Category: Startup

Former CEO of GitHub, Thomas Dohmke, has announced a $60 million seed round for his new startup, Entire. This funding, led by Felicis Ventures, values Entire at $300 million, marking a significant milestone in the development tool industry.

Entire’s core technology revolves around an AI system designed to streamline the management of code generated by AI agents. The startup’s flagship product, Checkpoints, offers developers an open-source tool to efficiently organize and understand the vast amounts of code produced by AI algorithms.

Entire’s tech stack comprises three key components: a Git-compatible database to centralize AI-generated code, a universal semantic reasoning layer to enable harmonious interaction of multiple AI agents, and an AI-native user interface to foster effective collaboration between AI agents and human developers.

Dohmke emphasizes the need to adapt software production processes to accommodate the rapid pace of AI-generated code, as traditional manual workflows are inadequate in the AI era. By empowering developers to navigate and leverage AI-generated code effectively, Entire aims to reshape the landscape of software development, particularly in open-source projects inundated with AI-generated contributions.

Source: TechCrunch

Vega Security, an AI-focused cybersecurity startup, has successfully raised $120 million in its Series B funding round led by Accel, bringing its valuation to $700 million. The company aims to revolutionize how enterprises detect and respond to cybersecurity threats in today’s complex cloud environments.

Traditional security tools like Splunk require companies to centralize all security data, which can be slow and costly, especially in cloud environments where data is distributed. Vega Security is taking a different approach by deploying security measures directly where the data resides, whether in cloud services, data lakes, or existing storage systems.

With this new funding, Vega plans to further develop its AI-powered security operations suite, strengthen its go-to-market team, and expand globally. The company’s CEO, Shay Sandler, highlighted that the current model of SIEM technology is not only expensive but also ineffective in complex cloud setups, potentially increasing vulnerability to cyber threats.

By offering a new operating model, Vega aims to empower organizations to utilize their enterprise data more effectively for incident response readiness, leveraging AI-native detection capabilities wherever the data is located. The company’s goal is to simplify the security process and enhance protection without the complexity and high costs associated with current methods.

Sandler, who has a background in the Israeli military’s cybersecurity unit and previously worked at Granulate (acquired by Intel), brings a wealth of experience to Vega Security’s innovative approach to cybersecurity.

Source: TechCrunch

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Masha Bucher, founder of Day One Ventures, recently addressed her close ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Reports revealed Bucher’s extensive involvement with Epstein, sparking controversy in the tech community.

Bucher, previously known as Masha Drokova, disclosed her interactions with Epstein, stating he provided a sense of security amid concerns related to her home country, Russia. Admitting her initial naivety, she expressed regret for not investigating further before collaborating with Epstein, believing his distorted narrative.

The released documents shed light on Bucher’s transition from a social media and PR background to working as Epstein’s publicist, aiding in his reputation restoration post-conviction. Despite the unsavory details, including financial gifts and inappropriate requests, Bucher’s venture capital firm, Day One Ventures, has flourished, recently closing a $150 million fund.

While the controversy surrounding Bucher raises ethical questions within the VC realm, her firm’s success underscores the separation between personal actions and professional achievements in Silicon Valley.

Source: TechCrunch

Aiming to address the escalating issue of counterfeit luxury goods, Veritas, a startup founded by former Tesla product manager Luci Holland, has unveiled a novel solution blending custom hardware and software. Luxury brands annually suffer over $30 billion in losses due to counterfeits, while consumers face uncertainty in verifying authenticity within the $210 billion second-hand market.

Veritas’ approach centers on a ‘hack-proof’ chip, intricately intertwined with digital certificates, rendering it resistant to tampering tools like Flipper Zero. This chip revolutionizes authentication by offering reliable verification mechanisms, surpassing conventional methods reliant on physical markers vulnerable to replication.

Drawing upon her experiences from Tesla and various tech ventures, Holland recognizes the pressing need for a sophisticated solution. Traditional authentication methods, once reliable, now falter against the rise of ‘superfakes’ meticulously mimicking original products.

