverOrg, a Vancouver, Washington, Canada-based marketing & sales intelligence tool, acquired ZoomInfo, a startup that provides B2B contact database provider for an undisclosed amount. Backed by a comprehensive business database, ZoomInfo combines user behaviors, business data, and artificial intelligence to streamline sales workflows and deliver revenue results. The combination of the two companies creates a large B2B intelligence platform for sales, marketing, and recruiting professionals. DiscoverOrg’s research-verified accuracy and deep buying insights complement ZoomInfo’s comprehensive coverage of 100 million business professionals worldwide. Both organizations use proprietary technologies and tools to gather, cleanse, and maintain company and contact data.

New York-based startup Outlaw closes $2 million seed funding round. Outlaw, a modern contract platform startup, has raised $2 million seed funding round to grow its team, accelerate product development and scale customer acquisition. The round was led by Bowery Capital with participation from angels Jake Gibson (NerdWallet founder), Kevin Mahaffey (Lookout founder) and Lee Linden (Tapjoy & Karma founder). Co-founded in 2017 by Evan Schneyer, an ex-Googler and serial entrepreneur who founded Wanderfly (acquired by TripAdvisor), and Dan Dalzotto, a veteran product designer who has created products for Google, Facebook, Starbucks and the NBA, Outlaw is an end-to-end contract platform that reinvents the entire process: from legal authoring to document generation to negotiation to signing. The startup provides a contract platform that enables parties to create, edit, negotiate and execute agreements. Its redlining and version control tools allows companies across industries such as finance, insurance, real estate and hospitality to optimize their contract life cycle and deal flow.

vArmour, a security startup focused on multi-cloud deployments, bags $44 million. vArmour, a Mountain View, California-based startup that provides API-driven cloud security company, has raised $44M in Series E funding. The round was led by AllegisCyber and NightDragon, with participation from existing investors. Founded in 2011 by Michael Shieh and Roger Lian, vArmour offers data defined perimeter security solutions for mobile, virtual, and cloud platforms. Its software provides a security solution that protects data and applications across public and private cloud environments, especially for organizations in heavily regulated industries.