Rebecca Szkutak, Author at TechCrunch

How filming a cappella concerts and dance recitals led Northzone’s newest partner Molly Alter to a career in VC

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 19:03:39 +0000

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 documents her rankings of different restaurants’ attempts on a blog called JULIUS. She’s also Northzone’s newest partner. Alter’s path to venture capital was not an […]

Sequoia-backed Knowde raises Series C at a valuation cut

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 17:03:56 +0000

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.

Leaf helps farms decipher the troves of data they generate

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 13:03:34 +0000

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. Traditionally this data has been siloed across different formats, making it hard to read and build off of. Leaf is trying to change that. New […]

GovWell is bringing automation and efficiency to local governments

Rebecca Szkutak — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 13:01:04 +0000

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 a full stack engineer at Uber during the day and faxed documents for building permits at night. The difference in tech was stark. Years later, […]

Micropep taps tiny proteins to make pesticides safer

Tim De Chant, Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 13:00:21 +0000

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 the plants themselves. Micropep is exploring how naturally occurring compounds known as micropeptides might work as an entirely new class of pesticides. If the startup […]

Andy Dunn talks the importance of founder mental health at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 15:00:00 +0000

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 Bonobos co-founder and former CEO Andy Dunn to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 for a fireside chat to discuss how founders can live up to the VC […]

Farmblox puts the control into farmers’ hands with its AI-powered sensor-reading platform

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:11:03 +0000

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 what to do. “[Farmers] are multigenerational,” Rosenberg told TechCrunch. “It is not a profession, it’s more a community, a way of life, and you need […]

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

Rebecca Szkutak — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 17:55:00 +0000

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 startup is emerging from stealth with $2.3 million in venture funding. Aviato tracks funding rounds and headcount, similar to competitors like Crunchbase and PitchBook, as […]

Unpacking how Alphabet’s rumored Wiz acquisition could affect VC

Rebecca Szkutak — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 18:00:00 +0000

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 added that deal discussions could last into next week. If this deal does end up getting done, it would be Alphabet’s largest acquisition yet. It […]

Why it made sense for an online community college to raise venture capital

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 19:27:43 +0000

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 past, including Coursera and Udacity, but backing a more traditional two-year college is different. Plus, he was looking for funds a few years ago when […]

Tribe AI raised venture capital to keep up with demand after six years of bootstrapping

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 16:02:53 +0000

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 release of ChatGPT in 2022 and the AI mania it ushered in, the startup has experienced a “massive boom” in demand, Gale told TechCrunch. Rice […]

Here’s the full list of 28 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024

Rebecca Szkutak — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 19:00:00 +0000

In the first half of 2024 alone, more than $35.5 billion was invested into AI startups globally.

From Ethan Choi to Spencer Peterson, venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs

Rebecca Szkutak — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 17:20:00 +0000

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 not just because Rabois is a big name in the industry. It was surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move […]

Sensorita uses digital twins to help waste management companies streamline construction waste

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

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 better in the U.S. Stateside, the construction industry produces more than double the waste that households do each year. Sensorita wants to help the construction […]

Identity.vc is bringing capital and community to Europe’s LGBTQ+ venture ecosystem

Rebecca Szkutak — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 19:00:00 +0000

Identity.vc writes checks that range from €250,000 to €1.5 million into companies from the pre-seed to Series A stages.

Austin-based Ironspring Ventures raised $100M to invest in the industrial revolution

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

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 sectors. Now, the firm is doubling down. The Austin, Texas-based firm raised $100 million for its second fund to focus on industrial startups. This is […]

Foray Bioscience is breaking down the barriers of bringing biomanufacturing to plants

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:03:01 +0000

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 could be applied to plants and plant-based materials, an area that desperately needed it, she decided to switch gears. “Life on earth is only as […]

Deal Dive: Sir Jack A Lot returns with a startup for retail traders

Rebecca Szkutak — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:11:13 +0000

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 fortunes, and his way of investing, had peaked, just like 2021’s memestock craze had. Xu doesn’t agree, though, and he’s now building a startup for […]

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*, […]

Materia looks to make accountants more efficient with AI

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:06:39 +0000

The U.S. is facing an accountant shortage. Fewer first-time candidates took the CPA exam in 2022 than in 2006, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. One possible reason people aren’t as interested in the field is the large amount of drudge work involved: Accountants have to rifle through large amounts of unstructured […]