SparkLabs — an early-stage venture capital firm that has made a name for itself for backing OpenAI as well as a host of other AI startups such as Vectara, Allganize, Kneron, Anthropic, xAI, Glade (YC S23) and Lucidya AI — is gearing up to double down more startups in the space. The VC firm announced […]
SparkLabs closes $50M fund to back AI startups Read More »
In Latin American countries like Brazil and Chile, messaging platform WhatsApp has become one of the most popular apps to buy things online. It was even the ecommerce platform of choice in the region during the pandemic. But WhatsApp is designed to be a messaging platform, not an e-commerce site. A startup called Mercately is
How Techstars, Meta helped profitable LatAM startup Mercately raise a $2.6M seed Read More »
The SEC has updated the dollar threshold for a vehicle to be considered a “qualifying venture fund” to $12 million from $10 million. Qualified venture funds are a subset of venture funds that can raise from up to 250 accredited investors while also being exempt from having to register with the SEC as an investment
The SEC just made life a little easier for smaller VCs Read More »
VCs are increasingly buying shares of late-stage startups on the secondary market as they try to get pieces of the hottest ones — especially AI companies. But they are also increasingly doing so through financial instruments called special purpose vehicles (SVPs). Some of those SPVs are becoming such hot commodities that they are commanding premium
VCs are so eager for AI startups, they’re buying into each others’ SPVs at high prices Read More »
For some businesses, there is a clear path to growth that doesn’t involve acquiring other companies or expanding organically: franchising. The U.S. has more than 800,000 franchise businesses, according to Statista, and that number is predicted to keep growing year over year. But franchising a business — licensing a business model and brand to an
Harmonyze wants to build AI agents to help franchisors make sense of unstructured data Read More »
Bolt’s aggressive ultimatum to its existing shareholders – in which it told them to buy many more shares at higher prices or it would take back their shares for payment of 1 cent a share – will be an expensive uphill battle, an expert familiar with Bolt’s corporate charter tells TechCrunch. To recap: On Tuesday, when
Bolt’s wild ultimatum to its VCs will only succeed if they agree, expert says Read More »
In 2020, Kathryn Wu launched a side hustle while she was working as a product engineer at Pinterest. Wu started a milk tea company, Ohtea, with the hopes of connecting with local grocery stores and gift shops to get them to carry the tea. She quickly realized how difficult it was to not only be
Openmart wants to make it easier for enterprises to sell to local businesses Read More »
The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 sparked a new wave of AI companies. It also brought attention to the companies that were already building in the space like Etched. Etched co-founder and CEO Gavin Uberti said on a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Found podcast that his company “stands on the shoulders of giants.” While
Etched founder Gavin Uberti thinks his company stands on the “shoulders of giants” Read More »
Life-sciences investor BEVC is raising a $25 million fund aimed at climate-related startups, according to an SEC filing. BEVC is new on the scene, and was founded just last year. Its three co-founders all have backgrounds in the life sciences, and its first two investments, Radar Therapeutics and Insamo, were in the life sciences. But
Life-sciences investor BEVC raising $25M climate fund Read More »
HR startup Rippling has grown into a company valued at $13.5 billion with more than 3,200 employees. Despite that size, its founder and CEO Parker Conrad still approves every expense report over $10 and is still the one who does routine HR tasks like running payroll. That’s because doing such tasks means he’s using his
