Christine Hall, Author at TechCrunch

Who cut the plant-based cheese? Plonts did with microbes, and it’s stinky

Christine Hall — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:05:00 +0000

Plonts’ cheese is made from soybeans, one of the most efficient ways to grow protein. Soybeans themselves are not very flavorful, and that is where fermentation and aging, help Plonts to create flavor versus using natural flavors.

Even after $1.6B in VC money, the lab-grown meat industry is facing ‘massive’ issues

Christine Hall — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Any goal that puts cultivated meat in big box grocery stores or on fast food menus in the 2020s is “unrealistic,” according to experts.

Siddhi Capital grabs $135M for Fund II to invest in consumer packaged goods startups

Christine Hall — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 13:05:00 +0000

Siddhi Capital's second fund of $135 million is double the size of the venture capital firm's first fund and will go into CPG and food tech startups.

Zoe, a microbiome-focused nutrition company, raises $15M to expand in the US

Christine Hall — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Zoe sends customers at-home testing materials to collect blood or feces to test blood fat, blood sugar, and gut microbiome health. Following those results, the company scores every food (on a scale from 0 to 100), so people can make better choices of what to eat.

Digital banking startup Mercury abruptly shuttered service for startups in Ukraine, Nigeria, other countries

Christine Hall, Mary Ann Azevedo, Tage Kene-Okafor — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 17:19:53 +0000

Digital banking startup Mercury informed some founders that it is no longer serving customers in certain countries, including Ukraine.

Fintech Fragment eases ledger problems, nabs $9M from Jack Altman, BoxGroup, others

Christine Hall — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Fragment's digital ledger API applies real-time, double entry accounting to find where things aren’t adding up.

How a B2B payments startup won Max, Jack and Sam Altman, JP Morgan as investors

Christine Hall — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 21:09:37 +0000

Slope's founders both have a background in AI, so large language models power the company’s underwriting infrastructure.

Astor’s ‘community’ approach to financial advice aims to help women feel more confident about investing

Christine Hall — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Astor is a free personal finance platform for women that merges community and investing in an approachable way, came to be.

Alma co-founder had such a bad immigration experience she founded a legal AI startup to fix it

Christine Hall — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:44:36 +0000

Alma aims to simplify the visa process for technologists, founders and researchers by providing personal legal advisors.

Marc Andreessen, Sequoia again back Kearny Jackson, this time in $65M Fund III

Christine Hall — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:44:52 +0000

After securing $14 million for its second fund in 2023, early-stage VC firm Kearny Jackson is back with a third fund.

From Facebook to the face of crypto: Inside Anthony Pompliano’s wild career

Christine Hall, Mary Ann Azevedo — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:01:00 +0000

He’s known by a single-syllable name: Pomp. But his story is of an unconventional rise to success that almost ended two years after it began.

Seed VCs are turning to new ‘pro rata’ funds that help them compete with the big firms

Christine Hall — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 21:00:00 +0000

Three companies with new funds deploy capital to support seed and Series A VCs looking to exercise their pro rata rights.

Why deep tech VC Driving Forces is shutting down

Christine Hall — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 18:23:43 +0000

With increasing competition for what is, essentially, still a small number of hard tech and deep tech deals, Sidney Scott realized it would be a challenge for smaller funds like his.

Husband-and-wife former Olympians target $50M for new fund to invest in influencer-led consumer brands

Christine Hall — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Samyr Laine and Ayanna Alexander-Laine now put their grit and determination to work for founders wanting to launch and scale consumer brands.

Here are the hottest product announcements from Apple, Google, Microsoft and others so far in 2024

Christine Hall — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

We’ve poked through the many product announcements made by the biggest tech companies and product trade shows of the year, so far, and compiled them into this list.

General Catalyst leads $40M round for Local Kitchens, a different kind of restaurant kitchen startup

Christine Hall — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:30:00 +0000

Don't call this company a "ghost kitchen." Since its Series A in 2021, Local Kitchens grew 5x and achieved unit-level profitability.

Zal Bilimoria just raised a $50M fourth Refactor Capital fund, and still relishes his solo GP status

Christine Hall — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Being a solo GP hasn’t slowed Bilimoria a bit. He went on to raise three additional funds and has now closed a new fund to invest in biotech, climate and hard tech startups.

Plant-based ‘meat’ startup Tender has already nabbed a fast-food chain contract, and another $11M

Christine Hall — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Its technology involves spinning plant protein fibers, including soy proteins, similar to the way cotton candy is made, to create structured cuts of meat.

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, including Apple Intelligence, Siri makeover

Christine Hall — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 19:00:00 +0000

The TechCrunch team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Insight Partners backs Canary Technologies’ mission to elevate hotel guest experiences

Christine Hall — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:41:30 +0000

The hotel guest management technology company’s platform digitizes the hotel guest journey from post-booking through checkout.