Fundraising

NEA led a $100M round into Fei-Fei Li’s new AI startup, now valued at over $1B

Fundraising /

World Labs, a stealthy startup founded by renowned Stanford University AI professor Fei Fei Li, has raised two rounds of financing  two months apart, according to multiple reports. The latest financing was led by NEA and valued the company at over $1 billion, TechCrunch has learned from several people with knowledge of the investments. This […]

NEA led a $100M round into Fei-Fei Li’s new AI startup, now valued at over $1B Read More »

She grew up a gearhead — now her startup has raised $4.3M to cut CO2 from trucking

Fundraising /

The irony was not lost on her. Growing up the daughter of a racing car enthusiast father, Danielle Walsh had become — in her late 20s — the head of HSBC’s ‘Future Cities’ project, the global banking giant’s effort to serve clients’ climate change mandates. It was 2018, and she was reporting both into the banks’

She grew up a gearhead — now her startup has raised $4.3M to cut CO2 from trucking Read More »

Antler doubles down on Southeast Asia with $72M second startup fund

Fundraising /

Antler, the Singapore VC that focuses on early-stage investments, just closed its second Southeast Asia fund. It’s raised $72 million to double down on startups in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia. This should be welcome news for startups. Like other regions, Southeast Asia has faced a persistent funding slump. Between January and July 2024, tech

Antler doubles down on Southeast Asia with $72M second startup fund Read More »

Anysphere, a GitHub Copilot rival, has raised $60M Series A at  $400M valuation from a16z, Thrive, sources say

Fundraising /

Anysphere, a two-year-old startup that’s developed an AI-powered coding assistant called Cursor, has raised over $60 million in a Series A financing at a $400 million post-money valuation, two sources familiar with the deal told TechCrunch.  The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital. Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, also participated

Anysphere, a GitHub Copilot rival, has raised $60M Series A at  $400M valuation from a16z, Thrive, sources say Read More »

CloudPay, a payroll services provider, lands $120M in new funding

Fundraising /

In 1996, two companies, Patersons HR and Payroll Solutions, formed a venture called CloudPay to provide payroll and payments services to enterprise clients. CloudPay grew quietly over the next several decades, adding workflow automation features to maintain pace with upstart rivals. It’s still growing, CFO Andy Thomson assures TechCrunch. Thomson claims that CloudPay is handling

CloudPay, a payroll services provider, lands $120M in new funding Read More »

Flint Capital raises a $160M through an unusual fund-raising strategy

Fundraising /

Boston-based Flint Capital just closed its third fund at $160 million, four times the amount of its initial 2013 fund. The capital will be split evenly between early and late stage investments, with the firm doubling down on IT, cybersecurity, fintech and digital health startups. Its success is in large part because of a unique

Flint Capital raises a $160M through an unusual fund-raising strategy Read More »

AI business agent startup Bardeen pulls in strategic investment from Dropbox and Hubspot

Fundraising /

Every day, employees across the world spend incalculable hours performing tediously repetitive tasks, such as, for example, converting documents into PDFs and then uploading them to a drive, from where it’s sucked into a database and emailed to a team. While UiPath helped pioneer this kind of ‘robotic’ process, it’s also pivoted to an AI-driven mode

AI business agent startup Bardeen pulls in strategic investment from Dropbox and Hubspot Read More »

From Skims to Stripe, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year

Fundraising /

Last year’s investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we settle in to the second half of the year. 2024 delivered four venture-backed tech IPOs, Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta and Rubrik, in March and April, which made it seem like this year could spur the momentum investors

From Skims to Stripe, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year Read More »

Mechanical Orchard, led by ex-Pivotal CEO, scores $50 million round led by Alphabet’s GV

Fundraising /

Digital transformation — the process of transforming outdated apps and processes with cloud technologies and digital workflows — can be a risky undertaking. In 2023, Harvard Business Review reported that while 89% of large companies have a digital and AI transformation underway, they’ve only captured 31% of the expected revenue uplift and 25% of anticipated

Mechanical Orchard, led by ex-Pivotal CEO, scores $50 million round led by Alphabet’s GV Read More »