Prolific Machines, with a $55M Series B, shines ‘light’ on a better way to grow lab proteins for food and medicine
Prolific Machines believes it has a way of transitioning away from molecules to something better: light.
Fintech Torpago has a unique way to compete with Brex and Ramp: Turning banks into customers
Torpago’s Powered By product is geared for regional and community banks, with under $20 billion in assets, to launch their own branded cards and spend management programs.
Insurance provider Understory gets into renewable energy following $15M Series A
After growing 500% year-over-year in the past year, Understory is now launching a product focused on the renewable energy sector.
Lance Riedel and Nigel Daley both spent decades in search discovery, but it was while working at Pinterest that they began trying to understand how to use search engines to…
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sujay Jaswa, along with three general partners, manage $1.5 billion in assets today through their Build, Venture and Seed strategies.
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Unicorn-rich VC Wesley Chan owes his success to a Craigslist job washing lab beakers
While all of Wesley Chan’s success has been well-documented over the years, his personal journey…not so much. Chan spoke to TechCrunch about the ways his life impacts how he invests in startups.
Fintech startup Forward grabs $16M to take on Stripe, lead future of integrated payments
It’s a lofty goal to take on legacy payments infrastructure, however, Forward’s model has an advantage by shifting the economics back to SaaS companies.
Tech startup Odyssey goes on journey to help states implement school choice programs
The company’s public fund disbursement and e-commerce platform makes accepting school tuition and enabling educational enrichment more accessible.
Y Combinator’s Garry Tan supports some AI regulation but warns against AI monopolies
Like most Silicon Valley VCs, what Garry Tan sees is opportunities for new, huge, lucrative businesses.
Remark trains AI models on human product experts to create personas that can answer questions with the same style of their human counterparts.
Garry Tan has revealed his ‘secret sauce’ for getting into Y Combinator
If you’ve ever wanted to apply to Y Combinator, here’s some inside scoop on how the iconic accelerator goes about choosing companies.
Immigrant banking platform Majority secures $20M following 3x revenue growth
For a $5.99 per month, immigrants have a bank account and debit card with fee-free international money transfers and discounted international calling.
Fintech lender SoLo Funds is being sued by the government over its lending practices
SoLo Funds CEO Travis Holoway: “Regulators seem driven by press releases when they should be motivated by true consumer protection and empowering equitable solutions.”
Kudos lands $10M for an AI smart wallet that picks the best credit card for purchases
Kudos uses AI to figure out consumer spending habits so it can then provide more personalized financial advice, like maximizing rewards and utilizing credit effectively.
Bolt founder Ryan Breslow wants to settle an investor lawsuit by returning $37 million worth of shares
The investor lawsuit is related to Bolt securing a $30 million personal loan to Ryan Breslow, which was later defaulted on.
Cannabis industry and gaming payments startup Aeropay is now offering an alternative to Mastercard and Visa
The key to taking on legacy players in the financial technology industry may be to go where they have not gone before. That’s what Chicago-based Aeropay is doing. The provider…
Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.
When Newchip, an online accelerator promising to help startups, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2023, it was revealed that the company had just…
Embedded accounting startup Layer secures $2.3M toward goal of replacing QuickBooks
So did investors laugh them out of the room when they explained how they wanted to replace Quickbooks? Kind of.
Food VC PeakBridge has new $187M fund to transform future of food, like lab-made cocoa
PeakBridge intends to invest in between 16 and 20 companies, investing around $10 million in each company. It has made eight investments so far.
Healthy growth helps B2B food e-commerce startup Pepper nab $30 million led by ICONIQ Growth
Co-founder and CEO Bowie Cheung, who previously worked at Uber Eats, said the company now has 200 customers.
A reckoning is coming for emerging venture funds, and that, VCs say, is a good thing
We took the pulse of emerging fund managers about what it’s been like for them during these post-ZERP, venture-capital-winter years.
Lucid Bots secures $9M for drones to clean more than your windows
Cleaning the outside of buildings is a dirty job, and it’s also dangerous. Lucid Bots came on the scene in 2018 with its Sherpa line of drones to clean windows…
Meati Foods bites into another $100M amid growth to 7,000 retail locations
Mushrooms continue to be a big area for alternative proteins. Canada-based Maia Farms recently raised $1.7 million to develop a blend of mushroom and plant-based protein using biomass fermentation. There’s…
Here’s everything Apple just announced at its Let Loose event, including new iPad Pro with M4 chip, iPad Air, Apple Pencil and more
Today is Apple iPad Event day, and we bring you all the iPad goodness you can stand, including if some of the rumors are true of what’s coming, like a…
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They thought they were joining an accelerator — instead they lost their startups
Lacey Hunter thought all was well as she put her startup through the three-month Newchip accelerator. Then the organization filed for bankruptcy in May 2023. Things went from bad to worse later that year when she discovered warrants of her company — rights to buy an ownership stake — had…
Chicago-based Hyde Park Venture Partners closes $98M Fund IV with two investments made so far
Hyde Park Venture Partners is known for having visibility into more than 90% of mid-continent startups and being early backers of companies like ShipBob, FourKites, G2, LogicGate and Dentologie.
Paystand acquires Teampay to be DeFi version of ‘Venmo for B2B payments’
“Teampay represents this new class of fintech companies that came up,” said Paystand CEO Jeremy Almond.
Edonia grabs €2M to turn microalgae into less bitter-tasting ground meat alternative
The company produces plant-based ingredients from raw microalgae biomass, generated from spirulina or chlorella, that it claims is more nutritious than meat.
Dripos raises $11M Series A to replace Square, Toast and 8 other pieces of software
Dripos brings together point-of-sale, mobile payments, employee management and payroll, loyalty and marketing automation and administrative functions like accounting and banking.