Tim Cook plans to step down from his CEO role in September, handing the reins to hardware chief John Ternus. Ternus may be inheriting one of the most durable businesses in tech, but he’s also stepping into a very different ecosystemthan the one Cook spent decades shaping. The App Store’s …

Surprise! StrictlyVC San Francisco, which will kick off this year’s events lineup for TechCrunch on April 30 at the Sentro Filipino Cultural Center, is getting a new addition to its increasingly stacked roster of speakers. Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga will join us to discuss, you guessed it, operating at …

ComfyUI, a startup that helps creators control image, video, and audio outputs from diffusion models with a node-based workflow, has raised a $30 million funding round at a $500 million valuation. The round was led by Craft Ventures, with participation from other investors including Pace Capital, Chemistry, and TruArrow. ComfyUI …

StrictlyVC’s first San Francisco event of the year is nearly here, and with just a week to go, now’s the time to grab yourself a ticket. The venture and founder communities will be gathering at the Sentro Filipino Cultural Center on April 30 for an evening packed with what StrictlyVC …

Sierra, the customer service agent startup founded by Bret Taylor, announced on Thursday that it has acquired the YC-backed French startup Fragment, which helps businesses integrate AI into workflows. This is Sierra’s third public acquisition. It previously bought Japan-based enterprise AI solutions company Opera Tech (which it acquired in late …

Bob Iger is returning to Thrive Capital as an advisor, just one month after stepping down as CEO of Disney, a role he held for nearly two decades. Iger previously served a two-month stint as a venture partner at the firm in late 2022, but left when the Disney board …

In a recent episode of “No Priors” — the excellent podcast co-hosted by AI investors Sarah Guo and Elad Gil — Gil made a point about exit timing that’s undoubtedly familiar to founders who’ve spent time with him but seems particularly useful in this moment of go-go dealmaking. For most …

Longtime venture capitalist Ron Conway said Friday that he was “recently diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. ” In a post on X, Conway wrote that he “will be stepping back from some of my usual activities,” but he will “continue to support” founders backed by his firm SV …

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 …

Few venture firms have bet more aggressively on AI than Sequoia Capital, and it isn’t slowing down. The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised roughly $7 billion for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Sequoia declined TechCrunch’s request for comment. The money will go toward what the firm calls its “expansion …