Marina Temkin, Author at TechCrunch

Khosla-backed Marble, built by former Headway founders, offers affordable group therapy for teens

Marina Temkin — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 15:00:59 +0000

Rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are surging among U.S. teens. A recent report from the Center of Disease Control found that nearly one in three girls have seriously considered suicide, and a significant number, 13% have actually attempted it. Psychologists have various theories about what’s causing adolescent mental health crises. Some blame the […]

Ex-HubSpot exec builds an AI-powered CRM that learns for you, with $4M seed led by Sequoia

Marina Temkin — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Christopher O’Donnell has hobbies. He likes music and playing guitar, but above all, he loves building software. Which is why three years after leaving HubSpot, he built Day.ai, a CRM for the age of AI. Unlike modern CRMs, which are essentially giant spreadsheets that somebody needs to populate and keep updated, Day learns everything about […]

How Abridge became one of the most talked about healthcare AI startups

Marina Temkin — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 04:08:20 +0000

Ask any of the health-focused VCs to name one of the top AI startups and one name comes up over and over again: a company based in Pittsburgh called Abridge. And it’s a startup that launched before OpenAI was a household name and large language models (LLMs) entered the common Valley vocabulary. In 2019, Shiv […]

Tempus rises 9% on the first day of trading, demonstrating investor appetite for a health tech with a promise of AI

Marina Temkin — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 19:29:26 +0000

Tempus, a genomic testing and data analysis company started by Eric Lefkofsky, who previously founded Groupon, debuted on Nasdaq on Friday, rising about 15% on the opening. The company priced its IPO on Thursday at $37 apiece, at the top of its $35 to $37 price range, raising nearly $411 million at a fully diluted […]

Enveda raises $55M to combine ancient remedies with AI for drug discovery

Marina Temkin — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

For centuries, people chewed willow tree bark to relieve pain, but scientists at chemical firm Bayer didn’t isolate its active ingredient until the 1800s and eventually patented its modified version as Aspirin. Aspirin is just one example of a medicine derived from natural sources. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that around 40% of […]

Foresite Capital raises $900M sixth fund for investing in life sciences companies

Marina Temkin — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Venture fundraising has been a slog over the last few years, even for firms with a strong track record. That’s Foresite Capital’s experience. Despite having 47 IPOs, 28 M&As and 58 FDA-approved drugs under its belt, the 13-year-old multi-stage healthcare and life sciences firm took two years to raise its sixth fund. “Almost all of […]

Friends & Family Capital, a fund founded by ex-Palantir CFO and son of IVP’s founder, unveils third $118M fund

Marina Temkin — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Small VC firms require deep trust, mutual support and long-term commitment among the partners — a kinship that, in many ways, resembles a family dynamic. Colin Anderson (Palantir’s ex-CFO and former research VP at Peter Thiel’s Clarium Capital) and John Fogelsong (the son of IVP co-founder Norm Fogelsong) didn’t need to cultivate a family-like relationship […]

Anterior grabs $20M from NEA to expedite health insurance approvals with AI

Marina Temkin — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 21:03:40 +0000

Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by NEA, according to two people familiar with the deal. Existing investors Sequoia, which led Anterior’s $3.2 million seed round last September, and Neo, an accelerator […]

Eyebot raised $6M for AI-powered kiosks that provide 90-second vision exams without an on-site optometrist

Marina Temkin — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Over half of Americans wear corrective glasses or contact lenses. While there isn’t a shortage of low-cost and luxury frames available online or in stores, consumers can only buy them with a current eyeglass prescription. That means they first need a vision exam from an optometrist to receive that prescription. But due to a nationwide […]

Eko Health scores $41M to detect heart and lung disease earlier and more accurately

Marina Temkin — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 11:00:00 +0000

In 1816, French physician René Laennec invented an instrument that allowed doctors to listen to the heart and lungs. That device — a stethoscope — eventually evolved from a simple wooden tube to a lightweight two-earpiece version most doctors today wear around their necks. Eko Health, a startup founded in 2013, is bringing this ubiquitous […]

Sword Health raises $130M and its valuation soars to $3B

Marina Temkin — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

AI-powered virtual physical therapy platform Sword Health has seen its valuation soar 50% to $3 billion.

VCs are selling shares of hot AI companies like Anthropic and xAI to small investors in a wild SPV market

Marina Temkin — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 17:00:00 +0000

VCs are clamoring to invest in hot AI companies, and willing to pay exorbitant share prices for coveted spots on their cap tables. Even so, most aren’t able to get into such deals at all. Yet small, unknown investors, including family offices and high-net-worth individuals, have found their own way to get shares of the […]

General Catalyst-backed Jasper Health lays off staff

Marina Temkin, Amanda Silberling — Fri, 31 May 2024 23:10:44 +0000

Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.

Billionaire Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky is back with another IPO: AI health tech Tempus

Marina Temkin — Thu, 30 May 2024 21:34:54 +0000

Eric Lefkofsky knows the public listing rodeo well and is about to enter it for a fourth time. The serial entrepreneur, whose net worth is estimated at nearly $4 billion, has already taken three businesses he’s founded public. Today he’s the founder of Tempus, a genomic testing and data analysis company preparing to IPO. But […]

Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures raised a $300 million fund, half the size of its last one

Marina Temkin, Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 22 May 2024 19:45:35 +0000

The perception in Silicon Valley is that every investor would love to be in business with Peter Thiel. But the venture capital fundraising environment has become so difficult that even Valar Ventures, one of the VC firms he helped found, has raised a much smaller fund this year compared to previous ones. Thiel set up […]

SeekOut, a recruiting startup last valued at $1.2 billion, lays off 30% of its workforce

Marina Temkin — Mon, 20 May 2024 17:47:01 +0000

The company says it's refocusing and prioritizing fewer initiatives that will have the biggest impact on customers and add value to the business.

Agora raises $34M Series B to keep building the Carta for real estate

Marina Temkin — Thu, 16 May 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Since he was very young, Bar Mor knew that he would inevitably do something with real estate. His family was involved in all types of real estate projects, from ground-up construction to managing residential, commercial and retail properties. But unlike his parents, Mor also had a passion for technology. His interest in tech was reinforced […]

Dietitian startup Fay has been booming from Ozempic patients and emerges from stealth with $25M from General Catalyst, Forerunner

Marina Temkin — Wed, 15 May 2024 16:30:00 +0000

For years, Sammy Faycurry has been hearing from his registered dietitian (RD) mom and sister about how poorly many Americans eat and their struggles with delivering nutritional counseling. Although nearly half of all adults in the country are affected by chronic conditions linked to unhealthy diets, health plans have a limited number of in-network registered […]

David Sacks reveals Glue, the AI company he’s been teasing on his All In podcast

Marina Temkin — Tue, 14 May 2024 12:00:00 +0000

VC and podcaster David Sacks has revealed a new AI chat app called Glue that fixes "Slack channel fatigue," he says.

OpenAI Startup Fund raises additional $5M

Marina Temkin — Tue, 14 May 2024 00:24:59 +0000

The fresh funds were raised from two investors who transferred the capital into a special purpose vehicle, a legal entity associated with the OpenAI Startup Fund.