Veritas’ chip promises to safeguard luxury brands, ensuring consumers receive genuine products. By amalgamating hardware and software expertise, the startup aims to provide an effective shield against rampant counterfeiting, reshaping the luxury goods landscape.

Source: TechCrunch

Hauler Hero, a New York-based startup, has recently closed a $16 million Series A funding round, led by Frontier Growth, to support its AI-powered waste management software. Since its inception in 2020, Hauler Hero has raised over $27 million in venture capital, demonstrating significant growth in its customer base, revenue, and headcount.

The company offers a comprehensive software platform tailored for waste management firms, incorporating functionalities like customer relationship management, billing, routing, and AI-powered features. Co-founded by CEO Mark Hoadley and Ben Sikma, Hauler Hero aims to modernize the waste management industry by addressing the limitations of existing outdated software solutions.

One of the key innovations introduced by Hauler Hero is a feature that captures images from third-party cameras on garbage trucks, enabling real-time monitoring and enhancing operational efficiency for waste management companies. This technology streamlines trash pickups and assists in verifying billing and optimizing fleet management.

With a track record of facilitating 35 million trash pickups and continuous expansion in its operations, Hauler Hero has demonstrated success in revolutionizing waste management processes through AI integration.

Source: TechCrunch

AI video company Runway has secured a $315 million Series E round, boosting its valuation to $5.3 billion. The additional funding will enable Runway to further develop its world models, expanding beyond AI video generation into diverse industries.

World models, AI systems capable of creating internal representations of environments to anticipate future events, play a vital role in advancing beyond the limitations of large language models. Runway, known for its physics-aware AI video generation models, recently introduced its first world model in December, signaling a strategic shift towards addressing challenges in areas such as medicine, climate, energy, and robotics.

While Runway has traditionally served media, entertainment, and advertising sectors, its recent collaboration with Adobe and growing adoption in gaming and robotics highlight its industry diversification. The company faces competition from other labs like Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Google DeepMind, which have also made their world models publicly accessible, intensifying the race for innovation in this field.

Runway’s latest Gen 4.5 video generation model has garnered industry recognition for its ability to generate high-definition videos from text prompts, incorporating advanced features like native audio, multi-shot generation, character consistency, and enhanced editing tools.

Moreover, Runway has expanded its computing capabilities through a recent partnership with CoreWeave, reinforcing its infrastructure to support ongoing model development and signaling its commitment to technological advancement.

Source: TechCrunch

Smart Bricks, a proptech startup founded by Mohamed Mohamed, has recently secured $5 million in pre-seed funding led by a16z. Mohamed, with a background in major financial institutions, identified a gap in the real estate investment market where advanced computational tools were lacking for individual investors. This observation led to the creation of Smart Bricks, an AI-powered platform that aims to empower investors with sophisticated tools typically reserved for institutional use.

The platform leverages AI algorithms to analyze vast amounts of data, including pricing trends, transaction history, and financing terms, to identify high-quality real estate opportunities. Unlike traditional methods that rely on manual assessments, Smart Bricks offers an autonomous reasoning system capable of providing insights into deal outcomes through various modeling techniques such as automated valuation, cash-flow forecasting, and risk analysis.

By democratizing access to advanced analytical tools, Smart Bricks is reshaping how real estate investments are approached, offering a modern intelligence stack to individual investors. This approach not only enhances decision-making processes but also mitigates risks associated with property investments.

The success of Smart Bricks in securing funding underscores the growing interest in leveraging AI technology within the real estate sector, signaling a shift towards data-driven investment strategies that prioritize efficiency and accuracy.

Source: TechCrunch

Primary Ventures has successfully closed a $625 million Fund V, emphasizing seed investing across the United States. This significant funding achievement highlights the firm’s commitment to early-stage investments, signaling a notable trend in the evolving landscape of startup financing.

