TechCrunch Startup News

Fixing the climate crisis is a vast, world-sized puzzle. But one particularly large piece of this ginormous conundrum is construction and real estate — which collectively amount for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Enter Munich-based data startup Emidat, which has built a software platform for automating the generation of validated Environmental Product Declaration Learn more about y...

There are plenty of startups now that have AI bots that will listen to your meetings, transcribe them, make notes, and create insights. That means companies in this area must differentiate themselves by offering additional feature sets and integrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lithuania’s Vinted has secured a new valuation of €5 billion (around $5.4 billion at current exchange rates), after the second-hand fashion marketplace closed a secondary share sale worth €340 million ($367 million). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. venture capital giant General Catalyst has announced a fresh $8 billion in funds as it looks to ramp up its investments in multi-sector early-stage startups globally, with a specific focus on the U.S., Europe, and India. The capital constitutes around $4.5 billion for its “core VC funds” which spans seed and growth equity funding, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adc...

A new app called Screenable will help parents introduce their children to technology by turning an iPhone or iPad into a starter phone. The app is designed to grow over time with a child, as it offers different modes for kids of different ages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Each year, supply chain disruptions cost the global economy trillions of dollars. In a recent McKinsey poll, nine in ten businesses said they had encountered logistics challenges over the past 12 months. Headwinds have only grown stronger as chaos reigns in key shipping corridors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Upflow, a French startup we’ve been covering for quite a while, originally focused on managing outstanding invoices. The company is now announcing a shift in its strategy to become a B2B payment platform with its own payment gateway to complement its accounts receivable automation solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Interface.ai, a customer automation platform for banks and other financial institutions, today announced that it closed a $30 million funding round led by Avataar Venture Partners. $20 million of the round was equity, while the remaining $10 million was in the form of debt. It’s Interface’s first outside capital; the startup had been completely bootstrapped Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Furno’s micro-kilns promise to reduce pollution and eliminate transportation costs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back in 2022, João Moura was directing AI engineering efforts at Clearbit, a startup creating a unified hub for business intelligence tools. There, Moura was responsible for leading the development of AI integrations, as well as defining Clearbit’s AI product roadmap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The software supply chain, which comprises the components and processes used to develop software, has become precarious. According to one recent survey, 88% of companies believe poor software supply chain security presents an “enterprise-wide risk” to their organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the current unemployment crisis in Hollywood, many TV and film crew members are concerned about finding their next job. This is particularly the case for freelancers, who often face unstable work and irregular pay. Shobizzy is the latest professional networking app for the entertainment industry that aims to address this challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/ad...

Small business creation has been on the rise in the U.S. since the pandemic. There are a lot of tech tools designed to help these companies with things like payroll or setting up retirement benefits — but more tools doesn’t mean small businesses know how to use them to make smart decisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Byju Raveendran, the founder of the embattled edtech group Byju’s, acknowledged on Thursday afternoon that he made mistakes, mistimed the market, and that his startup, once valued at $22 billion, is now effectively worth “zero.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As we’ve reported before, enterprise CIOs are taking generative AI slow. One reason for that is AI doesn’t fit into existing software engineering workflows, because it literally doesn’t speak the same language. For instance, LLMs (aka large language models) require a lot of cajoling to deliver valid JSON. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Hurricane Helene hit Asheville, North Carolina in September, the city’s police department reached out to public safety drone startup Paladin for help. The startup’s 30-member team jumped into action working nights and through the weekend to assist Asheville’s police department with locating people and dropping off supply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back in 2011, the world held its breath after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan suffered a failure of its cooling systems, in the wake of the country getting hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Karandish has been busy. Capacity, his support automation company, was planning a $5 million “bridge round” to help the company reach the break-even point. But TVC Capital, Toloka.vc, and the venture’s other backers had something grander in mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Storio, a French startup that’s focused on providing smart energy storage for commercial and industrial customers. Founded in 2023, the startup raised a €5 million seed round earlier this year (around $5.5 million at current exchange rates) and has signed its first client. Storio believes solar panels have a bright future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The data center industry is expanding rapidly to keep up with the flywheel growth of AI. While these data centers are necessary AI infrastructure, they store an AI company’s compute, they are expensive to build, seemingly more so to run, and they are a huge energy suck. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Table Space is targeting a valuation of $2.5 billion or higher for an India IPO planned planned for 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Peanut, a social networking app for women, is launching a new feature to help users track their pregnancies. The new Peanut Track tool leverages seven years of data from questions asked on the social network and uses AI to anticipate questions that women have during different stages of their pregnancy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s hard to know where to focus when speaking to Christoph Kohstall. The contents of his packed Palo Alto garage compete for attention. To his immediate right stands a tower of electrical components, dotted with flashing lights. To his left is a workbench and the tops of machining tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Advances in DNA sequencing and the vast amounts of genomic data being produced by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology have created a startup opportunity to build software for biologists so they can more easily analyze this big data and take the next leap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monzo is now valued at $5.9 billion after the U.K.-based challenger bank announced a secondary market share sale to provide liquidity for its employees. The transaction saw existing investors such as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund (GIC) and StepStone Group procuring additional shares in the London-based fintech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices