As competition among AI startups heats up, founders and VCs are turning to novel valuation mechanisms to manufacture a perception of market dominance. Until recently, the most sought-after companies raised multiple rounds of funding in quick succession at escalating valuations. However, because constant fundraising distracts founders from building their products, …

Tellez is the founder of the viral undergarments brand Parade, which at one point was seen as the Gen Z rival to Victoria’s Secret. Launched in 2019, when Tellez was just 21, the company went on to raise millions in funding and attract thousands of customers, but was sold in …

One day not long ago, a founder texted his investor with an update: he was replacing his entire customer service team with Claude Code, an AI tool that can write and deploy software on its own. To Lex Zhao, an investor at One Way Ventures, the message indicated something bigger …

Investors have been pouring billions into AI companies over the past few years, as the technology continues to hold sway in the Valley and thus the world. But not all AI companies are grabbing investor attention. Indeed, even as it seems every company these days is rebranding to include “AI” …

Plaid, a company that connects financial applications to users’ bank accounts, enabling payments and data verification, has allowed employees to sell some of their shares at an $8 billion valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The valuation represents a 31% increase from the $6. 1 billion valuation the …

Weeks after stepping down as CEO from food delivery service Zomato and its parent Eternal, Indian entrepreneur Deepinder Goyal is back with a $54 million raise for wearable startup Temple, part of what the 43-year-old earlier described as a shift toward “higher-risk exploration and experimentation. ” On Friday, Goyal said …

A group of notable open source programmers are joining with a VC investor to launch a nonprofit called the Open Source Endowment in hopes of permanently solving the perennial issue with developing open source software: funding. Backers of the Open Source Endowment include Thomas Dohmke (the former GitHub CEO who …

If you’ve built, backed, or operated inside high-growth startups, your experience could shape how the next wave of founders scales. On June 9 in Boston, TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 will bring together 1,000+ founders and investors for a focused day on the realities of growth. We’re inviting seasoned founders, VCs, …

Crypto is creeping back into the startup conversation, but at ETHDenver last week, the buzz was as much about Washington as it was about tokens. Policy shifts are rippling through the market as Tether and stablecoins face scrutiny, players like Stripe re-enter the conversation, and startups either find traction or …

Anthropic on Wednesday announced that it has acquired Vercept, an AI startup with deep roots to some of the biggest names in Seattle’s tech scene. The acquisition marks the latest after Anthropic acquired coding agent engine Bun in December to help scale Claude Code. Vercept had created tools for more …