Fundings and Exits

Since fintech startup Brex’s inception in 2017, its two co-founders Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi have run the company as co-CEOs. But starting today, the pair told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview, the San Francisco-based corporate credit card and expense management company is shifting to a more traditional — and what they say should be

South Korea’s fabless AI chip industry saw a slew of fundraising events over the last couple of years as demand for hardware to power AI applications skyrocketed, and it seems the space is already consolidating. Two of the country’s prominent fabless AI chip startups, Rebellions and Sapeon, have agreed to merge, the companies said on

Washington, D.C., may be the hub for legislation and regulation that affects startups, but many people in the city don’t know anything about one of the more prominent accelerators fueling the industry: Y Combinator. Speaking at a TechCrunch Strictly VC event on Tuesday evening, YC Head of Public Policy Luther Lowe said the startup incubator

As Apple prepares to introduce its AI-powered features for the iPhone, another company is taking the opposite approach: Instead of building a phone with more technology, it’s opting for less. Light, the maker of the minimalist phone with an e-paper screen, is announcing its newest model, the Light Phone III. Like its earlier counterpart, the

When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist. She got rejected from every school, and was told she was being unrealistic about her prospects in the venture industry, but she didn’t let that deter her. Now, eight years later, Barooah, 33, is

A last call and a major shoutout to any and all early-stage founders. It’s time to dig deep and take advantage of an unparalleled opportunity at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 — the Startup Battlefield 200. Applications to Startup Battlefield 200 close today The Startup Battlefield 200 experience isn’t just good — it’s great. But you’ll never

While funding for Italian startups has been growing, the country still ranks eighth in Europe by VC investment, according to Dealroom. Newly created Italian Founders Fund (IFF) hopes to help with the catching up, both in quantity and in quality. With €50 million to invest into 25 companies, it also positions itself as a sector

You’re running out of time to join the Startup Battlefield 200, our curated showcase of top startups from around the world and across multiple industries. This elite cohort — 200 companies strong — absolutely owns (and slays) the exhibition floor at TechCrunch Disrupt. Tomorrow is the last day to apply to Startup Battlefield 200 We’re

Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by NEA, according to two people familiar with the deal. Existing investors Sequoia, which led Anterior’s $3.2 million seed round last September, and Neo, an accelerator

AI systems and large language models need to be trained on massive amounts of data to be accurate but they shouldn’t train on data that they don’t have the rights to use. OpenAI’s licensing deals with The Atlantic and Vox last week show that both sides of the table are interested in landing these AI-training

Former Autonomy chief executive Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday following his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett-Packard that became one of Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud cases. He was accused of falsely inflating revenues at the UK startup ahead of Autonomy’s $11 billion sale to HP in 2011. Commenting on

Investor demand has been so strong for shares of hot HR startup Rippling – over $2 billion worth of term sheets, it says – that it is allowing former employees to also participate in its giant, tender offer sale, the company told TechCrunch. But there is one big exception: it has banned former employees who

Founders: Need plans this weekend? What better way to spend your time than applying to this year’s Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt. With Monday’s deadline looming, this is a must-add for your weekend to-do list. Accepting both applications and referrals We’re accepting both quality applications and referrals for Startup Battlefield 200. If you are

Carta, a once-high-flying Silicon Valley startup that loudly backed away from one of its businesses earlier this year, is working on a secondary sale that would value the company at $2 billion, TechCrunch has learned. Carta is working with the investment bank Jeffries on the sale and initially hoped to find demand for the offering

In a research note, HSBC estimates that the Indian edtech giant Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing. The write-down in its estimation makes Byju’s one of the most spectacular startup slides in recent memory. It follows a very rough year for the Bengaluru-based startup, which was India’s most valuable not long

Carlo Kobe and Scott Smith believed so strongly in the need for a debit card product designed specifically for Gen Zers that they dropped out of Harvard and Cornel at ages 19 and 21, respectively, in 2021 to build a startup called Fizz. The pair wanted to go beyond creating a debit card for the

Dealt, a French startup formerly known as Mon Super Voisin, raised a €6 million funding round ($6.5 million at today’s exchange rate) a few months ago. More importantly, the startup went through an important pivot. And this funding round proves that this strategy was the right one. It’s an interesting lesson for early-stage founders who

French AI startup Mistral is introducing new AI model customization options, including paid plans, to let developers — and enterprises — fine-tune its generative models for particular use cases. The first is self-service. Mistral has released a software development kit (SDK), Mistral-Finetune, for fine-tuning its models on workstations, servers and small datacenter nodes. In the

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco is the must-attend event for startup founders aiming to make their mark in the tech world. This year, founders have three exciting ways to participate, each tailored to maximize exposure, networking, and growth opportunities. Here’s how founders can join us this October: Attend with a Founder Pass Investing in

Lance Riedel and Nigel Daley both spent decades in search discovery, but it was while working at Pinterest, to launch Pinterest Shopping, that they began to understand how search engines can do personalized searches for online shopping. Most people expect online shopping to involve typing in a keyword then expecting a search engine, like Google,

We just announced the breakout session winners last week. Now meet the roundtable sessions that really “rounded” out the competition for this year’s Disrupt 2024 audience choice program. With five stellar sessions securing their spot among thousands of votes from across the globe, these finalists proved they’ve got what it takes to make things happen.

Try to imagine the number of parts that go into making a rocket engine. Now imagine requesting and comparing quotes for each of those parts, getting approvals to purchase the part you eventually do select, and tracking those parts until they arrive at your HQ. It’s exactly as complex as it sounds – but it

The Great Rollback is here. The phrase refers to Big Tech starting to slash some of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs that were implemented shortly after the murder of George Floyd. Most recently, Zoom announced that it laid off its DEI team. Google and Meta have started to defund their DEI programs, and

AI mortgage startup LoanSnap is facing an avalanche of lawsuits from creditors and has been evicted from its headquarters in Southern California, leaving employees worried about the company’s future, TechCrunch has learned. LoanSnap, founded by serial entrepreneurs Karl Jacob and Allan Carroll, has raised around $100 million in funding since its 2017 seed round, $90

The global spend management sector is experiencing a tailwind of sorts. North America is arguably the biggest market in this space, but spend management companies have seen demand rise across the world, thanks to increasing internet penetration, tech advancements and businesses’ increasing focus on making sure they spend wisely. Indeed, the space is expected to

Wesley Chan is often seen in his signature buffalo hat; however, he may be even more well-known for his ability to spot unicorns. Over the course of his career in venture capital, he’s invested in over 20 unicorns, including AngelList, Dialpad, Ring, Rocket Lawyer and Sourcegraph. Five of those went on to become decacorns: Canva,

The fashion industry has a huge problem: Despite many returned items being unworn or undamaged, a lot, if not the majority, end up in the trash. An estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returns ended up in landfills in 2022 alone, according to data from return logistics software company Optoro. New York-based (Re)vive wants to help

Asia’s startup ecosystem hasn’t been doing well in the past couple years, as everything from geopolitics to higher interest rates affected investors’ willingness to write checks. Many venture firms have exited China, which used to be the continent’s biggest venture market. Though there hasn’t been a huge decline in the number of fundraising rounds, the

Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned. Engineering and product design were among the departments impacted by the cuts, according to posts on LinkedIn from impacted employees. TechCrunch was unable to independently verify the exact number of people who were cut, but an industry

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In a twist that shocks absolutely no one and thrills pyromaniacs who love seeing money burn, Elon Musk’s newest venture, xAI, has snagged a casual $6