TechCrunch Startup News

By TechCrunchNews Technology Tech News

TechCrunch Startup News episodes

May 19 South Korea’s LetinAR is building optics behind AI glasses; plus, Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo
A lens the size of a thumbnail — and the South Korean startup that makes it could become the optical backbone of the AI glasses era.
Also, AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic.

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9 min
May 18 Lovable just backed a company that’s looking to bring vibe coding to hardware; plus, Meridian Ventures launched $35M fund to back MBA-deferred founders
Hardware company Atech raised $800,000 in pre-seed funding, including from a16z’s scout fund, Sequoia Scout Fund, and Nordic Makers.
Plus, Meridian Ventures, the venture firm founded by Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney, announced on Friday the raise of a $35 million second fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage companies founded by those who have deferred MBAs.

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6 min
May 15 Khosla Ventures is betting $10M on Ian Crosby; plus, Cerebras raises $5.5B, then stock pops $108%
Crosby is building Synthetic, a fully autonomous AI bookkeeping service for other startups.
Also, a year ago, it looked like this day would never happen for Cerebras.

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8 min
May 14 Clio’s $500M milestone arrives just as Anthropic ups the ante; plus, Anduril raises $5B, doubles valuation to $61B
Legal tech startups, including Clio, which just hit $500 million in ARR, are seeing massive customer adoption.
After achieving $2.2 billion in revenue in 2025, the defense tech startup has raised another massive round, led by Thrive and a16z, it says.

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8 min
May 13 Exaforce raises $125M Series B to build AI for catching and stopping cyberattacks as they happen
The round valued the three-year-old startup at $725 million.

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5 min
May 12 Riding an AI rally, Robinhood preps second retail venture IPO; plus, Korea’s biggest manufacturers back Config, the TSMC of robot data
Robinhood files confidentially for its second venture fund, this time targeting growth as well as early-stage startups.
Also, Samsung, Hyundai and LG just bet on the startup that wants to be robotics' data backbone.

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9 min
May 11 Cowboy Space raised $275 million to build rockets for space data centers; plus what will the whisper-filled office of the future sound like
Cowboy Space Corporation wants to put data centers in orbit. First, it has to build the rockets to get them there.
Also, how will work setups change if we spend more and more time talking to our computers?

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8 min
May 08 A 20-minute pitch wins Indian startup Pronto backing from Lachy Groom; plus, Khosla-backed robotics startup Genesis AI has gone full stack
The investment comes as Pronto scales to 26,000 daily bookings and the market heads toward a potential $18 billion size.
Also, Genesis AI, a startup that raised a $105 million seed round to build foundational AI for robotics, has unveiled its first model, GENE-26.5, but also a demo showcasing a set of robotic hands performing complex tasks.

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11 min
May 07 Ethos raises $22.75M from a16z for its expert network with voice onboarding; plus, Altara secures $7M to bridge the data gap that’s slowing down physical sciences
Ethos says it is onboarding 35,000 experts per week
Also, Altara’s AI aims to diagnose failures and help speed up R&D by unifying data siloed across spreadsheets and legacy systems.

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10 min
May 06 OpenAI’s cozy partner Cerebras is on track for a blockbuster IPO; plus, Katie Haun raises $1 billion for new venture funds
AI chip maker Cerebras is heading for a blockbuster IPO that could value it at $26.6 billion or more. It's relationship with OpenAI is deep and rich.
Also, Katie Haun announced on Monday that $1 billion has been raised across new funds to continue the firm’s thesis of backing crypto and blockchain startups.

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7 min