Startups

SpinLaunch raises $11M but hoped to raise much more, source says

Startups /

Space startup SpinLaunch is fundraising again, though a source tells TechCrunch that it was exploring raising a significantly more ambitious sum earlier this year.  The company has closed an $11.5 million round out of a planned $25 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SpinLaunch confirmed funding to TechCrunch, but […]

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FireDome launches projectiles filled with fire retardants to stop wildfires

Startups /

Fighting wildfire is a lot like waging war. There are foot soldiers and paratrooper-like smokejumpers, air support from airtankers, and mobile centers that can direct firefighter movements in the field. “It’s a battlefield,” Gadi Benjamini, co-founder and CEO of FireDome, told TechCrunch. “It changes, it’s dynamic, it’s unexpected.” But what firefighters have been missing is

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The average early startup CEO makes less than you think: $132K

Startups /

Once a startup has raised its seed round, the perennial question becomes how much should the founders pay themselves and their first few employees? Kruze Consulting, a CPA firm that specializes in venture-backed startups, recently analyzed average salary ranges for over 450 seed-stage startups and shared that data with TechCrunch. The following averages are based

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Bluesky promises more verification and an ‘aggressive’ approach to impersonation

Startups /

As more celebrities and popular influencers join Bluesky, the fast-growing social media service has been facing more concerns around impersonation and verified identity. The Bluesky Safety team posted Friday that the company has updated its impersonation policy to be “more aggressive,” adding that “impersonation and handle-squatting accounts will be removed.” The company said it should

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Why Olympic champion cyclist Sir Chris Hoy is backing Skarper to make any bike an e-bike

Startups /

As one of the most decorated track cyclists of all time, Sir Chris Hoy might not seem an obvious candidate to back the burgeoning electric bike movement. The common refrain, after all, is that e-bikes aren’t real bikes. However, the six-time Olympic gold medalist has done exactly that, investing in a fledgling U.K. startup that

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Linkup connects LLMs with premium content sources (legally)

Startups /

If you’ve used ChatGPT Search or Perplexity you know that being able to search the web and get citations inline greatly improves these AI chatbots. Results are better when they involve timely information, and web search may reduce so-called hallucinations (i.e. when a generative AI outputs incorrect information). That’s why French startup Linkup is building

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Aerospace Corp’s CEO talks literal moonshots and Space Agenda 2025

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At this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco,  President and CEO of the Aerospace Corporation Steve Isakowitz and Agency Chief Technologist at NASA A.C. Charanya Charania took the stage to discuss a literal moonshot: how to build a thriving lunar ecosystem. Today on Equity, we’re taking you behind the scenes of TechCrunch Disrupt once again,

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Alloy Women’s Health is making menopausal care accessible

Startups /

This week on found, Dom and Becca are talking with the co-founders of Alloy Women’s Health. The startup just closed a new funding round to expand its mission of fixing menopause care. Alloy founders, Monica Molenaar and Anne Fulenwider, discussed raising capital in a competitive health tech landscape, their choice to bypass traditional insurance models,

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