Rebecca Szkutak, Author at TechCrunch

Physical AI startup BrightAI bootstraps to $80M in revenue

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

When Alex Hawkinson was the CEO of SmartThings, the consumer-focused connected devices company he co-founded and sold to Samsung for around $200 million, he kept thinking that Internet of Things (IoT) technology could probably solve bigger issues. He left SmartThings in 2018 to figure out where connected devices could make the largest impact. He co-founded […]

In 2023 VCs returned the lowest level of capital to their investors since 2011

Rebecca Szkutak — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 22:16:30 +0000

It’s no secret that the venture capital industry is facing a liquidity crisis as IPOs and other exits remain few and far between after 2020 and 2021’s record-breaking years. Now, we have numbers that show just how bad it’s gotten. In 2023, the U.S. VC industry invested $60 billion more into startups than it collected […]

Venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs

Rebecca Szkutak — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 20:57:00 +0000

From Keith Rabois to Ethan Kurzweil, a lot of VCs have switched firms or spun out of storied VC institutions to launch their own funds this year. These employment changes are surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move around very much — especially those who reach the partner or general […]

Here’s the full list of 44 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024

Rebecca Szkutak — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 23:03:00 +0000

In the first half of 2024 alone, more than $35.5 billion was invested into AI startups globally.

Sales tax automation startup Kintsugi doubled its valuation this year

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 14:17:35 +0000

A 2018 Supreme Court ruling eliminated the requirement that an e-commerce retailer needed a physical location in a state in order for said state to be able to collect sales tax on purchases made by residents. While the decision was a boon for states, it created a headache for e-commerce sellers. Kintsugi is looking to […]

General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures back data mapping startup Lume

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Data integration is a necessary part of many workflows from onboarding customer data to exercising payroll, but for many data sets the process is long and manual. Data is siloed into databases and SaaS applications that each keep the information in different formats, which makes it difficult to move information from one database to another. […]

Brazilian fintech Tako emerges from stealth with sizable seed round led by a16z and Ribbit Capital

Rebecca Szkutak — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Running payroll is hard in any country, but perhaps especially so in Brazil thanks to consistently changing laws and extremely influential unions that make it significantly harder to get it right. Fernando Gadotti struggled with this as the co-founder of DogHero, LatAm’s version of Rover. When Gadotti left the company in 2022, after selling it […]

Ulysses is using robots to restore seagrass populations

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:01:54 +0000

Seagrass punches above its weight. The marine plant only occupies 0.1% of the ocean floor but can be credited with supporting marine ecosystems of plants and fish, filtering ocean water, and capturing quite a bit of carbon. Seagrass is also being destroyed, due to climate change and other factors, with meadows reducing 7% globally each […]

MoradaUno wants to make it easier to rent apartments in Mexico

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Renting in Latin America is restrictive. Most landlords require three months of rent as a deposit and a guarantor that owns property in the same city to co-sign the lease. Santiago Morales, the co-founder and CEO of proptech MoradaUno, said this dynamic makes 40% of prospective renters ineligible. His company wants to get more tenants […]

Nodal connects hopeful parents with surrogates as reproductive freedom hangs in limbo

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 19:23:17 +0000

Many people who want to have children can’t, or shouldn’t, carry a pregnancy for a variety of reasons. Gestational surrogacy can be a great option for those individuals — if they can endure the lengthy wait times and afford to pay for the costly service. New York-based Nodal looks to make the process less expensive, […]

Bowery Farming is ceasing operations

Rebecca Szkutak — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 22:43:27 +0000

Agtech unicorn Bowery Farming is shutting down, according to PitchBook, which cited internal documents and multiple company employees. The New York-based agtech company was known for building vertical farms that could produce crops, including lettuces, herbs, and berries. Per Pitchbook, Bowery Farming has raised more than $700 million in funding from First Round Capital, General […]

Founders should seek sector alignment when looking for a family office investor

Rebecca Szkutak — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Family offices invest a substantial amount of capital in startups each year. In the first half of 2023, 27% of overall startup deal value came from deals that included a family office investor, according to a recent report from PwC. Despite their prevalence in startup deals, family offices can be a mysterious class of investors […]

The Chainsmokers want to bring a different kind of value add to B2B companies

Rebecca Szkutak — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 19:30:00 +0000

The potential value a celebrity investor can bring to a consumer company, beyond just writing a check, is obvious: marketing and promotion. But that value is less clear when it comes to backing B2B startups. Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, also known as the Chainsmokers, think their VC fund Mantis VC can bring a value […]

Former Caribou founder launches Further, a fintech that’s focused on helping people buy homes

Rebecca Szkutak — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 13:15:50 +0000

Buying a home has always been complicated. You have to figure out how much money to put down and how that down payment will affect a monthly mortgage bill. Then there are the closing costs and fees. Kevin Bennett launched Further to try to help make the financial process easier to navigate — especially for first-time […]

Buddy.ai is using AI and gaming to help children learn English as a second language

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:00:00 +0000

In 2014, Ivan Crewkov moved his family from Siberia to the U.S. as his startup, Cubic.AI, was preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign for its smart speaker. A week before the campaign was supposed to go live, Amazon launched its Echo smart speaker, rendering Cubic.AI essentially dead in the water. “It was a disaster,” Crewkov […]

Actor and director Olivia Wilde launches a VC firm

Rebecca Szkutak — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 19:42:22 +0000

Actor and director Olivia Wilde, famous for her roles in “Tron: Legacy” and “Don’t Worry Darling,” quietly launched venture firm Proximity Ventures late last year, according to Bloomberg. She launched the early- and growth-stage investment fund with Neil Sirni, formerly of Roc Nation’s venture division Arrive; Jason Mack, formerly of Mack Ventures; and Santi White, […]

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman isn’t surprised we haven’t seen a resurgence in startup IPOs yet

Rebecca Szkutak — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 12:00:00 +0000

While many venture investors, and likely their LPs, were hoping IPOs were going to come back in 2024, that hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to in the next two months. Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman isn’t surprised. Friedman said at Axios’s BFD event on Tuesday that while on paper the public markets have been experiencing a spectacular year […]

Lumen Orbit closed one of the biggest rounds from Y Combinator’s last cohort

Rebecca Szkutak — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 21:15:30 +0000

Lumen Orbit has closed an oversubscribed, eight-figure seed round of more than $10 million, a source familiar with the details told TechCrunch. That would make it one of the hottest deals, if not the hottest deal, of the most recent Y Combinator batch. The Redmond, Washington-based startup is pursuing a moonshot idea to build a […]

Bessemer, Index, and a16z alum launch VC firm Chemistry

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 22:29:34 +0000

New VC firm Chemistry raised $350 million for its debut fund, Forbes reported on Wednesday. The firm was launched by Mark Goldberg, former partner at Index Ventures; Kristina Shen, former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz; and Ethan Kurzweil, former partner at Bessemer (pictured above in that order). Axios first reported in April that the three […]

Promise Bio exits stealth backed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:10:04 +0000

The first thing Promise Bio CEO Ronel Veksler wants you to know about the biotech company he co-founded is that it’s not another AI drug discovery company. Instead, he’s looking to bring precision medicine to autoimmune diseases. Tel Aviv-based Promise Bio has developed a cloud-based AI platform that can spot different Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs) in […]