TechTaffy

tech:

taffy

Needle Raises $10.5 Million Series B Funding

By TechTaffy Desk

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Needle has closed a $10.5 million series B funding round, co-led by Shasta Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners. Jim Barnett, a partner at Shasta Ventures, and Douglas Schrier, a partner at Rembrandt Venture Partners, will both join Needle’s board of directors.

Needle provides ecommerce companies the ability to link certified product experts and fans of the brand with customers shopping the site to provide guided shopping assistance via chat, video or voice.

Morgan Lynch (Founder and CEO, Needle): Today’s buyer expects authenticity and expertise, and passing them off to a person in a contact center who has no genuine experience with the company’s products and is using canned answers is the antithesis of that.

Needle is a privately held company based in Salt Lake City. It was founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Morgan Lynch. This marks the second time Shasta Ventures has invested in a company founded by Mr. Lynch, having previously backed his startup company Logoworks, which was acquired by HP in 2007. Prior to this round, Needle raised a series A round of $2 million.

[Image Courtesy: Needle]

Just in

Series E

Vercel raises $250M

San Francisco-based Vercel, a frontend cloud platform provider, has secured $250 million in Series E funding, bringing the company's valuation to $3.25 billion.
Series A

Worky raises $6M (Mexico)

Mexico City-based Worky, a provider of HR and payroll software solutions for Mexican companies, has closed a $6 million Series A financing round.
Industry

Amazon announces $1.31B investment in France

Amazon has announced a new investment of about $1.31 billion (€1.2 billion) in France, which the company says will lead to the creation of over 3,000 permanent jobs in the country.
Around the web

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky to step down — CNBC

Adam Selipsky, CEO of Amazon’s cloud computing business, will step down from his role next month. Matt Garman, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Amazon Web Services, will succeed Mr. Selipsky after he exits the company June 3, writes Annie Palmer. 
AI

Palo Alto Networks, Accenture expand alliance to offer generative AI services

Palo Alto Networks and Accenture have announced the expansion of their strategic alliance to provide new offerings that combine Palo Alto Networks' Precision AI technology with Accenture's secure generative AI services.