VCs love to chase after the hottest startups, but startups aren’t always interested in selling more shares. So it is with Anthropic, sources tell Bloomberg. VCs have been offering the OpenAI competitor a preemptive funding round that would value the company at $800 billion or more — almost matching, or …

Accel announced on Tuesday that it raised $5 billion in fresh capital to back late-stage companies. The venture firm told Bloomberg that $4 billion will go to its late-stage Leaders Fund, for which it hopes to cut at least 20 checks, averaging $200 million each. Accel is looking to invest …

Pillar, a platform that helps commodity-driven businesses (like those in metals, food, and airline companies) manage financial risk, announced Tuesday a $20 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Others in the seed round include Crucible Capital, Gallery Ventures, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The company has raised $23 million …

While many startups founded prior to the emergence of ChatGPT are struggling to position themselves for the AI era, Vercel, a 10-year-old dev tool and website hosting platform, is benefiting from the explosion of AI-generated apps and agents. “When I started this company, only tens of millions of people could …

SiFive, a company founded in 2015 by the UC Berkeley engineers who created an open source chip design, has landed a $400 million oversubscribed round that values the company at $3. This deal is interesting for a bunch of reasons. For one, SiFive’s RISC-V open chip design is based on …

Every founder who applies to Startup Battlefield wants the same thing: the Disrupt Main Stage. Six minutes to pitch and demo live, in front of top-tier Silicon Valley investors. A dedicated TechCrunch article published as you present. A shot at the $100,000 equity-free prize and the Disrupt Cup. Here’s how …

For decades, buying stock in a hot startup meant being allowed to invest in the funds run by the top VCs. But with the AI boom causing an investment frenzy, more family offices and private wealth are skipping the VC middlemen to get directly onto the cap table. “Companies are …

A new venture capital fund with deep ties to OpenAI has made its first close on its $100 million goal, the founders tell TechCrunch. The partners have already written a couple of checks. The fund is called Zero Shot (a play on the AI training term) and its co-founding team …

Founders Fund has made its name backing what Peter Thiel calls “zero to one” companies — businesses that don’t just improve on existing ideas but create something entirely new. Its portfolio includes Facebook, SpaceX, and Palantir. Its latest bet is a New Zealand startup that puts solar-powered smart collars on …

Gateway Capital Partners, the venture firm founded by Dana Guthrie, announced the first close for its $25 million target Fund II earlier this week, the Milwaukee-based firm told TechCrunch. Gateway Capital declined to share the exact amount of the first close. The first close means Fund II can begin its …