Latest from Rebecca Szkutak
AI
Cohere co-founder Nick Frosst thinks everyone needs to be more realistic about what AI can and cannot do
AI companies are gobbling up investor money and securing sky-high valuations early in their life cycle. This dynamic has many calling the AI industry a bubble. Nick Frosst, a co-founder…
Startups
From Skims to Stripe, here are the startups that are likely — or definitely — not having IPOs this year
Last year’s investor dreams of a strong 2024 IPO pipeline have faded, if not fully disappeared, as we settle in to the second half of the year. This year delivered…
When Nick Frosst was in college over a decade ago, he was worried he was a little late to the AI game. Frosst, a co-founder…
COVID-19 pushed people to take up outdoor activities. Now, startups are helping companies and consumers keep up with demand.
Venture
How filming a cappella concerts and dance recitals led Northzone’s newest partner Molly Alter to a career in VC
Molly Alter wears a lot of hats. She’s a mocumentary filmmaker working on a project about an alternate reality where charades is big business. She’s a caesar salad connoisseur and…
The San Jose-based startup raised $60 million in a round that values it lower than the $500 million valuation it garnered in its most recent round, according to multiple sources.
Farms produce a lot of data. From machines to irrigation systems, farms generate a lot of information that could be helpful to both them and the companies that serve them.…
The popularity of refurbishing technology has only increased these past few years and with it, the understanding of how important sustainability is in the industry. …
Government websites aren’t known for cutting-edge tech. GovWell co-founder and CTO Ben Cohen discovered this while trying to help his dad, a contractor, apply for building permits. Cohen worked as…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with some significant fundraises, a potentially…
Farmers have got to do something about pests. But nobody really likes the idea of using more chemical pesticides. Thomas Laurent’s company, Micropep, thinks the answer might already be in…
After hearing that a U.S. Navy submarine ran into an underwater mountain, Joe Wolfel was surprised to find out just how little both government and…
TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
Andy Dunn talks the importance of founder mental health at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
Hustle culture is embedded into the Silicon Valley startup ethos, but the expectation to grind all the time can be detrimental to a founder’s mental health. We’re pleased to welcome…
Nathan Rosenberg, the founder of farm automation platform Farmblox, said if there is one thing to know about trying to sell technology to farmers, it’s that you can’t tell them…
Startups
17-year-old Eric Zhu’s startup was built in a high school bathroom — now it’s raised $2.3M and is emerging from stealth
Eric Zhu started building Aviato, an analytical platform for private market data, in a very atypical place for an entrepreneur: the bathroom in his Carmel, Indiana, high school. Now the 17-year-old’s…
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for $23 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. TechCrunch’s sources heard similar and…
When Tade Oyerinde first set out to fundraise for his startup, Campus, a fully accredited online community college, it was incredibly difficult. VCs have backed for-profit education companies in the…
When Jaclyn Rice Nelson and Noah Gale launched AI talent and services company Tribe AI in 2019, they had to convince companies that having an AI strategy mattered. After the…
Community colleges aren’t immune from the current reckoning higher education is facing. Student enrollment is declining while institutions keep raising tuition prices, which can prevent…
In the first half of 2024 alone, more than $35.5 billion was invested into AI startups globally.
When Keith Rabois announced he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures in January, it came as a shock to many in the venture capital ecosystem — and…
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust musings, AI and…
Since AI started its historic rise in prominence in 2022, the conversations around how the industry could be regulated have swelled at a similar rate.…
On today’s episode of Equity, we’re taking a look at news you might’ve missed over the holiday weekend here in the U.S., starting with the…
Climate
Sensorita uses digital twins to help waste management companies streamline construction waste
The amount of waste produced by the construction industry adds up to more than a third of the overall waste produced each year in the European Union. And it’s no…
Identity.vc writes checks that range from €250,000 to €1.5 million into companies from the pre-seed to Series A stages.
When Ironspring Ventures launched in 2020 to back startups in industrial sectors like construction and manufacturing, it was one of very few early-stage venture firms paying attention to those capital-intensive…
When Paul Hedrick left his private equity career to launch Tecovas in 2015, he knew he wanted to sell the brand’s signature cowboy boots a…
Ashley Beckwith spent years of her academic and professional career focused on the intersection of biology, materials and manufacturing to build medical solutions more efficiently. When she realized the tech…
When former YouTube product manager Kevin Xu, known as “Sir Jack A Lot” on Reddit, turned $35,000 into $8 million trading stocks between 2020 and 2022, many people thought his…
