Sometime during 2021, however, a new plan emerged to make the research move even faster by turning the idea into a well-funded company that is now Altos. That effort took shape under the direction of Richard Klausner, the one-time chief of the National Cancer Institute and now an entrepreneur. Klausner, who previously helped start companies […]
Monthly Archives: September 2021
From passion to hobby to startup
Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by what the weekday Exchange column digs into, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Hey team! Alex here. I am off next week. Anna, my regular co-pilot on the weekday column, […]
Talking shop with Twitter’s recent head of corp dev — and now VC — Seksom Suriyapa
Seksom Suriyapa was seemingly destined to land at a venture firm. A Stanford Law graduate, he worked at two blue-chip investment banks before joining the cybersecurity company McAfee as a senior corp dev employee, later logging six years at the human resources software company SuccessFactors and, in 2018, landing at Twitter, where he headed up […]
Daily Crunch: Fintech startup Jeeves snags $500M valuation after $57M Series B
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for September 3, 2021. As noted yesterday, most of TechCrunch has the day off so today’s newsletter is a little bit different than usual. Up top […]
Rivian’s electric R1T pickup truck, R1S SUV get their official EPA ranges
Rivian announced Friday that the first edition version of its all-electric R1T pickup truck has an official EPA range of 314 miles, while its R1T SUV comes in a skosh higher at 316 miles. The official range and fuel economy values have been posted on the U.S. EPA website. The official numbers align with Rivian’s […]
Make accessibility part of your startup’s products and culture from day one
Joe Devon Contributor Joe Devon is the co-founder of Diamond, a digital agency that builds accessible experiences. He is also a co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day and chair of the GAAD Foundation. The world of accessibility has experienced a tipping point thanks to the pandemic, which drove people of all abilities to do more […]
The cocktail party problem: Why voice tech isn’t truly useful yet
Ken Sutton Contributor Ken Sutton is CEO and co-founder of Yobe, a software company that uses edge-based AI to unlock the potential of voice technologies for modern brands. On average, men and women speak roughly 15,000 words per day. We call our friends and family, log into Zoom for meetings with our colleagues, discuss our […]
How Ida dodged NYC’s flood defenses
“The problem is, we’re seeing these impacts and these changing storms faster, and adaptations are just not keeping pace,” says Lauren McPhillips, a hydrologist at Penn State University who studies urban flooding. New York City has been relatively forward-thinking when it comes to preparing for floods, McPhillips says. For years, the city put in more […]
NYC-based insurance underwriting platform Kalepa raises $14M Series A led by Inspired Capital
Kalepa, an insurance underwriting platform based out of New York, has raised a $14 million Series A funding round led by Inspired Capital, with participation from previous investor IA Ventures. Also participating was Gokul Rajaram of Doordash, Coinbase, and formerly of Google, Jackie Reses, formerly of Square, and Henry Ward of Carta. Founded by Paul […]
A founder’s guide to effectively managing your options pool
Allen Miller Contributor Allen Miller is a principal at Oak HC/FT based in San Francisco. He invests in early- and growth-stage companies, with a particular focus on fintech. More posts by this contributor Amid the IPO gold rush, how should we value fintech startups? The last decade in real estate, and a peek into the […]