Startups

The global pet food market has become fiercely competitive, with an estimated market share of $103.3 billion in 2023 and still growing. This growth has led many companies to target pet owners who are willing to invest in quality food to enhance their pets’ well-being and longevity. In a move to distinguish itself in the

In a world where tech trends often create a frenzy of investments, the temptation to follow the crowd can be overwhelming. But the business of trends is a dangerous game. When everyone is diving headfirst into the latest “next big thing,” the risk of falling off a cliff without genuine understanding grows exponentially.  Join us

AI tends to make things up. That’s unappealing to just about anyone who uses it on a regular basis, but especially to businesses, for which fallacious results could hurt the bottom line. Half of workers responding to a recent survey from Salesforce say they worry answers from their company’s generative AI-powered systems are inaccurate. While

Poolside, the AI-powered software dev platform, has raised half a billion dollars in new capital. The cash came in the form of a Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures, which also had participation from a who’s who of big tech firms including eBay (via eBay Ventures) and Nvidia. It brings Poolside’s total raised to

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has closed the largest VC round of all time. The startup today announced that it raised $6.6 billion in a funding round that values OpenAI at $157 billion post-money. Led by previous investor Thrive Capital, the new cash brings OpenAI’s total raised to $17.9 billion, per Crunchbase. Thrive invested around $1.3 billion,

The offices of plant-based protein startup Heura are tucked away down a narrow street a short distance from one of Barcelona’s main tourist draws. But the team of entrepreneurs and food scientists won’t be remixing their protein cocktails in close proximity to La Sagrada Família for much longer — they’re moving to new, larger digs

Sometimes, a pivot ends up being the smartest decision company leaders can make. See Netflix’s pivot from DVDs to streaming, or Corning’s pivot from lightbulbs to touchscreens. The list of extremely successful startup pivots goes on. And on. And on. A less-prominent (but by no means failed) pivot is Numa’s. Its co-founders killed the startup’s

Sometimes, a demo is all you need to understand a product. And that’s the case with Runware. If you head over to Runware’s website, enter a prompt and hit enter to generate an image, you’ll be surprised by how quickly Runware generates the image for you — it takes less than a second. Runware is

11x.ai, a startup that develops AI-powered sales development bots, has secured roughly $50 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned. The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at around $350 million, multiple sources told TechCrunch. The recent deal follows the company’s $24 million Series A, which was led by Benchmark

A Y Combinator startup named PearAI launched with an X post thread and YouTube video on Saturday and created immediate controversy. And some of that is splashing onto YC itself. PearAI offers an AI coding editor. The startup’s founder Duke Pan has openly said that it’s a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue,

We are officially less than a month away from TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, taking place at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28-30. We’re currently seeking dedicated and highly motivated volunteers to support our events team and help bring this amazing experience to life. If you’re dreaming of becoming a startup founder, marketer, or event

The HVAC industry is going through a transformation. The old guard of tradespeople are on the cusp of retiring while private equity firms are consolidating the industry. Airship is building a software solution for HVAC’s next chapter. Airship is building a point-of-sale software for HVAC contractors to give them the knowledge they need, on things

We’re in the final hours to save up to $600 on TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 tickets! Grab your tickets now and seize this final opportunity for major savings before the countdown to Disrupt 2024 starts. This special discount offer ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. Join a global community of over 10,000 tech, startup, and VC

We’re thrilled to welcome Bret Taylor to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. As the former co-CEO of Salesforce, founder of Quip, former CTO of Facebook, the co-creator of Google Maps, and current chairman of the board at OpenAI, Taylor needs very little introduction.  Bret Taylor is one of the most influential players in the world of enterprise

EV startup Canoo has been hit with two new lawsuits from suppliers linked to the drivetrains that power its electric vehicles, just weeks after the company kicked off a major reorganization that included the departure of its chief technology officer. Canoo has also parted ways with senior director of advanced vehicle engineering Christoph Kuttner, who

