Fundings and Exits

Part of the mythology of Silicon Valley is the committed founder driving the company to a blockbuster IPO. In reality, startups are 16 times more likely to get acquired. It’s not an outcome that’s frequently discussed, either.  “It’s one of these things that a lot of people don’t really talk about. In Silicon Valley, we

Around the corner is perhaps one of the most important elections this nation has ever seen, yet many people are still unaware of the details needed to cast informed ballots.  It’s not necessarily their fault — some voting information can be quite hard to find, especially when it comes to learning about, say, the political

Autonomous vehicle technology startup Aurora Innovation is targeting April 2025 for commercial deployment of its autonomous trucks, pushing its timeline back by about a quarter. The company had originally planned to launch by the end of 2024. The company said it delayed the launch so it can continue to validate its self-driving technology.  “While this

Investors are rushing to throw millions at a hot startup called Kalshi as loans or even as unusual we’ll-figure-it-out later cash. Kalshi is an exchange that allows people to bet, as official commodity trading contracts, on the outcomes of cultural events, from election results to how long Taylor Swift’s latest album will top the charts. 

It’s the topic on everyone’s mind: Are Gen Z workers actually different?  TechCrunch sought to find out at this year’s Disrupt 2024. We sat down with SignalFire’s Heather Doshay, Comprehensive.io’s Roger Lee, and Lauren Illovsky from Capital G to chat about how to hire and retain talent. One topic that came up was how younger

Watch as we announce the winner of TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition – Startup Battlefield 200. After impressing the judges, the winner walks away with the Battlefield Cup and $100,000 equity-free.TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 is the world’s preeminent startup competition with alumni like Vurb, Trello, Mint, Dropbox, Yammer, Tripit, Redbeacon, Qwiki, Getaround, and Soluto. Startup Battlefield

Over the last three days, 20 startups participated in the incredibly competitive Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. These 20 companies were selected as the best of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for a chance to take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. After three days of intense pitching, we have a winner. The

The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! Hosts Kirsten Korosec, Devin Coldewey and Margaux MacColl took over the Builders Stage to kick off day 2 of Disrupt with no shortage of conference highlights, startups deals and venture news to chew through. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Equity will be back with a special interview episode on

Swiggy, one of India’s largest food delivery and quick commerce startups, is seeking a valuation of up to $11.3 billion in its initial public offering, marking a 57% discount to rival Zomato’s market cap. The lossmaking Bengaluru-based company has set an IPO price band of ₹371 to ₹390 ($4.41-$4.64) per share for next month’s IPO.

Tony Fadell, the father of the iPod and founder of Nest, took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday to talk about how building the next generation of deep tech startups requires mission-driven a**holes. The entrepreneur and investor did not hold back on stage as he called out Silicon Valley for its entitlement and

The European Union will spend €1.4 billion (about $1.5 billion) next year to bolster deep tech research and support scale-ups in strategic areas like AI, low-carbon technologies, agritech and biotech, the European Commission said on Tuesday. The budget for the 2025 Work Program of the European Innovation Council (EIC), part of the bloc’s flagship Horizon Europe

It might not be the sexiest of subjects, but facilities management is central to any business that has a physical premises — the bigger that footprint becomes, the more complex it gets. Portuguese startup Infraspeak has set out to address that with an all-in-one platform that gives facility managers and associated service providers insights and

In the summer of 2020, a fire broke out onboard a naval ship docked in San Diego Bay. For more than four days, the USS Bonhomme Richard burned as helicopters dropped buckets of water from above, boats spewed water from below, and firefighters rushed onboard to control the blaze. Before the embers had even cooled,

We can’t keep this secret any longer! The time has come to unveil this year’s Startup Battlefield Top 20 Finalists who will compete in a winner-takes-all pitch competition on the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024.  TechCrunch editorial hand-selected 200 startups, out of thousands of applicants, to comprise the Startup Battlefield 200. This year, TechCrunch

