TechCrunch Startup News

When Valeria Kogan started her PhD program in bioinformatics, the scientific field that uses computation and software to analyze biological data, in 2017, she imagined her career would always be within the fields of mathematics, medicine, or biology. But after the first AI boom in the late 2010s, she got an intriguing opportunity in a sector she hadn’t considered: agriculture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“These are the kind of jobs that we shouldn't need people to do anymore," founder Leo Ma said about dangerous factory jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social network and X competitor Bluesky’s massive growth slowed in December in the U.S., after having surged from 9+ million in September to north of 20 million users in November. The slowdown is based on an analysis of web traffic and mobile app daily active users by analytics firm Similarweb, which found that Bluesky grew less than 10% month-over-month in December 2024, compared with 189% growth in November. Daily active users of the Bluesky mobile app in the U.S. also grew 12% in December, compared with 284% growth in November, the firm says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week at CES 2025, the company is showcasing a prototype version of its forthcoming SolidddVision glasses. The Brooklyn-based startup is specifically targeting people with macular degeneration. The degenerative eye disease affects roughly 13% of U.S. residents aged 40 and up, according to figures from the CDC; Elvie, a female-founded hardware startup, has unveiled a new app-controlled smart bouncer that gently transforms into a bassinet — while the baby is still in it. With the new Elvie Rise, announced at CES 2025 on Monday, parents and caregivers don’t have to move their baby between soothing, sleep, and play products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hydrogen startups are widely seen as a promising way to eliminate fossil fuels from heavy industry and long-haul transportation. But they have been stuck in limbo for the last couple years, waiting for official guidance from the U.S. Treasury on lucrative tax credits. That was until last Friday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Electra has raised $76.3 million to clean up the dirty ironmaking industry, TechCrunch has learned. The startup has developed a novel method of using electricity to coax pure iron out of low-grade ores, opening the door to cleaner steel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As 2025 dawns, it’s a good time to look at the trends that are likely to define the coming 12 months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French food delivery startup Epicery will cease operations Tuesday, after one last holiday season hurrah for its clients and the local food businesses that were using the platform during its nine years in business in exchange for a 25% commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A business built around increasingly customized ready-to-eat meals has netted Middle Eastern startup Calo a sizeable funding injection as it looks to expand both what it can offer its time-strapped customers and where it delivers its growing range of just-heat-to-eat dishes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI holds huge promise for healthcare, but not just on the medical side; many startups are convinced machine learning-based systems can do a lot of good on adjacent tasks such as appointment scheduling and confirmations. Brazilian startup Carecode is among these AI believers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If there was one phrase that captured the vibe and theme of 2024 — at least in the transportation sector — it was business whiplash. Legacy automakers changed direction on their all-EVs-or-bust strategy, startups pivoted, and some Silicon Valley VCs and executives adjusted their views to a changing political landscape Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you really probe venture capitalists about investing in AI startups, they’ll tell you that businesses are experimenting wildly but are very slow to add AI solutions into their ongoing business processes. But there are some exceptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the first day of Y Combinator the founders of PearAI got “cancelled." They used the hate to launch a new product, raise $1 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI creates a dilemma for companies: Don’t implement it yet, and you might miss out on productivity gains and other potential benefits; but do it wrong, and you might expose your business and clients to unmitigated risks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Once, not long ago, booking a table at a hot new restaurant didn’t entail a midnight dash to Resy. Truly, we didn’t know how good we had it then. Hours-long lines out the door are now the norm, not the exception, in major cities from New York to Los Angeles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After nearly four years of working in sales at tradesperson software company ServiceTitan, Mark Hoadley (pictured above) was looking for a change and to potentially start something of his own in a similar industry. Hoadley’s brother-in-law, and now co-founder, Ben Sikma, was working on M&A in the waste management space at the time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over the last decade, the Sustainable Ocean Alliance has graduated from dorm room activism to a thousands-strong global network of experts, investors, and “ecopreneurs” — all of whom believe the best way to save the ailing oceans is to embrace innovation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drop by any given loading dock and a buzz of forklifts — loaded up with goods — can be spotted maneuvering in and out of truck trailers. This logistical dance can take up to an hour to fill a trailer, leaving truck drivers in idle limbo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Grammarly is acquiring productivity startup Coda, the company announced on Tuesday. As part of the deal, Coda’s CEO and co-founder Shishir Mehrotra will become the new CEO of Grammarly. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The massive lasers will be installed in the startup’s future facility, which it is building in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cybersecurity practitioners take a community-driven approach to solving problems. Security researchers share the vulnerabilities they find with the broader cybersecurity community, which allows companies to patch up their security holes before something catastrophic happens. Prequel is looking to bring that same approach to software. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While I have fond memories of past efforts to combine VR content with real-world locations, I’d assumed the pandemic had put those ambitions to an end. If I wanted VR in 2024, I thought I’d have to buy a headset, and it would be a largely solitary experience at home or in the office Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Threat exposure management startup Flare thinks it has an answer to info-stealers with a service that watches the dark web, resets passwords. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With disinformation on the rise, especially given the explosion of AI, companies are just as vulnerable to its effects as individuals. Refute is a London-based startup that detects and responds to disinformation on behalf of these commercial entities. It’s now raised a £2.3 million ($2.9 million) pre-seed round led by UK investors Playfair and Episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two prominent programs, Activate and The Engine Accelerator, have decided they can give founders an advantage if they team up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI models that understand videos as well as text can unlock powerful new applications. At least, that’s what Jae Lee, the co-founder of Twelve Labs, believes. Granted, Lee’s a little biased. Twelve Labs trains video-analyzing models for a range of use cases. But there may just be something to his assertion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Upvest might not be a familiar name if you don’t pay close attention to the fintech industry, but chances are you’ve already interacted with the company’s products. Founded by Martin Kassing (pictured above), the Berlin-based startup builds a white-label investment platform that is used by some of the biggest fintech companies in Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If startup funding rounds are any metric, generative AI is seeing ample adoption in the sciences. It makes sense: there’s a lot of trial and error involved in research and development, and any tool that can speed up the process for researchers is bound to be useful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Small and medium businesses are getting more love in the world of fintech these days, and one example of that is the growth of a startup out of Sweden. Mynt, which has built an AI-based platform for corporate cards and spend management catering to SMEs, has closed a round of €22 million ($23 million). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