This episode of Equity had so many themes: VC karaoke, the SpaceX economy, no moats for AI, OpenAI versus open source. You know it’s going to be good when the conversation between host Kirsten Korosec and fellow TCers Devin Coldewey and Margaux MacColl starts with the evergreen question: Is it ever OK to use a

UAE-based Redwood has acquired a majority stake in the game streaming platform Loco as the Indian firm looks to expand focus to international markets, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed. Redwood, a newly-formed investment firm, has signed a $65 million deal with Loco, an investment that also gives full exit to all existing Loco backers. This

We’re thrilled to announce that the agenda for our dedicated AI Stage presented by Google Cloud to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 is complete and ready to go! It joins fintech, SaaS, and space as the other industry-focused stages — all under one big roof. We couldn’t possibly host TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 without a huge deep dive

On the heels of its earlier $12 million fundraise, subscription management platform RevenueCat has made its first acquisition — and it’s an unusual one. Instead of acquiring a company to add more tools to its platform, it’s buying an app offering subscriptions to “spicy” audiobooks, Dipsea. No, this isn’t a massive pivot for the popular

Famed Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator on Wednesday kicked off its two-day “Demo Day” event that showcases what the most recent YC batch, S24, companies are building. Unsurprisingly, AI companies dominated the day, with startups looking to apply the technology to problems like estate planning and settlements, Elayne; automating clinical trial data, Baseline AI;

When seed-focused Pear VC raised a $432 million fund last year, the firm co-founder Pejman Nozad said that it meant his firm had reached its “own product-market-fit.” That fourth fund was nearly three times larger than its previous $160 million fund. The 11-year-old firm wants to help emerging venture funds follow in Pear’s footsteps. On

Back in 2019, Microsoft launched Dapr, a new open-source project that made building event-driven distributed applications easier for developers. Like so many popular open-source projects, Dapr spawned its own ecosystem, especially after Microsoft donated it to the Linux Foundation. And as is also so often the case, some of the creators of Dapr — and

Time is running out to grab savings of up to $600 on individual tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024! This limited-time offer ends on September 27 at 11:59 p.m. PT, so now’s your last opportunity to score a great deal before the final countdown begins. Disrupt 2024 is the ultimate gathering for the startup world. From

While some tech companies have lofty goals to transform drug discovery through AI or to mine metals from astroids, others set out to solve very annoying pain points average people feel everyday. Tennibot fall into the latter category and wants to pick up your tennis balls for you. Tennibot co-founder and CEO Haitham Eletrabi said

If your startup is only remotely related to working with data pipelines, you’re probably trying to figure out how to capitalize on the current moment: Enterprises are trying to figure out how to best use data to power generative AI products, and to do that, they need robust data services. Airbyte, which launched in 2020,

Autonomous electric aviation startup Pyka is working hard to scale up its crop-dusting and cargo plane lines, but it has attracted a lucrative new suitor: the Pentagon. The promise of a climate-friendly dual-use self-flying plane was also too great for investors to resist, resulting in a new $40 million B round. Pyka started in 2019

With TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 right around the corner, we’re thrilled to introduce the companies hosting Side Events that will extend the buzz and excitement to the thousands of attendees and Silicon Valley locals alike. Whether it’s a fun happy hour, insightful panels, or energizing morning runs, Disrupt Week — happening from October 26 to November

A startup called Letta has just emerged from stealth with tech that helps AI models remember users and conversations. Created in UC Berkeley’s famed labs startup factory, it also announced $10 million in seed money led by Felicis’ Astasia Myers, at a $70 million post-money valuation.  Letta is also backed by a who’s who of

With the perennial tensions between proprietary and open source software (OSS) unlikely to end anytime soon, a $3 billion startup is throwing its weight behind a new licensing paradigm — one that’s designed to bridge the open and proprietary worlds, replete with new definition, terminology, and governance model. Developer software company Sentry recently introduced a

We’ve rebooted regular ticket prices for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, giving you one last chance to save big before the event. Enjoy up to $600 off individual tickets until September 27. Disrupt 2024 is the ultimate startup hub, taking place at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28-30. Join 10,000 startup, tech, and VC leaders;