Ben Sun, a co-founder and general partner at Primary Ventures, disclosed that the fund’s average check size will range from $5 million to $10 million, aiming to support 40 to 50 companies over three years, including pre-seed opportunities.

The fund’s geographic reach is expanding beyond its New York roots, with investments now spanning Chicago, Seattle, Virginia, and D.C. Sun noted the growing prominence of talent and entrepreneurial opportunities across diverse locations, indicating a shift in the traditional investment focus.

As seed investing matures into a distinct asset class, driven by escalating talent quality and technological advancements, the competition among venture firms intensifies to secure high-potential deals. With a fund of this magnitude, Primary Ventures aims to enhance its competitiveness and provide substantial resources to engage with top-tier founders and emerging prospects.

Despite positioning itself as a generalist, Primary Ventures boasts sector-specific specialists concentrating on consumer trends, vertical AI, fintech, healthcare, enterprise solutions, cybersecurity, and infrastructure, ensuring comprehensive coverage of the burgeoning seed sector activities.

Source: TechCrunch

London-based startup Tem is leveraging AI to transform electricity markets. The company has developed an energy transaction engine that aims to drive down costs compared to traditional energy traders. By offering energy from its utility division, Tem promises up to 30% savings on energy bills for its 2,600 business clients in the U.K.

Tem recently closed a successful $75 million Series B funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with key investors including AlbionVC, Allianz, Atomico, Hitachi Ventures, and others. This funding, valuing Tem at over $300 million, will fuel the company’s expansion into the U.S. and Australia, starting with Texas.

Tem’s Co-founder and CEO, Joe McDonald, emphasized the company’s focus on sustainable growth and long-term goals, expressing the intent to eventually go public. Tem operates as a marketplace, connecting electricity generators with consumers, initially prioritizing renewable energy sources and small businesses to optimize its AI algorithms.

Tem’s diverse client base includes Boohoo Group, Fever-Tree, and Newcastle United FC, showcasing the company’s reach across industries. Tem’s innovative approach to electricity trading through AI presents a significant opportunity to enhance the efficiency of energy markets globally.

Source: TechCrunch

Popular YouTube creator MrBeast, through his company Beast Industries, has acquired Step, a fintech app tailored for Gen Z users. Step, known for its teen-oriented financial services aiding in credit building, saving, and investing, has amassed over 7 million users and attracted investments from notable figures like Charli D’Amelio and Will Smith, alongside venture firms such as General Catalyst and Stripe.

MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, emphasized the importance of providing financial education to young audiences, stating, “Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up. I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had.” This acquisition aligns with Beast Industries’ previous interest in expanding its portfolio, as hinted in leaked documents from last year.

Beast Industries’ diversification strategy extends beyond YouTube ad revenue, with successful ventures like the chocolate brand Feastables. Moreover, the company is exploring opportunities in the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) sector, akin to Mint Mobile backed by Ryan Reynolds.

Source: TechCrunch

Legal AI startup Harvey has reportedly secured a new funding round that could raise its valuation to $11 billion. According to sources cited by Forbes, venture capitalists, including Sequoia and Singapore’s GIC, are considering investing an additional $200 million in the company.

If this investment round goes through, Harvey’s valuation would see a substantial increase of $3 billion within a few months. In December, the company had secured $160 million at an $8 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Prior to that, Harvey had raised $300 million in a Series E round at a $5 billion valuation, followed by a $300 million Series D round at a $3 billion valuation in February 2025, led by Sequoia.

Founder and CEO Winston Weinberg revealed that Harvey achieved an annual recurring revenue rate of $190 million by the end of 2025, marking significant growth from $100 million ARR just a few months earlier. The company’s success in the AI enterprise applications space has attracted attention from prominent VCs in Silicon Valley.

Source: TechCrunch

InfiniMind, a startup founded by former Google Japan executives Aza Kai and Hiraku Yanagita, is developing enterprise AI technology to transform dormant video archives into valuable business insights. The duo recognized the vast untapped potential of video data within companies – from historical broadcast content to surveillance footage – and set out to create a solution that unlocks this reservoir of information.

With a background in leading brand and data solutions at Google Japan, Kai and Yanagita leveraged their expertise to bridge the gap between massive video repositories and actionable intelligence. Traditional methods fell short in extracting meaningful insights from video content, lacking the ability to comprehend narratives, causal relationships, or address complex queries.

The pivotal shift came with advancements in vision-language models between 2021 and 2023, enabling video AI to transcend basic object recognition and delve deeper into content understanding. InfiniMind’s innovative infrastructure marks a significant milestone in video data analytics, offering businesses a way to harness the power of their video assets for strategic decision-making.

In a recent funding round, InfiniMind secured $5.8 million in seed investment, underscoring the industry’s interest in the startup’s capabilities. As the demand for comprehensive video data analysis grows, InfiniMind’s technology stands poised to reshape how companies leverage their video archives.

Source: TechCrunch

Anthropic, a technology company, is on the verge of finalizing a $20 billion funding round at a valuation of $350 billion, as reported by Bloomberg. The company, which recently raised $13 billion in equity funding, is facing fierce competition from rival AI firms and rising compute costs, prompting them to expedite their fundraising efforts.

The funding round includes investments from notable investors such as Altimeter Capital Management, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Coatue Management, Iconiq Capital, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. However, a significant portion of the funding is expected to come from Anthropic’s strategic partners, Nvidia and Microsoft.

Anthropic has been gaining traction with its AI-powered coding agents, which have received praise from software engineers for enhancing coding efficiency. The recent launch of new models for legal and business research has caused concerns among investors in publicly-traded data firms, highlighting the potential disruptive impact of AI on traditional industries.

Rival company OpenAI is also gearing up for a massive fundraising round of $100 billion, indicating the highly competitive landscape in the tech industry. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are reportedly considering initial public offerings (IPOs), aligning with an anticipated active summer for the market. Additionally, xAI, now part of SpaceX, is leveraging public equity through the rocket manufacturer’s upcoming IPO.

Source: TechCrunch

India has recently made significant changes to its startup regulations to better assist deep tech startups in sectors such as space, semiconductors, and biotech. These startups typically require more time to mature compared to conventional ventures, prompting India to modify its policies and leverage public funding to enhance their chances of success.

The updated framework extends the period for which deep tech companies are classified as startups to 20 years and raises the revenue threshold for tax benefits and grants to ₹3 billion. These adjustments aim to align policy timelines with the extended development cycles inherent in science- and engineering-driven businesses.

Moreover, the Indian government’s initiative includes the establishment of the Research, Development and Innovation Fund (RDI), valued at ₹1 trillion, to provide patient financing for R&D-focused companies. To further support this ecosystem, the India Deep Tech Alliance, a coalition of U.S. and Indian venture firms, has been launched with over $1 billion in private investment, including notable participants like Accel, Blume Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Nvidia.

These policy modifications are designed to alleviate the challenges faced by deep tech startups and enable a smoother fundraising process, ensuring that companies are evaluated based on technological advancements rather than arbitrary policy constraints.

Source: TechCrunch

NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo has made a significant move off the basketball court by becoming an investor in the prediction market platform Kalshi. Antetokounmpo’s decision marks a notable milestone as he becomes the first NBA player to directly invest in Kalshi, showcasing a growing trend of athletes entering the tech investment space.

In a social media post, the two-time NBA MVP expressed his motivation behind this move, stating, ‘The internet is full of opinions. I decided it was time to make some of my own. Today, I’m joining Kalshi as a shareholder.’

While this partnership between a prominent athlete and a tech startup has drawn attention, it has also sparked discussions on social media platforms like Reddit. Some users have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, with others questioning the permissibility of such investments.

