Venture

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized […]

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AI startups will need ‘quality of revenue’ to raise in 2025, seed VCs warn

Fundraising in 2025 will continue to be a “tale of two cities,” VC Renata Quintini, co-founder of early-stage VC Renegade Partners, said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt last week. “Some companies, really having the promise of going after big markets growing fast, [will be] receiving a lot of funding and momentum.” But on the other side,

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‘If you actually are solving a problem, you don’t talk about any of the hype,’ investor says

The hype is palpable: As tech folks from near and far converge for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Fransisco — one of the only places where Waymo is available to the public — there’s ample chatter about the autonomous vehicle service. “If you think about AI hype and all, everyone gets excited about what 10

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Wesley Chan on what he looks for as he’s shopping for potential unicorns

Investor Wesley Chan has shown a knack for making very early investments into multi-billion-dollar unicorns, such as Plaid, Gusto, Flexport, and, most recently, Canva. Chan comes from an unconventional background — he grew up in an immigrant family and had only middling grades in high school. But he landed a job washing test tubes in

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African ‘gender-equal’ VC Janngo Capital closes second fund at $78M

Pan-African venture capital firm Janngo Capital has closed its oversubscribed second fund at €73 million ($78 million), 20% more than its target of €60 million (~$63 million). In 2022, Janngo Capital reached the first close of its second fund at €26 million, receiving capital from several limited partners, including the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)

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VCs share what they actually want to see from early stage founders

Every startup begins with a founder with a germ of an idea. How does it mature into an actual business?Venture capitalists have to sort through pitches every day to find the gems that will become successful companies.At Disrupt 2024, Harness CEO & Co-Founder Jyoti Bansal, Glasswing Ventures Founder & Managing Partner Rudina Seseri, and Notable

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How The Chainsmokers built a fund that doesn’t rely on their celebrity status

While a lot of celebrities invest in startups, the Chainsmokers are different. Instead of angel investing, Drew Taggart and Alex Pall launched a formal fund, Mantis Venture Capital, invest out of a formal closed-end fund, and back companies in industries their celebrity prowess can’t always help in, like security startups and analytics platforms. Watch as

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Making sound investments in 2024 with Ashton Kutcher

Watch as Sound Ventures partners Ashton Kutcher, Effie Epstein and Guy Oseary discuss their firm’s big bet on AI, the influence of celebrity status, and the trends they are currently tracking at Disrupt 2024. Subscribe for more on YouTube: https://tcrn.ch/youtube Follow TechCrunch on Instagram: http://tcrn.ch/instagram TikTok: https://tcrn.ch/tiktok X: tcrn.ch/x Threads: https://tcrn.ch/threads Facebook: https://tcrn.ch/facebook Bluesky: https://tcrn.ch/bluesky

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