Latest from Marina Temkin
Former President Donald Trump picked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate on Monday, as he runs to reclaim the office he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.…
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is in advanced talks to acquire Wiz for $23 billion, a person close to the company told TechCrunch. The deal discussions were previously reported by The…
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. This…
People in tech often say that data is the new oil. That phrase, coined by British mathematician Clive Humby, of course implies that data is valuable. Data about a person’s…
Fundraising
AI startup Hebbia raised $130M at a $700M valuation on $13 million of profitable revenue
Hebbia, a startup that uses generative AI to search large documents and respond to large questions, has raised a $130 million Series B at a roughly $700 million valuation led…
Seae Ventures is acquiring Unseen Capital after the death of founder Kayode Owens in 2021. The combined firm will continue to invest in healthcare for minorities and underserved populations. Owens,…
Featured Article
Valuations of startups have quietly rebounded to all-time highs. Some investors say the slump is over.
Generative AI businesses aside, the last couple of years have been relatively difficult for venture-backed companies. Very few startups were able to raise funding at prices that exceeded their previous valuations. Now, approximately two years after the venture slump began in early 2022, some investors, like IVP general partner Tom…
J2 Ventures, a firm led mostly by U.S. military veterans, announced on Thursday that it has raised a $150 million second fund. The Boston-based firm invests in startups whose products…
Biotech & Health
Granza Bio grabs $7M seed from Felicis and YC to advance delivery of cancer treatments
Ashwin Nandakumar and Ashwin Jainarayanan were working on their doctorates at adjacent departments in Oxford, but they didn’t know each other. Nandakumar, who was studying oncology, one day stumbled across…
Venture
Industry Ventures raises a $900M fund for investing in small, early-stage VCs and their breakout startups
The venture fundraising trend in 2024 is fairly clear by now: Large, established VC firms are continuing to attract capital from limited partners, while smaller, newer funds are finding it…
Venture
Kleiner Perkins announces $2 billion in fresh capital, showing that established firms can still raise large sums
Many VC firms are struggling to attract new capital from their own backers amid a tepid IPO environment. But established, brand-name firms are still able to raise large funds. On…
Startups
Hebbia raises nearly $100M Series B for AI-powered document search led by Andreessen Horowitz
Hebbia, a startup using generative AI to search large documents and return answers, has raised a nearly $100 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to three people with…
Older adults increasingly want to age in their homes rather than nursing facilities. A study by the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) found that nearly 90% of people over…
In the post-COVID world, VCs say it’s not as easy to get excited about investing in digital health. Deal activity in healthcare IT was relatively flat in Q1 2024 at…
Fundraising
Backed by David Sacks, Garry Tan and Walter Isaacson, Created by Humans helps people license their creative work to AI models
In 2024, it seems like no week goes by without a media organization, author group or artist suing generative AI companies for using their work to train models without permission.…
Biotech & Health
Khosla-backed Marble, built by former Headway founders, offers affordable group therapy for teens
Rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are surging among U.S. teens. A recent report from the Center of Disease Control found that nearly one in three girls have seriously…
Christopher O’Donnell has hobbies. He likes music and playing guitar, but above all, he loves building software. Which is why three years after leaving HubSpot, he built Day.ai, a CRM…
Featured Article
How Abridge became one of the most talked about healthcare AI startups
Ask any of the health-focused VCs to name one of the top AI startups and one name comes up over and over again: a company based in Pittsburgh called Abridge. And it’s a startup that launched before OpenAI was a household name and large language models (LLMs) entered the common…
Biotech & Health
Tempus rises 9% on the first day of trading, demonstrating investor appetite for a health tech with a promise of AI
Tempus, a genomic testing and data analysis company started by Eric Lefkofsky, who previously founded Groupon, debuted on Nasdaq on Friday, rising about 15% on the opening. The company priced…
For centuries, people chewed willow tree bark to relieve pain, but scientists at chemical firm Bayer didn’t isolate its active ingredient until the 1800s and eventually patented its modified version…
Venture fundraising has been a slog over the last few years, even for firms with a strong track record. That’s Foresite Capital’s experience. Despite having 47 IPOs, 28 M&As and…
Venture
Friends & Family Capital, a fund founded by ex-Palantir CFO and son of IVP’s founder, unveils third $118M fund
Small VC firms require deep trust, mutual support and long-term commitment among the partners — a kinship that, in many ways, resembles a family dynamic. Colin Anderson (Palantir’s ex-CFO and…
Anterior, a company that uses AI to expedite health insurance approval for medical procedures, has raised a $20 million Series A round at a $95 million post-money valuation led by…
Startups
Eyebot raised $6M for AI-powered kiosks that provide 90-second vision exams without an on-site optometrist
Over half of Americans wear corrective glasses or contact lenses. While there isn’t a shortage of low-cost and luxury frames available online or in stores, consumers can only buy them…
Biotech & Health
Eko Health scores $41M to detect heart and lung disease earlier and more accurately
In 1816, French physician René Laennec invented an instrument that allowed doctors to listen to the heart and lungs. That device — a stethoscope — eventually evolved from a simple…
AI-powered virtual physical therapy platform Sword Health has seen its valuation soar 50% to $3 billion.
Fundraising
VCs are selling shares of hot AI companies like Anthropic and xAI to small investors in a wild SPV market
VCs are clamoring to invest in hot AI companies, and willing to pay exorbitant share prices for coveted spots on their cap tables. Even so, most aren’t able to get…
Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.
Biotech & Health
Billionaire Groupon founder Eric Lefkofsky is back with another IPO: AI health tech Tempus
Eric Lefkofsky knows the public listing rodeo well and is about to enter it for a fourth time. The serial entrepreneur, whose net worth is estimated at nearly $4 billion,…
Venture
Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures raised a $300 million fund, half the size of its last one
The perception in Silicon Valley is that every investor would love to be in business with Peter Thiel. But the venture capital fundraising environment has become so difficult that even…
