AI coding startup Cursor is nearing new funding in which the four-year-old company would raise at least $2 billion in fresh capital, according to four sources familiar with the matter. Returning investors Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz are expected to lead the financing at a $50 billion valuation, prior to the …

Slash Financial, which offers business banking accounts, corporate credit cards, transfers, and crypto, has raised a $100 million Series C round at a $1. 4 billion valuation from a crowd of A-list investors, the company announced. Fintech-focused Ribbit Capital, Khosla, and Goodwater Capital led the round. Returning investors NEA and …

For a successful deep tech startup, the laboratory breakthrough is only the first step. To spin out an innovative technology into a scalable business, a founder has to navigate a complicated legal process. This week on Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen speaks with Capella Kerst, founder and CEO of geCKo Materials …

AI infrastructure company Upscale AI is reportedly in talks to nab its third funding round since launching just seven months ago, according to Bloomberg. This latest round — which aims to raise around $180 million to $200 million — would value the company at about $2 billion. The company announced …

AI video generation startup Luma has launched Innovative Dreams, a production company built in partnership with Wonder Project, a streaming service that produces religious films and TV on Amazon Prime. The tie-up’s first show will be called “The Old Stories: Moses,” starring British actor Ben Kingsley and set to launch …

More than three years after the emergence of generative AI, AI-assisted coding remains by far the most popular and lucrative use case for the technology. Although multiple companies — including Anthropic, maker of Claude Code, as well as Cursor and Cognition — are already vying for dominance, investors believe there …

When Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Aloe Blacc got COVID despite being vaccinated and boosted, he tried to fund research for a better solution. What he quickly found out? You can’t just write a check in biotech. Regulators require a commercialization plan, and philanthropy doesn’t move science through clinical trials or get you …

Airwallex, the Australian fintech that has spent a decade quietly building global payments infrastructure, is moving into in-person payments. The move deepens its rivalry with Stripe across the payments stack, and enables the startup to directly aim at Square and Adyen on one of the last major battlegrounds in financial …

Historically, marketers relied on designers and other creative professionals to develop images and videos for personalized online ad campaigns. In late 2024, seven-year-old startup Hightouch launched an AI-powered service that allows marketing professionals to create custom content for brands such as Domino’s, Chime, PetSmart, and Spotify without involving brand design …

The first StrictlyVC of the year will be coming to San Francisco before you know it! There are still a few tickets available to join us and our stacked speaker lineup April 30, at the Sentro Filipino Cultural Center. On top of the mixing and mingling with the community StrictlyVC …