TechCrunch Startup News

Less than a year ago, Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI VP of research Dario Amodei, intending to perform research in the public interest on making AI more reliable and explainable. Its $124 million in funding was surprising then, but nothing could have prepared us for the company raising $580 million less than a year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As you might’ve heard, it’s getting a little crowded in space, between thousand-satellite constellations à la SpaceX’s Starlink and the millions of pieces of space junk accumulated from decades of launches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Glorang, a Seoul-based edtech startup that offers after-school classes and extracurricular activities via online for students between the ages of 3 and 18, said Friday it has raised a $10 million Series A funding co-led by Korea Investment Partners and Murex Partners, along with Japan’s Pksha Capital. Â Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PullRequest, a five year old startup that came out of Y Combinator in 2017, helps software developers by providing an external code review team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Buoyed by a new $33 million investment, plans are in the works to add another 20 hair color bar locations and hire 850 new colorists by the end of the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Natural language processing (NLP), the field of AI that involves parsing text for tasks including summarization and generation, is a fast-growing technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Luis Vera believes the third time is the charm. The self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur admits that his vision for digitizing retail was a decade or two early when he started his journey in the 90s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Don’t call it a pivot, exactly — but it’s a fascinating journey, nonetheless. Umaro Foods, which is set to release a seaweed-based bacon replacement, entered the world as Trophic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lead generation is a critical cornerstone in the world of sales — in a seemingly infinite sea of potential customers, you need to know who wants to buy, or who might buy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A bit more than a year after private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Lengow, the company is expanding its product offering with the acquisition of Netrivals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yesterday, Amazon announced that Agility Robotics is one of the five initial startups benefitting from the company’s $1 billion innovation fund. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MadEats, Y Combinator alum, claims to be the first “‘full-stack’ delivery-only startup in the Philippines,” with their own virtual storefront, ghost kitchens and fleet of drivers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Skyflow, which sells data privacy tools for corporate customers, this morning announced a partnership with Plaid, a unicorn that helps pass fintech data between parties through an API. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The firm invests in the manufacturing, transportation and logistics sectors, which, they say “represent over half our country’s GDP and have not been tech-enabled.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Morado, a two-month-old Colombian startup aiming to digitize beauty salons in Latin America, has raised $5 million in a pre-seed round from a bevy of global investors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ordinary Folk, a Singapore-based telehealth startup dedicated to men and women’s health issues, has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding from Monk’s Hill Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Demostack, a San Francisco, California-based startup creating a “demo experience” platform for software-as-a-service (SaaS) sales teams, today announced that it raised $34 million in a Series B round led by Tiger Global Management. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For sales reps, commission plans are often complicated and lack transparency, leading to accounting errors and frustration. Everstage, a sales commission platform, solves that, letting sales rep see exactly how much they earned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Planetary aims to bring all of the alternative protein production planets into orbit with its scaling technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a bid to position its brand as more tech-forward — and, in the process, foster new culinary innovations — Chipotle today announced the launch of Cultivate Next, a venture fund run by Curt Garner, the restaurant chain’s chief technology officer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Its first product is a crispy, plant-based riff on chicken nuggets that is made with just seven ingredients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if you could buy a Peloton with pre-tax dollars? How about vitamins and supplements? Skincare products? Or even mattresses and massages? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The founders of Speckle, an early-stage startup based in London, are both trained architects and engineers, probably a rare combination. It enabled them to see and understand firsthand the issues associated with exchanging large proprietary 3D files from vendors like Autodesk and Trimble. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the bulk of the past two years, the pandemic has put the kibosh on corporate travel of nearly any kind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shared micromobility company Luup has raised $8 million (1 billion yen) in debt and asset financing to meet the growing demands of Japan’s micromobility market, which according to a recent report, is projected to reach $11.6 billion in 2030. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices