Fundraising | TechCrunch

E-fuels startup Aether Fuels is raising $34.3 million, per filing

Tim De Chant — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 18:31:31 +0000

The e-fuels startup is working on producing fuel for aviation and maritime shipping using carbon dioxide and other waste carbon streams.

OpenAI buys Rockset to bolster its enterprise AI

Kyle Wiggers — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 15:55:15 +0000

The Rockset buy fits into OpenAI's broader recent strategy of investing heavily in its enterprise sales and tech orgs.

Kevin Hartz’s A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years

Rebecca Szkutak — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the fundraising market’s frost the most, some emerging VCs like A* have enough name recognition, and a good enough track record, to still find success. A*, […]

Language learning app Speak nets $20M, doubles valuation

Kyle Wiggers — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 04:48:19 +0000

Speak, the AI-powered language learning app, has raised new money from investors at double its previous valuation.

Poolside is raising $400M+ at a $2B valuation to build a supercharged coding co-pilot

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 18:30:58 +0000

Paris has quickly established itself as a major European center for AI startups, and now another big deal is in the works.

Labor shortages are still fueling growth at automation firms like GrayMatter

Brian Heater — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 16:18:11 +0000

GrayMatter self-reports that its systems currently produce “a 2~4x improvement in production line productivity [and a] 30% or more reduction in consumable waste.”

PayPal Ventures leads $20M round into Gynger, which offers companies ‘buy now, pay later’ for technology purchases

Mary Ann Azevedo — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Gynger, a platform that lends capital to companies for technology purchases, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures, it told TechCrunch exclusively. The financing brings the New York-based startup’s total venture capital raised to $31.7 million and included participation from Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused venture fund), Velvet Sea Ventures, […]

Semperis, a specialist in Active Directory security now worth more than $1B, raises $125M

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:33:06 +0000

Active Directory, the Microsoft directory service for connecting users with network resources, is used by more than 90% of all Fortune 1000 companies and many more besides. So it’s no surprise that it’s a giant target for malicious hackers. That also means a lot of attention for the security companies that are building tools to […]

Daydream rakes in $50M seed funding to build an AI-powered search engine suited for e-commerce

Ivan Mehta — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Online shopping trends are expected to stay strong this year, but e-commerce is more fragmented than ever. With brands selling on so many platforms — from TikTok Shop, to established marketplaces, live shopping and owned channels — you’d think it would have become easy for shoppers to find what they’re looking for. But that’s not […]

PQShield secures $37M more for ‘quantum resistant’ cryptography

Ingrid Lunden — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 07:22:15 +0000

Malicious hacking is getting increasingly sophisticated, and that’s leading to a very clear trend in security technology. To keep people and organizations safe, security also has to continue improving. Security startup PQShield has gotten an early start on that concept with a focus on “post-quantum” cryptography: Software and hardware solutions that, in theory, are future-proofed, […]

France leads the pack for generative AI funding in Europe

Ingrid Lunden — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 23:43:17 +0000

Like it or hate it, artificial intelligence — especially generative AI — is the technology story of 2024. OpenAI, with its rollouts of viral services like ChatGPT and billions in funding, may have gobbled up the lion’s share of attention and money so far. But according to a new report out from top VC Accel […]

Internal SpaceX documents show the sweet stock deals offered to investors like a16z, Gigafund

Julie Bort, Aria Alamalhodaei — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 18:11:41 +0000

Like many highly valued startups, SpaceX sometimes allows its employees to cash out some of their shares by selling to company-authorized outside investors. TechCrunch has gotten a peek at an internal SpaceX document about such a tender offer from May 2022. Musk posted on X last month that SpaceX holds such sales for employees about […]

Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it

Tim De Chant — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 04:01:00 +0000

Cheap irrigation has transformed many regions around the world into breadbaskets, but it also means that there can be little left for other uses.

Genspark is the latest attempt at an AI-powered search engine

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Genspark taps generative AI to write custom summaries in response to search queries.

Decagon claims its customer service bots are smarter than average

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 14:03:00 +0000

Decagon is a generative AI platform that automates various aspects of customer support channels.

SurrealDB is helping developers consolidate their databases

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

SurrealDB, a startup developing a database architecture of the same name, has closed a new round of funding as it readies a managed service.

Loop Golf looks to take the stress out of booking a tee time

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:42:04 +0000

Golf has exploded in popularity in recent years thanks to the pandemic and the popularity of Netflix’s Full Swing documentary series. More than 531 million rounds of golf were played in the U.S. in 2023 alone, according to the National Golf Foundation. Because of this surge in interest, golfers are finding that nabbing a tee […]

Bitsensing raises $25M for its high-resolution radar in autonomous driving

Kate Park — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:22:41 +0000

Self-driving vehicles rely on many sensors to detect objects and the world around them. The conventional approach is to work with cameras and lidars. But some tech companies and startups have built advanced high-resolution radar technology for autonomous vehicles, also known as 4D imaging radar. Among them is a South Korea-based startup called bitsensing. The […]

Dandelion co-founder is back to help you electrify your home for less

Tim De Chant — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Balto Energy hopes to speed the electrification by helping homeowners choose and finance the projects that make the most sense for them.

SewerAI uses AI to spot defects in sewer pipes

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:00:00 +0000

SewerAI sells cloud-based, AI-powered subscription products designed to streamline field inspections and data management of sewer infrastructure.