Y Combinator

After causing outrage on the first day of Y Combinator, AI code editor PearAI lands $1M seed

On the first day of Y Combinator’s winter 2024 session — right after orientation and a photo in front of the YC sign — the founders of PearAI got “canceled,” as founder Nang Ang described it to TechCrunch, receiving an outpouring of online hate. But they survived and graduated the YC’s winter 2024 cohort earlier this […]

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200 VCs wanted to get into Lumen Orbit’s $11M seed round

Lumen Orbit, a startup looking to build data centers in space, was able to close its recent seed round in mere days amid intense investor interest. The Redmond, Washington-based company closed on a $11 million seed round at a $40 million valuation, confirming prior TechCrunch reporting that the company had raised a competitive double-digit round

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As YC retreats from Africa, alumni launch accelerators to fill the gap

The influential accelerator Y Combinator made a splash in Africa in 2020 when it shined its light on the market and began to accept startups from the region into its cohorts. The move was huge: in this nascent market, startups especially rely on programs like these to find their feet and connect with investors, and

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The four startups from YC’s Fall batch that enterprises should pay attention to

Notable Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator held a Demo Day for its inaugural Fall cohort this week. The 95 startups in this latest batch looked quite similar to recent YC cohorts in the sense that it includes many AI startups. If I did my math right, 87% of the startups in this batch are

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YC-backed Circleback is out to become the best meeting notetaker

As the number of startups offering speech-to-text services is increasing, meeting transcripts are becoming a common offering. There are plenty of tools that offer AI assistants that either join the meeting or capture your system’s audio to transcribe and summarize your meetings. Y Combinator-backed Circleback wants to differentiate itself by providing detailed notes and action

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Y Combinator often backs startups that duplicate other YC companies, data shows — it’s not just AI code editors

The Silicon Valley dream is to build a tech startup that is such a unique idea it alters the commercial universe and turns its founders into billionaires. Participating in the Valley’s most famed startup factory, Y Combinator, is often part of that dream. Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe all got started there. Yet, a deep dive

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YC startup Pharos lands a $5M seed led by Felicis to bring AI to hospital quality reporting

Medical and administrative staff are increasingly overwhelmed with piles of paperwork they have to fill out every day. Dozens, if not hundreds, of startups, are seeing opportunities to make those bureaucratic processes less burdensome with the help of generative AI. These companies are building AI medical scribes, platforms for pre-authorizing health insurance payments, and products

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Lumen Orbit closed one of the biggest rounds from Y Combinator’s last cohort

Lumen Orbit has closed an oversubscribed, eight-figure seed round of more than $10 million, a source familiar with the details told TechCrunch. That would make it one of the hottest deals, if not the hottest deal, of the most recent Y Combinator batch. The Redmond, Washington-based startup is pursuing a moonshot idea to build a

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From Elon Musk to cop car chases, how a software engineer launched a police AI startup

Earlier this year, Abel founder Daniel Francis was going 135 miles per hour down a highway in Oakland, California. The driver, a police officer, had a gun in his lap.   Francis has made a habit of riding shotgun with policemen in the name of research for his company, which creates AI to fill out police

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