Paris-based startup Filigran is fast becoming the next cybersecurity rocketship to track: The company just raised a $35 million Series B round, only a few months after it raised $16 million in a Series A round. Filigran’s main product is OpenCTI, an open-source threat intelligence platform that lets companies or public sector organizations import threat

It’s become a common refrain in political discourse: Europe needs to take radical action to remain competitive. On the long list of potential reforms, one that’s gaining particular traction is a new, EU-wide corporate status for innovative companies. Known (somewhat obscurely) as the “28th regime,” the innovation is being billed as Europe’s answer to a

Mariam Naficy, the founder of cosmetics retailer Eve and design marketplace Minted, has a long history of supporting independent artists and helping them sell their products. Her latest venture, Arcade AI, is a new type of marketplace that puts creative control directly into the hands of users. The generative AI platform, which launched its beta

Before Jon McNeill was CEO at VC firm DVx Ventures, he was the president of Tesla and chief operating officer at Lyft. He helped Tesla grow its revenue run rate from $2 billion to $20 billion in 30 months, and he doubled Lyft’s revenue ahead of its IPO. He’s also on the board of GM’s

We are a mere 2 days away from one of the most anticipated tech events of the year!  San Francisco is about to be electrified by the global tech community. Join the crowd at Moscone West from October 28-30 (and all week) as Silicon Valley’s finest come together for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Only two days

Medical and administrative staff are increasingly overwhelmed with piles of paperwork they have to fill out every day. Dozens, if not hundreds, of startups, are seeing opportunities to make those bureaucratic processes less burdensome with the help of generative AI. These companies are building AI medical scribes, platforms for pre-authorizing health insurance payments, and products

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Several startups announced new rounds this week without disclosing their valuation. This doesn’t mean that these were down rounds, but rather it confirms that our collective focus

It’s no secret that Stripe has doubled down on its crypto offerings, enabling crypto purchases in the EU back in July and announcing a Pay with Crypto feature earlier this month. This week, the fintech giant made its dedication even clearer with its largest deal to date: its acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge for an

Decentralized social app Bluesky announced on Thursday that it has raised a $15 million Series A round, following its $8 million seed raise last year. This funding comes as Bluesky sees increased growth, in part from X users who are troubled by recent changes to the block feature, as well as the move to allow

Electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle startup Joby Aviation has launched a public offering to sell up to $200 million of its shares of common stock, per a regulatory filing. Joby said it will use the proceeds from the raise — together with its existing cash — to fund its certification and manufacturing efforts, prepare

The co-founders who sold their last startup to Spotify are working on a new project: an AI-powered educational startup called Oboe backed by a $4 million seed investment. The new company, hailing from Nir Zicherman and Michael Mignano, aims to democratize access to learning the way that their prior startup, Anchor, made it possible for

Upflow, a French startup we’ve been covering for quite a while, originally focused on managing outstanding invoices. The company is now announcing a shift in its strategy to become a B2B payment platform with its own payment gateway to complement its accounts receivable automation solution. Like many software-as-a-service products, Upflow started by building a central

Humane on Wednesday announced a $200 price cut to its flagship product, the Ai Pin. The Bay Area startup, founded by two former Apple executives, has reportedly struggled to sell the product, which launched in April for $700. In a message sent to its email list, Humane highlights its return policy in the new pitch.

Granola’s notepad app has become a popular tool among venture capitalists who use it to record meetings and augment notes using AI technology. That made it easier for the startup to raise funds from a crowd of investors for its $20 million Series A — something the team managed to do in about a week.

The clock is ticking down! Just 6 days to go until TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! Join 10,000 industry leaders from around the world at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28-30 to witness groundbreaking discussions with top-tier industry experts, elite networking, an exciting showcase of the newest tech innovations, and so much more. Time is

Ro co-founder and CEO Zachariah Reitano said while he’d “never say never” about potentially taking the seven-year-old telehealth company public, he thinks the benefits of being a private company are growing. Reitano dodged multiple questions from Axios reporter Dan Primack about whether or not the company has plans to IPO in the near term —