Lime adds charitable giving option
Next time you pick up a scooter from the sidewalk, consider kicking in a few cents for charity. This week, Lime is rolling out an option for riders to tack on a charitable donation to the cost of a scooter or bike rental. Riders can choose between donating 15 cents per mile they ride, or rounding up each transaction to the nearest dollar. Lime is piloting the feature in three cities, including Austin, where donations will go to the Austin Music Foundation. [Press release]
Stoplight lands seed funding
Stoplight, an Austin startup that makes API toolkits for enterprise companies, announced on Wednesday that it has raised a $3.25 million seed round. Along with the funding news, the company announced that it has brought on Brian Rock, formerly of Applause, as its head of engineering — with plans to expand its engineering team further in the works. Bill Wood Ventures led the round, in which NextGen Venture Partners, Next Coast Ventures, Social Starts and Capital Factory also participated. [Press release]
PHOTO VIA CONVERSABLE FACEBOOK PAGE.
NY e-commerce company acquires Conversable
Conversable, an Austin conversational AI startup launched in 2016 by serial entrepreneurs Andrew Busey and Ben Lamm, is now part of LivePerson. Based in New York, LivePerson makes software that lets consumers make purchases through messaging channels like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and texts. The company plans to integrate Conversable’s AI technology with its existing platform. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. [Press release]
CLEAR opens new offices in The Domain
CLEAR, a biometrics company whose technology is best known for its use at airport security checkpoints, announced on Monday that it has opened new hub office in The Domain. The new location is the company’s first outside its New York home base, and will house 30 employees across software engineering, development and operations. “The opening of our hub office in Austin allows us to deepen our roots in this vibrant and leading technology community and to build our team to help us create the future,” said President and co-founder Ken Cornick in a statement. [Press release]
Austin tech logs more than $300M in September fundings
Austin tech companies clocked in at an impressive $309 million in funding in September, helped in large part by Bungalo’s emergence from stealth with a quarter of a billion in the bank. Others with new funding include Good Money and data.world. Check out the top five fundings of the month here. [Built In Austin]
