A News Digest on Machine Learning, Security, and App Development

Squarespace, which has helped millions create their own websites, was founded in 2003 and bootstrapped until a $38.5 million Series A in 2010 that was co-led by Accel and Index Ventures. The online website creation and hosting service — which has now expanded into e-commerce by hosting online stores — then raised another $40 million round in 2014. But it is perhaps best known for its epic 2017-era $200 million secondary round that General Atlantic financed. That round was raised at a $1.5 billion pre-money valuation. That means it has effectively upped its valuation by more than five times in just over three years. https://tcrn.ch/3qW1c8a

A provider of food-ordering software, Olo, has raised $450M in an IPO, above its marketed range, giving it a market value of $3.55B ahead of its trading debut https://bloom.bg/3bS3EIv

Cloud-based identity verification and fraud prevention startup raises $100M led by Accel at a $1.3B valuation The New York-based company has raised $100 million from investors led by venture capital firm Accel, CEO Johnny Ayers said in an interview. Other investors include Citi Ventures, a unit of Citigroup Inc., Commerce Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, a unit of Wells Fargo & Co. The valuation is a steep increase from last year when Socure was worth $360 million. Socure helps companies that provide financial services verify that their customers are who they say they are. It uses machine learning to analyze how users typically behave online and flags what’s outside the norm. The new funding will help the company expand its customer base in gaming, health care, telecommunications, and e-commerce, as well as recruit talent. The identity-verification industry has been growing as companies seek to crack down on online fraud. It’s also seen some consolidation. Okta Inc., which helps companies identify and authenticate employees, said it would buy rival Auth0 for about $6.5 billion in stock earlier this month. https://bloom.bg/3bVWhQh

Machine learning data management startup SafeGraph raises $45M Series B led by Sapphire Ventures and says it is used by over 7,000 data scientists https://tcrn.ch/3vwbcZc