A new startup, Lava Payments, aims to take on payment giants by building a solution for the modern web where AI agents now handle transactions for their customers. The idea came to founder Mitchell Jones after he left his earlier Y Combinator-backed fintech startup, Lendtable, as he began to experiment with AI. He saw the […]
Dribbble has permanently banned dozens of designers from its platform following a new effort to pivot to a marketplace and chase monetization. This includes one of the platform’s most well-known designers, Gleb Kuznetsov, founder of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside. Dribbble deleted his account with its over 210 million followers because he shared his contact information with prospective clients through
A top designer was banned from Dribbble. Now he’s building his own competitor. Read More »
Many companies are focused on building robots, or the hardware components to help them move, grip objects, or interact with the world around them, Silicon Valley-based OpenMind is focused under the hood. OpenMind is building a software layer, OM1, for humanoid robots that acts as an operating system. The company compares itself to being the
OpenMind wants to be the Android operating system of humanoid robots Read More »
Startup founders face a perplexing and even contradictory capital market in 2025, according to Sapphire Ventures partner Cathy Gao. “Capital isn’t scarce. But access to that capital is harder than ever,” she said. Gao, who spoke at TechCrunch’s All Stage conference in July, said it’s possible for startup founders, especially those in later Series C
What founders should think about if looking to raise a Series C Read More »
Daniel Liss, co-founder of the social network Dispo and the dating app Teaser AI, is convinced he’s onto the next big thing: steelmaking. It all started, incongruously, with a few op-eds he wrote for TechCrunch about anti-trust enforcement in social media. The commentaries apparently caught the attention of some folks in Washington D.C., Liss told
Why Dispo’s co-founder made the leap from social media to steelmaking Read More »
The internet trend is simple: A friend or family member looks into the camera and tells viewers, in a slightly aggressive tone, that they are about to witness a presentation and that they had better be nice. That’s what Kendall, the sister of Lucious McDaniel IV, did, and after she stepped aside, her brother pitched
How a Y Combinator food delivery app used TikTok to soar in the App Store Read More »
If you omit some key details, all Preston Thorpe has to do to become a senior software engineer at a promising tech company is walk through the door. For about six months, Thorpe was a prolific volunteer contributor to an open-source project led by database company Turso. His work was impressive enough that Turso’s CEO,
Strawberries are the most popular berry in the U.S. for both consumers and farmers alike. They’re also some of the most pesticide-reliant fruits and consistently top the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list of the most contaminated produce. TRIC Robotics, a San Luis Obispo, California-based, think it can help strawberry farmers reduce chemical use with
How TRIC Robotics is reducing pesticide use on strawberries using UV light Read More »
Synthetic fertilizer is a modern wonder, helping to feed billions of people, but it’s not without its costs. Fertilizer runoff from farm fields has led to dead zones in oceans around the world, where low oxygen levels have starved normally teeming coastal waters of life itself. Eliminating synthetic fertilizers is a tall order, but one
NetZeroNitrogen wants bacteria to replace synthetic fertilizer on farm fields Read More »
Programmable optics startup Lumotive has added a few more strategic backers to its recent Series B round. Redmond, Washington-based Lumotive reopened its recent Series B funding round to bring in Amazon, through its Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, and ITHCA Group, the technology investment arm of Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, as investors. These fresh funds bring
Amazon backs programmable optics startup Lumotive Read More »
