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SparkCharge raises $30M to help fleets electrify without commitments

Electrifying a fleet of vehicles is the chicken-and-egg problem for the 21st century. Where do you spend money first, on the vehicles or the charging infrastructure? Believe it or not, that question isn’t always thought through. Joshua Aviv, founder and CEO of SparkCharge, has had fleets approach him and say, “Hey, the cars are here.

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Brex partners with former competitor Zip, with an eye on reducing cash burn to get to an IPO

Brex has once again made the surprising, but perhaps realistic, decision to partner with another one-time competitor. This time Zip, the CEOs of both companies told TechCrunch exclusively.  In April 2022, fintech Brex announced it was making “a big push” into both the enterprise and software. The news was notable considering that Brex originally was

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South Loop Ventures closes $21M fund in Houston to build up local tech ecosystem

South Loop Ventures, a Houston-based venture firm, announced a $21 million Fund I, with Rice Management Company and Chevron Technology Ventures serving as anchor investors.  The firm, which launched in 2022, focuses on seed and pre-seed companies, with $400,000 as the average check size. It also primarily hopes to focus on backing founders of color. 

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Affiniti’s 20- and 22-year-old founders raise $17M led by SignalFire just 6 months after an $11M seed

Affiniti founders Aaron Bai, 20, and Sahil Phadnis, 22, are building the kind of expense management software for main street small businesses that tech startups have enjoyed for years. Their growth has been so impressive that six months after raising an $11 million seed round, they raised a $17 million Series A, led by Signal

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Cocospy stalkerware apps go offline after data breach

A trio of phone surveillance apps, which was caught spying on millions of people’s phones earlier this year, has gone offline. Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie were three near-identical but differently branded stalkerware apps that allowed the person planting one of the apps on a target’s phone access to their personal data — including their messages,

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Deel wants Rippling to hand over any agreements involving paying the alleged spy

Deel has lobbed a new volley in the ongoing legal battle with rival HR tech startup Rippling. Deel filed a motion, containing a series of letters, asking the Irish court to make Rippling hand over information. In one letter, Deel wants unredacted versions of witness affidavits, including the famed one by former Rippling employee, Keith

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Laser-powered fusion experiment more than doubles its power output

The world’s only net-positive fusion experiment has been steadily ramping up the amount of power it produces, TechCrunch has learned. In recent attempts, the team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) increased the yield of the experiment, first to 5.2 megajoules and then again to 8.6 megajoules, according to a source

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