Techstars, a nearly 20-year-old startup accelerator, announced new terms for startups that enter its three-month program. The organization will now invest $220,000, which is $100,000 more than it offered previously, in companies starting with its fall 2025 batch. The capital will be divided into two components. The group is offering companies $20,000 in exchange for…
Category: Y Combinator
defense tech, Exclusive, Global Security News, Startups, Y Combinator
Defense tech Theseus landed Y Combinator, the US Special Forces and $4.3M from a tweet
On February 18, 2024, Ian Laffey posted on X that he and two others he’d just met built a cheap drone at a hackathon that calculated its coordinates simply by using its camera and Google Maps. He and his colleagues, Sacha Lévy and Carl Schoeller, were all engineers under the age of 25. The tech…
AI, Geoff Ralston, Global Security News, TC, Venture, venture funds, Y Combinator
Former Y Combinator president Geoff Ralston launches new AI ‘safety’ fund
Geoff Ralston, known for his years at Y Combinator, has a new AI VC fund called SAIF. It is seeking AI startups focused on safety.
Biotech & Health, Exclusive, Global Security News, Startups, Y Combinator
YC-backed Taxo raises $5M to slash healthcare admin with its AI ‘reasoning engine’
YC-backed startup Taxo has raised a $5m seed round to save doctors time and money on admin work.
AI, ai agent, Browsers, Fundraising, Global Security News, manus, Paul Graham, Y Combinator
Browser Use, the tool making it easier for AI ‘agents’ to navigate websites, raises $17M
We may not have an agreed-upon definition of AI “agent” yet, but a multitude of startups want to create “agentic” tools to automate various tasks online. One such firm, Browser Use, has attracted a ton of interest from developers and investors thanks to its solution that makes websites more “readable” for AI agents. Browser Use…
Global IT News, Global Security News, Michael Seibel, Venture, Y Combinator
Michael Seibel is leaving Y Combinator
Michael Seibel announced late Wednesday on X that after more than 12 years at Y Combinator, he is transitioning to a “partner emeritus” role. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan shared the news separately in a company blog post, highlighting Seibel’s long history with the accelerator. Seibel first joined YC as a founder, going through the…
Africa, employee salaries, food supply, Global IT News, Global Security News, Startups, Vendease, Y Combinator
YC-backed food supply startup Vendease restructures employees’ salaries
Y Combinator-backed Nigerian food procurement startup Vendease has changed its employee pay structure and is seeking fresh capital, TechCrunch has learned. This is after laying off 44% of its workforce — around 120 employees —last month, marking its second round of job cuts in five months. In the latest development, the startup has now replaced…
Bedrock, defense tech, flock safety, Global IT News, Global Security News, Startups, surveillance technologies, Venture, Y Combinator
Y Combinator’s police surveillance darling Flock Safety raises $275M at $7.5B valuation
Flock Safety and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and so on. It’s best known for its automatic license plate recognition…
DMA, Europe, Global Security News, Government & Policy, Venture, Y Combinator
Y Combinator urges the White House to support Europe’s Digital Markets Act
Y Combinator, one of the world’s most prolific startup accelerators, sent a letter on Wednesday urging the Trump Administration to openly support Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a wide-ranging piece of legislation that aims to crack open Big Tech’s market power. The DMA designates six tech companies as “gatekeepers” to the internet — Alphabet, Amazon,…
Global IT News, Global Security News, Startups, Y Combinator
10 startups to watch from Y Combinator’s W25 Demo Day
Silicon Valley’s most storied startup accelerator, Y Combinator, held its Winter 2025 Demo Day on Wednesday, showcasing its latest batch of 160 startups. Some of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups – including Stripe, Airbnb, and Reddit – started out in a YC batch. Unsurprisingly, many of the startups in this batch are focused on building…
fundraising trends, Global IT News, Global Security News, parker conrad, Venture, Y Combinator
Y Combinator founders raising less money signal a ‘vibe shift,’ VC says
Otherwise Fund’s Terrance Rohan, investing in Y Combinator since 2010, says he noticed a “vibe shift” with this batch thanks to AI. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
AI, Flower Labs, Global IT News, Global Security News, mozilla, Y Combinator
Flower Labs launches a new service that automatically switches from local to cloud AI
