venture capital

WndrCo officially gets into venture capital with fresh $450M across two funds

Startups /

WndrCo, the holding company and technology investment firm started by founding partners Sujay Jaswa and Jeffrey Katzenberg, raised its first venture capital fund, closing on over $450 million in capital commitments.  Katzenberg is well-known for being the former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and co-founder of DreamWorks SKG. Jaswa was a principal at New Enterprise […]

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After raising $100M, AI fintech LoanSnap is being sued, fined, evicted

AI /

AI mortgage startup LoanSnap is facing an avalanche of lawsuits from creditors and has been evicted from its headquarters in Southern California, leaving employees worried about the company’s future, TechCrunch has learned. LoanSnap, founded by serial entrepreneurs Karl Jacob and Allan Carroll, has raised around $100 million in funding since its 2017 seed round, $90

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Unicorn-rich VC Wesley Chan owes his success to a Craigslist job washing lab beakers

Venture /

Wesley Chan is often seen in his signature buffalo hat; however, he may be even more well-known for his ability to spot unicorns. Over the course of his career in venture capital, he’s invested in over 20 unicorns, including AngelList, Dialpad, Ring, Rocket Lawyer and Sourcegraph. Five of those went on to become decacorns: Canva,

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How (Re)vive grew 10x last year by helping retailers recycle and sell returned items

Venture /

The fashion industry has a huge problem: Despite many returned items being unworn or undamaged, a lot, if not the majority, end up in the trash. An estimated 9.5 billion pounds of returns ended up in landfills in 2022 alone, according to data from return logistics software company Optoro. New York-based (Re)vive wants to help

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How Clean Energy Ventures avoided the pandemic bubble and raised a $305M fund

Fundraising /

Climate tech couldn’t escape the frothiness that engulfed the startup world earlier in the decade. For both founders or venture capitalists, it was tempting to raise money. Interest rates were low, money was cheap, and investors looking for better returns were hungry to get in the game. Instead, Clean Energy Ventures took a different approach,

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The demise of BaaS fintech Synapse could derail the funding prospects for other startups in the space

Startups /

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the long-term implications of Synapse’s bankruptcy on the fintech sector, Majority’s impressive ARR milestone, and more!  To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here.  The big story Last week, we

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Can blockchain make weather forecasts better? WeatherXM thinks so

Startups /

Accurate weather forecasts are critical to industries like agriculture, and they’re also important to help prevent and mitigate harm from inclement weather events or natural disasters. But getting forecasts right is extremely difficult. That’s why the founders of WeatherXM have been looking to make weather forecasts more accurate for the past 12 years. In 2012,

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VCs wanted FarmboxRx to become a meal kit, the company bootstrapped instead

Fundraising /

Some startups choose to bootstrap from the beginning while others find themselves forced into self funding by a lack of investor interest or a business model that doesn’t fit traditional VC. FarmboxRx decided to bootstrap because founder Ashley Tyrner didn’t like the advice she was getting from potential backers. Tyrner told TechCrunch’s Found podcast that

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a16z’s American Dynamism team launches program to introduce technical minds to VC

Venture /

Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund has established a new fellowship program aimed at introducing top engineers and technologists to venture investing, a move that could help the firm identify less obvious sources for VC talent.  The American Dynamism fund launched in 2023 with the broad aim of supporting companies building in the nation’s interest across

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