Afore Capital, a firm that claims to be the largest dedicated pre-seed investor, was founded on the idea that the first check into a new startup should be larger than what most accelerators and early-stage investors were offering. When Afore raised its third $150 million fund in 2022, the firm wrote checks ranging from $1 […]
Despite the tight venture capital market, unicorns are still being created every month. Using data from Crunchbase, CB Insights, and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the newly minted unicorns so far this year. The list includes Elon Musk’s xAI, which is already valued at a staggering $24 billion, as well as a good number of other
61 US startups became unicorns in 2024: Here’s the full list Read More »
There are numerous observability platforms that monitor and evaluate cloud software, like Dynatrace and ServiceNow, which flag potential code errors or failures so engineers can find and fix them. Arize AI says it is bringing that same approach to AI models and applications. Arize is an AI observability platform that helps companies evaluate their AI
Arize AI hopes it has first-mover advantage in AI observability Read More »
Three founders who built out one of the bigger startups in risk management are scaling a new company to take on another pain point in the world of work. SmartSuite‘s platform lets teams collaborate on projects, build automations around that work, and search and access work across larger libraries of data spanning a disparate number
SmartSuite raises $38M to be the final word on enterprise collaboration Read More »
Codeium, an AI-powered coding startup, is raising a new round of funding at a $2.85 billion valuation, including fresh capital, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. The round is being led by a returning investor Kleiner Perkins, the people said. The new round comes just six months after Silicon Valley-based Codeium announced
AI-coding startup Codeium in talks to raise at an almost $3B valuation, sources say Read More »
Fintech Varo has been hoping to raise a $55 million Series G round but has, so far, closed on $29 million to date, according to a recent SEC filing. Varo declined to comment on this new round but the fintech has raised just over $1 billion in funding since its 2015 inception, according to PitchBook.
After raising $1 billion, fintech Varo closes another $29 million, replaces founder CEO Read More »
Swizzle Ventures has closed its Fund I at $6.6 million, bypassing its initial $3 million target, Jessica Kamada, the firm’s founder, told TechCrunch. Back in December, TechCrunch previously reported that the firm, which quietly launched in 2023, was raising and has already bypassed $5 million, per its SEC filing. The thesis of Fund I will
Brand new women’s focused Swizzle Ventures skyrockets past its fundraising target Read More »
Creating corporate training videos for software is a time-consuming ordeal, especially if you’re an organization with a lot of software licenses. Training videos can help get employees up to speed, but they’re a big lift. They often take entire teams to produce. Tel Aviv-based entrepreneur Yoav Einav thought there might be an alternative, cheaper way
Guidde taps AI to help create software training videos Read More »
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week we’re looking at some big valuation jumps, how Stripe is eyeing another shareholder sale, a colorful conversation with an early-stage VC, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big
Fintech fundraising is giving me 2021 flashbacks Read More »
Given Generative AI is very good at interpreting dense texts, it’s been a boon for startups attacking one of the most complex sets of texts there is: the law. We’ve thus seen an explosion of legal tech, supercharged by AI, in the last year or so. Lawtech startup Eudia bagged $105 million only last week.
Legal AI-startup Luminance, backed by the late Mike Lynch, raises $75M Read More »
