Fundraising | TechCrunch

Self-driving truck startup Aurora Innovation to sell up to $420M in shares ahead of commercial launch

Rebecca Bellan — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 14:32:00 +0000

Self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation is looking to raise hundreds of millions in additional capital as it races toward a driverless commercial launch by the end of 2024. Aurora is pursuing a driver-as-a-service model, wherein carriers purchase trucks with the Aurora Driver tech on board and then offer their services via those trucks to shippers. […]

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.

Heeyo built an AI chatbot to be a billion kids’ interactive tutor and friend

Rebecca Bellan — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 16:00:00 +0000

When Xiaoyin Qu was growing up in China, she was obsessed with learning how to build paper airplanes that could do flips in the air. Her parents, though, didn’t have the aerodynamic expertise to support her newfound passion, and her teachers were too overwhelmed to give her dedicated attention. “That’s why I wanted to build […]

Healx, an AI-enabled drug discovery platform for rare diseases, raises $47M

Paul Sawers — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 11:00:00 +0000

The company also said it has received regulatory clearance to start Phase 2 clinical trials for a new drug in the U.S. later this year.

Global startup funding is picking up with AI still in the spotlight

Mary Ann Azevedo — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 14:10:00 +0000

Global startup funding was up 16% in the second quarter, according to Crunchbase data, led by an uptick in mega-rounds. That increase was led, unsurprisingly, by the AI sector. Funding to companies in AI made up 30% of all dollars invested and actually doubled quarter over quarter to $24 billion. On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s […]

Checkly tests software by mimicking the way people use it

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Checkly helps devs get signals about an app's performance and downtime, offering a set of subscription-based synthetic monitoring tools.

Lineaje raises $20M to help organizations combat software supply chain threats

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 23:35:51 +0000

The software supply chain faces threats from all sides. A 2024 report by the Ponemon Institute found that over half of organizations have experienced a software supply chain attack, with 54% having experienced one within the past year. Supply chain attacks typically target services from third-party vendors or open source software that make up a […]

Friend’s $99 necklace uses AI to help combat loneliness

Ivan Mehta — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:00:00 +0000

AI hardware is all the rage in startup land — though receptions have thus far been mixed. Two notable examples, Rabbit and Humane, released devices to disappointing results. a16z-backed Limitless and Exor-backed Bee AI, meanwhile, are working on their own screenless AI wearables. Avi Schiffmann, a Harvard dropout who built a Webby Award-winning website that […]

FranShares has a new approach to passive income, letting people invest in franchises for as little as $500

Mary Ann Azevedo — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 15:00:00 +0000

Historically, passive income has been associated with investing in real estate such as rental properties. FranShares is a Chicago-based startup that wants to offer investors another form of passive income: the chance to invest in franchises for as little as $500. For the unacquainted, a franchisor is a party that owns and licenses a franchise […]

Moxxie Ventures, led by ex-Twitter media head, raises $95M third fund

Marina Temkin — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 15:00:00 +0000

The fundraising environment is challenging for emerging managers, defined as VC firms raising their first through third time. But Katie Jacobs Stanton, a former head of media at Twitter who founded Moxxie Ventures in 2019, said that she had a much easier time than she was expecting when raising funds for her third time. Moxxie, […]

Fertility tracking app Flo Health raises $200M at a $1B+ valuation

Ingrid Lunden — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:47:42 +0000

Women’s health tech, which leverages innovations in AI, smartphones and connected wearables to give women more insights into reproductive and menstrual health, continues to gain momentum with users, and investors are following. London-based Flo Health, a fertility-focused period-tracking app, on Tuesday said it has raised a $200 million Series C from General Atlantic. The funding […]

Bill Gates-backed Type One Energy lands massive seed extension to commercialize fusion power

Tim De Chant — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

The startup is betting it can bring its fusion technology to market at a breakneck pace by leaning heavily on partners.

Packing travel insurance products into an app helped Faye to a $31M Series B

Mike Butcher — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

We’ve been covering U.S.-based insurtech startup Faye way back since 2022 with its seed round, and the Series A round in 2023, and it seems they continue to be on a roll, today announcing a $31 million in Series B funding. What is keeping this online insurance company on the rise? Well, it would appear […]

Zoe, a microbiome-focused nutrition company, raises $15M to expand in the US

Christine Hall — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Zoe sends customers at-home testing materials to collect blood or feces to test blood fat, blood sugar, and gut microbiome health. Following those results, the company scores every food (on a scale from 0 to 100), so people can make better choices of what to eat.

Canva acquires Leonardo.ai to boost its generative AI efforts

Kyle Wiggers — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 05:00:14 +0000

Canva has acquired Leonardo.ai, a generative AI content and research startup, as the company looks to broaden the scope of its AI tech stack. The financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams said it’s a mix of cash and stock. All of Leonardo.ai’s 120 employees will […]

Bee raises $7M for its wearable AI assistant that learns from your conversations

Ivan Mehta — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:10:00 +0000

The promise of AI and large language models (LLMs) is the ability to understand increasingly wider amounts of context and make sense of that information easily, so it makes sense that we’re seeing a bunch of companies trying to make wearable hardware so that people can use AI in their day-to-day lives. The latest entrant […]

India’s Rapido becomes a unicorn with fresh $120M funding

Manish Singh — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 14:21:47 +0000

Bike-taxi startup Rapido, which counts Swiggy among its investors, is the latest Indian firm to become a unicorn.

ZeroTier raises $13.5M to help avert CrowdStrike-like network problems

Mike Butcher — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 11:26:31 +0000

With the CrowdStrike update continuing to cause havoc across the planet, a startup has raised $13.5 million to at least improve some level of security for the kinds of devices that have been affected. California-based ZeroTier raised the Series A in a funding round led by Battery Ventures. While legacy companies like Cisco or Palo […]

Archera helps customers access deep cloud discounts

Kyle Wiggers — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:49:40 +0000

In addition to insured commitments, Archera provides consulting services to help build purchasing strategies for customers to optimize their cloud usage.

GM-backed Addionics aims to make lithium-ion batteries cheaper with wavy foil

Tim De Chant — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 11:00:00 +0000

The startup has developed a way to create copper and aluminum foils that are laced with tiny holes and riddled with undulating peaks and valleys.