LambdaTest, a cloud-based software testing platform, has raised $38 million in a funding round as it looks to expand its presence in existing markets and advance its AI capabilities. The San Francisco and Noida-headquartered startup’s Series D round has been led by Avataar Ventures with participation from Qualcomm Ventures, bringing its total funding to $108 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The startup argues that its hot-water approach is not only more efficient, but also more useful. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Podcast recording platform Riverside said Monday that it has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from Seven Seven Six, and angel investor Sam Lessin. The company wants to use this funding to grow its team and build out solutions for the podcast and content creation space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do we really need another social media app for college students? With the looming TikTok ban in the U.S., a new app called Connyct seems to think so. Connyct closely resembles the popular short-form video app, providing all the features you would expect, such as a personalized content feed, private chatting, as well as video . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ladder, an Austin, Texas-based fitness startup that makes a popular strength-training app, is accusing Peloton of ripping off its work with the launch of Peloton’s new Stength+ app, which exited beta on Wednesday. After receiving feedback from Peloton’s beta testers that the app looked, felt, and functioned much like Ladder’s own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Turning sunflower seeds into sustainable, cocoa-free chocolate has netted Munich-based B2B foodtech startup Planet A Foods (formerly QOA) a $30 million Series B funding round. Now, the Y Combinator alum is gearing up for industrialization, with the funds set to be deployed to scale its production capacity by around 7.5x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Not everyone agrees on what an “AI agent” actually is, but they are all still the rage. At a broad level, these so-called “agents” promise to go several steps beyond a mere chatbot, making decisions and taking actions on people’s behalf. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The overarching promise of companies working on AI-powered productivity tools is to build solutions that would do a task for you. Some of the early demos that we have seen don’t really fare well in fulfilling those promises. A to-do list app called Twos is approaching this problem differently. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this hyperconnected world we live in, it’s easier than ever to send feedback to the companies we patronize. But just because businesses offer more ways to get in touch doesn’t mean they’re poring over every comment. According to a 2020 survey from Productboard, 90% of companies fail to successfully capture feedback from all channels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new company is emerging from stealth today with backing from Google’s AI-focused venture fund to help businesses compile their open-source AI infrastructure and reduce their engineering overheads. Cake integrates and secures more than 100 components for enterprises. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yurts has raised a $40 million Series B led by XYZ Venture Capital to provide the DoD with gen AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cancer incidence is on the rise, particularly among younger adults, but most new drug compounds fail to progress through clinical trials. According to French entrepreneur Fanny Jaulin (on the right in the picture above), the problem lies with clinical trial design. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On a September morning in 2024, two Jonathan Cohens — one from the Rockaways in Queens, the other from London — stood in an empty 15,000-square-foot parking garage near Hudson Yards in New York City. As they walked over chipped yellow lines, they explained how the space would help Joco, their shared e-bike startup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As one of the most decorated track cyclists of all time, Sir Chris Hoy might not seem an obvious candidate to back the burgeoning electric bike movement. The common refrain, after all, is that e-bikes aren’t real bikes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India has bucked the global trend in initial public offerings this year, establishing itself as a rare bright spot for tech listings while other major markets face continued headwinds. The world’s most populous nation is now preparing for an even more substantial wave of startup IPOs in 2025 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Decarbonizing our economies in the race to fight climate change demands a wholesale overhauling of all sorts of production processes to make them as sustainable as possible. Greening chemicals, which are used as ingredients in all sorts of products, is where U.K. startup Deep Blue Biotech is putting its energies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Volta, a new startup with a team split between two headquarters in Milan and Paris, has secured a €6 million pre-seed round ($6.3 million) to develop a new vertical software-as-a-service platform focused on B2B sales. In more practical terms, the Volta team pitches its product as an equivalent to Shopify but focused on B2B transactions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Europe must get much better at scaling startups. That’s the prognosis of the European Union’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, who’s on the cusp of taking up her second five-year term steering the bloc of some 449 million people — with a December 1 start date now locked in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Writing the documentation that must go alongside the development of new drugs is a highly labor-intensive process: not much software is used and there’s a shortage of expert writers. Paris-based Biolevate helps medical writers go faster with a platform that uses NLP and visual document reading to assisting in writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Battery tech is pivotal as the world leans into electrification to power decarbonization in the race against climate change. But rising demand is putting more attention on the limits and drawbacks of current generation lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, a tiny board designed around a microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects at scale. Raspberry Pi is once again using the RP2350, its own, well-documented microcontroller. But what is a microcontroller again? As the name suggests, microcontrollers let you control other electronic components or devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices