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Startups

Startup news: funding rounds, launches, acquisitions and shutdowns, with the founders and investors behind them.

128 articles · page 2 of 3

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Startups

Healthleap raises $38M for AI platform that flags hospital patients at risk of undiagnosed conditions

Healthleap, a startup using language models to scan patient records and flag individuals at risk of undiagnosed conditions such as malnutrition and delirium, has raised $38 million in seed and Series A funding. The company, founded in South Africa in 2022 by siblings Jemima and Josiah Meyer, has grown from three hospital partners to more than 50 over the past year and now counts Penn Medicine, Cedars-Sinai, Intermountain, Houston Methodist and Emory Healthcare among its customers.

·2 min·3 sources
Startups

Parallel Systems raises $100M to bring autonomous electric freight trains to short-haul routes

Parallel Systems, a startup founded by former SpaceX engineers, has raised $100 million in Series C funding to scale production of its autonomous, battery-powered rail vehicles designed to make short-haul freight profitable again for railroads. The round was led by AVP, with participation from Hillspire, Agility Global, and others, as the company seeks to address a $1 trillion surface freight market where trucking currently dominates trips under 500 miles.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

On-Device AI Assistant Underdog Launches with Privacy-First Approach and Novel Business Model

Sigil Wen, a self-taught coder and Thiel Fellow who once lived in an AI hacker house with prominent researchers, has launched Underdog, an invite-only beta of an AI assistant that runs entirely on-device. The app, which currently works on Macs and Windows PCs with mobile versions coming, aims to provide a private alternative to cloud-based assistants like Instinct and Muse by keeping data on users' own machines and encrypting account keys.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

Furientis Raises $25M Seed Round to Mass-Produce Low-Cost Missile Interceptors

Furientis, a defense startup just one year old, has raised a $25 million seed round led by Silicon Valley venture firm Benchmark to mass-produce low-cost interceptor missiles. The company already holds a funded Pentagon contract and aims to help address a critical shortage in U.S. missile inventory, offering a cheaper alternative to traditional interceptors by using readily available components and rapid manufacturing cycles.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

Type One Energy raises $200M to build fusion power plant by 2034

Type One Energy, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based fusion startup founded in 2019, has raised $200 million in a Series B round to fund development of a 400-megawatt commercial fusion power plant it aims to bring online by 2034. The company plans to act as an integrator, designing plants and buying components from a network of suppliers rather than building them in-house, a strategy its chief executive says will require 'a different order of magnitude' less capital than vertically integrated rivals.

·3 min·2 sources
Startups

Firmus, Australia's AI Infrastructure Hope, Targets $44 Billion ASX Listing

Firmus, a seven-year-old Australian company building specialised cooling infrastructure for AI chips, is set to list on the Australian Securities Exchange this month with a targeted valuation of about $44 billion, placing it just behind retail giant Woolworths. The company, which operates a factory in the Canberra suburb of Hume producing large white metal enclosures called 'HyperCubes', aims to contract its high-efficiency AI infrastructure to major technology firms including Meta.

·1 min·3 sources
Startups

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 names five judges for Startup Battlefield 200 final

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 has announced the five judges who will decide the winner of this year's Startup Battlefield competition. The judging panel consists entirely of individuals who founded or co-founded the investment firms they now lead, bringing experience in backing founders and scaling companies. The competition runs from October 13 to 15, with 20 startups pitching on the Disrupt Stage across the three days.

·1 min·3 sources
Startups

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Adds Sessions on Open vs Closed AI Model Choices

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, set for October 13-15 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, has announced a new session tackling one of the most consequential decisions for AI startups: whether to build on open models, proprietary APIs, or a mix of both. The panel, “The Real Tokenmaxxing: How the Best AI Companies Navigate a Multi-Model World,” will bring together investors and founders to discuss how products increasingly call on multiple models for different jobs.

·2 min·5 sources
Startups

MyMonthlyCar aims to turn idle dealership inventory into month-to-month rental revenue

A new Florida-based startup, MyMonthlyCar, is launching an online platform that lets dealerships rent out used cars on a month-to-month basis, giving consumers flexibility and dealerships a way to move inventory. Co-founded by Ukrainian entrepreneur Igor Dobrianskyi, the startup has been selected for the 2026 Startup Battlefield 200 and will exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco from October 13 to 15.

·2 min
Startups

Factory CEO fires board adviser, alleges he leaked secrets to AI rival Cognition

Matan Grinberg, co-founder and chief executive of the AI coding startup Factory, said he fired venture adviser Chris Degnan on Tuesday, accusing him of sharing confidential company information with Factory's biggest competitor, Cognition. Two hours after Grinberg detailed the allegations on X, Degnan announced on X and LinkedIn that he had joined Cognition as its chief revenue officer.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

Restate secures $20M Series A as AI agents drive demand for durable workflow infrastructure

Berlin-based Restate, a startup building infrastructure for resilient multi-step workflows, has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Singular, with participation from Redpoint Ventures and Capital One Ventures. The company, founded in 2022, has found that its technology — originally designed for general workflow resilience — is a strong fit for the unpredictable, long-running processes typical of AI agents.

·3 min·3 sources
Startups

Founder who lost voice to cancer builds wearable bionic device to restore emotional speech

Konrad Zieliński lost his voice to cancer while a student at the University of Warsaw. After completing a PhD in bionic systems for laryngectomees — people who have had their larynxes removed — he launched Uhura Bionics in 2023 to develop noninvasive wearable speech devices. The startup, selected for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026's Startup Battlefield 200, offers two models including a high-end version called Whitney that aims to restore emotional expression such as laughter, shouting and singing. Zieliński will demonstrate the device at Disrupt in October and at SF Tech Week, where he plans to sing onstage.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

Atomic secures $12.5m Series A to scale AI-driven supply chain automation

Boston-based supply chain startup Atomic has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by Klass Capital and Madrona Venture Group, bringing its total funding to just over $15 million. The company, founded by former Tesla supply chain leaders, uses AI to simulate inventory scenarios and autonomously recommend or execute purchasing decisions, a system that grew out of the 2018 Model 3 production ramp at Tesla.

·3 min·2 sources
Startups

Modal Labs nears $750M funding round at $15.75B valuation, more than tripling its worth in four months

Modal Labs, a New York-based startup that lets developers run AI models without managing their own servers, is close to finalising a $750 million funding round led by Accel at a $15.75 billion valuation that includes the investment, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. The round would more than triple the company’s valuation from the $4.65 billion it reached in a $355 million fundraise announced just four months ago.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

Maritime intelligence startup Quartermaster raises $140M Series B

Arlington, Virginia-based maritime intelligence startup Quartermaster has closed a $140 million Series B funding round, just months after its $43 million Series A. The round was preempted by software-focused venture firm Insight Partners and includes new investor Overmatch Ventures, along with existing backers like First Round Capital, with the remaining $40 million coming as a debt facility from investment bank Stifel.

·3 min·2 sources
Startups

Databricks Acquires Spreadsheet Startup Row Zero, Signals Aggressive Acquisition Strategy

Databricks announced on Thursday it has acquired Row Zero, an early-stage startup building cloud-based spreadsheets capable of handling over 1 million live rows, as part of a broader push to merge business intelligence, AI agents, and the familiar spreadsheet interface. Terms were not disclosed, but CEO Ali Ghodsi told TechCrunch the company intends to do many more such deals in the future.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

Enveda raises $311M to push AI-discovered natural drugs into clinical trials

Enveda, a biotech startup using AI to find new medicines in plants and microbes, has raised $311 million in a Series E round at a $2 billion valuation. The funding, led by Catalio Capital Management with participation from Iconiq and others, doubles the valuation the company achieved 12 months ago and will support its push to bring nature-derived, AI-discovered drug candidates into human trials.

·2 min·3 sources
Startups

Modal Motors aims to break China's grip on electric motors by ditching rare-earth magnets

As the push to reshore critical manufacturing accelerates, startup Modal Motors is taking a different approach: building electric motors that don't rely on rare-earth magnets at all. Founder Michael Van Steenburg, who will pitch the company at TechCrunch Disrupt next month as part of the Startup Battlefield 200, argues that current reshoring efforts are doomed until a domestic rare-earth supply chain matures — something he says is years away.

·2 min·2 sources
Startups

PitPro’s Tire-Changing Robot Goes Live in Calgary, Aiming to Fix Auto Shop Labor Woes

San Francisco-based PitPro Automation has installed its first automatic tire-changing system at a Kal Tire shop in Calgary, Alberta, marking the commercial debut of a robot it says can swap a full set of four tires in under 15 minutes. The startup, co-founded by CEO Jeremy Conrad, hopes the deployment will prove its technology can ease a chronic labor shortage that makes tire service “backbreaking” work — a problem one shop manager told Conrad had already driven employees to a neighboring Panda Express.

·2 min·2 sources