Interestingly, the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement permits players to engage in partnerships with sports betting companies, with certain restrictions in place to maintain integrity and prevent any form of market manipulation. Kalshi has clarified that Antetokounmpo’s involvement will focus on marketing and live events, with strict adherence to the platform’s regulations against insider trading and market manipulation, particularly in relation to NBA markets.

Antetokounmpo’s decision to invest in Kalshi underscores the evolving landscape of athlete involvement in the startup ecosystem.

Source: TechCrunch

Benchmark Capital, a key investor in AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems, has raised $225 million in special funds to further support the company’s innovative technology. Cerebras recently secured $1 billion in fresh capital, valuing the Nvidia competitor at $23 billion, a significant increase from its previous valuation of $8.1 billion. While Tiger Global led the recent funding round, Benchmark Capital, a long-time supporter of Cerebras since 2016, contributed a substantial amount to this investment.

Back in 2016, Benchmark Capital led Cerebras’ Series A funding with $27 million. To further support Cerebras, Benchmark created two ‘Benchmark Infrastructure’ vehicles, each designed to finance the AI chipmaker’s growth. Cerebras stands out due to the scale of its processors, particularly its Wafer Scale Engine chip, which houses 4 trillion transistors on an 8.5-inch silicon piece, utilizing an entire silicon wafer for manufacturing.

This unique architecture houses 900,000 specialized cores that work in parallel, enhancing AI processing speed by over 20 times compared to other systems. Cerebras’ continued advancements in the AI infrastructure sector demonstrate the potential for significant progress in AI technology.

Source: TechCrunch

Carbon removal startup Terradot has acquired competitor Eion, signaling a potential consolidation trend in the carbon removal market. The acquisition, backed by major investors like Google and Microsoft, highlights the growing interest in companies capable of handling large-scale carbon removal projects.

Eion, a key player in the field, acknowledged that the sale was driven by the demands of sovereign wealth funds seeking robust partners for large-scale projects. The move comes as the costs of carbon removal remain a contentious issue, with buyers hesitant to meet the high price points set by industry players.

Both Terradot and Eion employ the innovative technique of enhanced rock weathering (EWR) to sequester carbon dioxide by spreading pulverized rocks on farm fields. While EWR presents a promising avenue for cost-effective carbon removal, its widespread adoption hinges on overcoming operational challenges posed by the scale and distribution requirements of the process.

Terradot, headquartered in California with a focus on Brazil, utilizes basalt for its EWR operations, contrasting with Eion’s use of olivine in the U.S. market. Terradot’s investors include Gigascale Capital, Google, Kleiner Perkins, and Microsoft, underscoring the industry’s confidence in the company’s potential. Eion has garnered support from investors like AgFunder, Mercator Partners, and Overture.

Source: TechCrunch

In a unique intersection of technology and high-profile individuals, a businessman and close advisor to former Prince Andrew, David Stern, pitched Jeffrey Epstein on investing in electric vehicle (EV) startups like Lucid Motors. Back in 2017, Lucid Motors was seeking funding, with Ford as a potential investor, but facing obstacles from rival Jia Yueting of Faraday Future. Stern saw an opportunity to involve Epstein in the investment landscape, aiming to leverage the growing interest in electric and autonomous vehicles driven by the success of Tesla and Google’s self-driving project.

Stern’s pitch to Epstein extended beyond Lucid Motors, encompassing other EV startups like Faraday Future and Canoo, as revealed in documents reviewed by TechCrunch. While Epstein’s direct involvement in these ventures remains uncertain, the discussions shed light on the intricate ties Epstein had with Silicon Valley startups before his legal issues.

These revelations provide a glimpse into the tech industry’s dynamics at the time, showcasing the fervor surrounding EV innovations and the strategic maneuvers within the startup ecosystem. Despite the ultimate investment outcomes for Lucid Motors and Faraday Future, the episode underscores the significant role played by influential figures in shaping the trajectory of emerging technologies.

Source: TechCrunch