Fundraising

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024: Full Disrupt Stage Schedule

Get ready for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, our signature event for startups of all stages, taking place at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28-30. This year, we’re expecting a massive turnout of 10,000+ leaders from the startup, VC, and…

Sequoia Funds Pydantic for Expansion Beyond Data Validation Framework

A U.K.-based, open-source startup is launching its first commercial product with the backing of one of Silicon Valley’s most renowned venture capital firms. Pydantic on Monday launched an observability platform called Logfire, five months after trialing it in open beta,…

11x.ai Raises $50M Series B Funding Led by A16Z

11x.ai, a startup that develops AI-powered sales development bots, has secured roughly $50 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned. The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at around $350 million, multiple sources told TechCrunch.…

Top 9 Standout Startups from YC Demo Day 2

Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator held the second Demo Day for its Summer 2024 cohort on Thursday, and just like we saw on Day 1, AI is the focus of most startups in this cohort. However, we did also find…

Revolutionary Emergency Response Startup Raises $27M

A company that claims its tech can “revolutionize” emergency calls has raised $27 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company, Prepared, enables 911 dispatchers to get a caller’s real-time GPS location if their phone supports…

Top 13 Standout Companies from YC Demo Day 1

Famed Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator on Wednesday kicked off its two-day “Demo Day” event that showcases what the most recent YC batch, S24, companies are building. Unsurprisingly, AI companies dominated the day, with startups looking to apply the…

Automating Cybersecurity Workflows: Torq Secures $70M Funding

As the volume of cyberattacks grows, there’s increasing interest from the corporate sector in tech to help automate responses to breaches. Per a 2023 survey from analytics firm Devo, 80% of security leaders expected expanded investments in security automation technology this year;…

Introducing Letta: UC Berkeley’s Newest AI Startup in Action

A startup called Letta has just emerged from stealth with tech that helps AI models remember users and conversations. Created in UC Berkeley’s famed labs startup factory, it also announced $10 million in seed money led by Felicis’ Astasia Myers,…

Brightband’s Open Source AI-Driven Weather Forecasting

With an explosion of weather and climate data that the last generation of tools can’t handle, is AI the future of forecasting? Research certainly suggests so, and a newly funded startup called Brightband is taking a shot at turning machine…

Fal.ai Raises $23M in Funding for Media-Generating AI Models

Fal.ai, a dev-focused platform for AI-generated audio, video, and images, today revealed that it’s raised $23 million in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Black Forest Labs co-founder Robin Rombach, and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. It’s a two-round deal:…