Fundraising

Why VCs ghost founders, or reject deals and never speak to the founder again

Getting ghosted is never fun. Especially if you’re a founder seeking capital from investors. It’s similar to dating. You might be left wondering “Why is this person not getting back to me? Did I do something wrong?” Did the investor hate the product? Did they not care for me personally?” It’s enough to drive anyone […]

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Renaissance Fusion raises €32M to radically simplify complex fusion reactors

Fusion power startups have long been stalked by one stubborn question: Will the technology work?  But now, with net-positive fusion power no longer the stuff of science fiction, a fresh crop of startups have been founded on more mundane questions: Can reactors be built for less money? How can maintenance be made simpler? The answers

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Anna Patterson’s Ceramic.ai looks to help enterprises build AI models faster and more efficiently

Anna Patterson has had a storied career in Silicon Valley. She founded three startups, including search engine upstarts Xift and Cuil, as well as recall.archive.org, which became the Internet Archive. She was the vice president of engineering at Google, and later on started Gradient Ventures, an AI-focused seed fund. And she isn’t done building. Patterson

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Flex, a Brex for business owners, has raised $25M at a $250M valuation

Flex, which offers personal finance software and payments infrastructure for business owners, has raised $25 million in equity funding while securing a $200 million credit facility, it told TechCrunch exclusively. The equity funds were raised at a valuation of “just under $250 million.” The company last raised a $20 million Series A announced in September

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Grain emerges from stealth with $50M to help any business hedge against FX volatility

Foreign exchange fluctuations can make or break a business that trades across borders, but keeping up and responding to the FX market can be tricky if you’re anything smaller than the world’s largest enterprises. Today, a startup called Grain is emerging from stealth with a product that it says will let finance teams at companies

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Darwinbox, the HR upstart from India, raises $140M to take on Deel and Rippling

Darwinbox, an Indian startup building a SaaS platform for hiring, onboarding and employee administration, has raised $140 million to take on the likes of Rippling and Deel as it seeks to expand internationally, especially in the U.S. The funding is being co-led by KKR and Partners Group, and is a mix of primary and secondary

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Defense tech startup Epirus raises $250M Series D to counter drone swarms

Defense tech startup Epirus, which specializes in anti-drone systems, has raised an oversubscribed $250 million Series D, it told TechCrunch. Epirus, based in Torrance, California, was previously valued at $1.35 billion for its $200 million Series C in 2022, per its announcement at the time. Epirus did not give a specific valuation for this round,

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Quantexa nabs $175M at a $2.6B valuation to double down on data analytics for AI

London startup Quantexa has made its name over the years with an enterprise platform that employs AI and data analytics to fight money laundering and fraud. Today, it is announcing new funding of $175 million to double down on that business while also moving deeper into another hot area: using its technology to help organizations

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Didi reportedly seeking funds for self-driving unit at $5B valuation

Chinese ride-hail firm Didi is on the hunt for fresh funds for its autonomous vehicle technology unit that could value it at $5 billion, according to Bloomberg News. Investor interest in self-driving cars is high in China on the backs of IPOs from WeRide and Pony AI, which have a market capitalization of $4.7 billion

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Swap banks $40M to build tools for merchants to deal with tariffs and other cross-border trading nightmares

Cross-border trade could become significantly more challenging with the wave of new tariffs getting introduced across different markets. Today, in a timely piece of news, a London-founded startup called Swap — which is building tools for e-commerce companies to better navigate the cross-border trading world — is announcing $40 million in funding to expand. Iconiq

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