Venture

Spotify’s Daniel Ek just bet bigger on Helsing, Europe’s defense tech darling

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When Daniel Ek isn’t busy running Spotify or building his new AI-driven health tech enterprise, he’s making massive bets on the future of European warfare, seemingly. The billionaire, who primarily lives in Stockholm, just led a €600 million investment in Helsing, a four-year-old, Munich-based defense tech company that is now valued at €12 billion, according […]

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What makes TechCrunch All Stage different from other startup events? Answers to your most pressing questions

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Tech and startup events have a formula. You know it. We know it. We’ve all done it. But TechCrunch All Stage 2025, which we’re hosting July 15 at the SoWa Power Station in Boston, is designed to break out of that rinse-and-repeat model — and focus on what early-stage startups actually need to know, right

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Alexa von Tobel has high hopes for ‘fintech 3.0’

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It’s been 10 years since Alexa von Tobel sold her financial planning startup Learnvest to Northwestern Mutual for $250 million. Since then, von Tobel became Northwestern Mutual’s first chief digital officer, then chief innovation officer, before launching an early-stage venture firm of her own, Inspired Capital, with former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. She’s

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New details emerge on Meta’s $14.3B deal for Scale

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Meta’s deal to partially acquire the AI startup Scale, giving it 49% ownership, is certainly unusual. What Scale officially announced is that the deal values the company at over $29 billion and that it will “distribute” proceeds to shareholders and vested equity holders (aka employees) granting them with “substantial liquidity” while allowing them to continue

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The founder experience at TechCrunch All Stage: Built for people building what’s next

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For a founder, time is the one resource you can’t raise. That’s why TechCrunch All Stage — happening July 15 in Boston’s SoWa Power Station — is designed to make every minute count. Whether you’re at the whiteboard sketching v1 of your product or figuring out how to lead a team of 50, TechCrunch All

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11 startups from YC Demo Day that investors are talking about

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At Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 Demo Day on Wednesday, nearly every presenting startup had something to do with AI — they’re either developing AI agents or creating tools to facilitate their development. Indeed, several founders seem to be taking a leaf out of the pages of several successful AI startups: about half a dozen startups

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Iconiq VCs spent two years courting Chime and the firm isn’t selling its stake

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The VC tech world was abuzz on Thursday when neobank Chime successfully became a public company. Chime raised $864 million on a its $27 share price, which popped big, opening at $43.  This wasn’t the biggest IPO of the year. CoreWeave, for instance, raised $1.5 billion in March, and its first-day market cap hit around

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