Flower Labs, a Y Combinator-backed startup, on Tuesday launched a preview of its distributed cloud platform for serving AI models, called Flower Intelligence. Mozilla is already using it to power the upcoming Assist summarization add-on for its Thunderbird email client. What makes Flower Intelligence unique, Flower Labs said in a post on X, is that…
AI, code, developer tools, Global IT News, Global Security News, TC, Y Combinator
A quarter of startups in YC’s current cohort have codebases that are almost entirely AI-generated
With the release of new AI models that are better at coding, developers are increasingly using AI to generate code. One of the newest examples is the current batch of Y Combinator, the storied Silicon Valley startup accelerator. A quarter of the W25 startup batch have 95% of their codebases generated by AI, YC managing…
DEI, Global IT News, Global Security News, openai, Perplexity, Social, Week in Review, Y Combinator
OpenAI launches GPT-4.5, its largest model to date
Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we’re diving into OpenAI’s newest, biggest model GPT-4.5, Microsoft pulling the plug on Skype, how Anthropic used Pokémon Red to train its Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, the unexpected return of Fyre Festival, and more! Let’s get into it. OpenAI announced the launch of GPT-4.5, the much-anticipated AI…
defense technology, Global IT News, Global Security News, Startups, TC, Y Combinator
YC grad Deepnight nabs $5.5M for AI night vision software that disrupts a multi-billion dollar industry
The founders created military-grade night vision with AI software that began as a smartphone app. And now the military is a customer. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
ai coding assistant, Continue, Fundraising, Global IT News, Global Security News, open source, Startups, Y Combinator
Continue wants to help developers create and share custom AI coding assistants
A new startup wants to help developers create customized, contextual coding assistants that can connect with any model and integrate seamlessly with their development environments. Founded in June 2023 by CEO Ty Dunn and CTO Nate Sesti (pictured above), Y Combinator alum Continue has already garnered some 23,000 stars on GitHub and 11,000 Discord community…
fetii, Fundraising, Global IT News, Global Security News, Mark Cuban, ridehail, Startups, Transportation, Y Combinator
Fetii’s group rideshare app for young people attracts funding from Mark Cuban, YC
When he was a senior studying at Texas A&M University, Matthew Iommi realized that there were no good options for transporting groups of people. Fellow college students heading out for the night together didn’t have access to on-demand rides with the same convenience, accessibility, and affordability of typical ride-hail platforms, like Uber and Lyft. “Once…
AI, Apps, Enterprise, Global Security News, Lingo.dev, Y Combinator, yc
Lingo.dev is an app localization engine for developers
Monolinguists wanting to communicate with the global masses have never had it so easy. Trusty old Google Translate can convert the content of images, audio, and entire websites across hundreds of languages, while newer tools such as ChatGPT also serve as handy pocket translators. On the back end, DeepL and ElevenLabs have have reached lofty…
AI, ai agent, Global IT News, Global Security News, Y Combinator
A job ad for Y Combinator startup Firecrawl seeks to hire an AI agent for $15K a year
Last week, an ad from the Y Combinator job board for a tiny startup called Firecrawl went viral on X. That’s because the ad wasn’t for a human. “Please apply only if you are an AI agent, or if you created an AI that can fill this job,” the job posting read. The seven-person startup…
AI, AI agents, Enterprise, enterprise tech, Global IT News, Global Security News, Startups, TC, VC, venture capital, Waymo, Y Combinator
Coval evaluates AI voice and chat agents like self-driving cars
What do AI voice agents and self-driving cars have in common? Their performance can be evaluated in the same way, argues Brooke Hopkins, a former tech lead at Waymo. Coval, Hopkins’ new startup, looks to do just that. “When I left Waymo, I realized a lot of these problems that we had at Waymo were…
Global IT News, Global Security News, In Brief, Larry Page, Venture, Y Combinator
Y Combinator scored a surprise win when Larry Page came to speak
Y Combinator is maybe only two-degrees of separation from anyone in tech. Even Larry Page. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
AI coding tools, Exclusive, Global IT News, Global Security News, Startups, Y Combinator
After causing outrage on the first day of Y Combinator, AI code editor PearAI lands $1M seed
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. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.