A new venture studio, SuperLayer, aims to become a preeminent Web3 launch pad

There’s a new venture studio in the world that looks rather different from earlier venture studios from a structural standpoint. Unlike renowned outfits like Atomic or Science or Expa that create companies that then sell equity to VCs who expect that equity to rise in value, this new studio, SuperLayer, plans to spin up consumer […]

Luma raises $4.3M to make 3D models as easy as waving a phone around

When online shopping, you’ve probably come across photos that spin around so you can see a product from all angles. This is typically done by taking a number of photos of a product from all angles, and then playing them like an animation. Luma — founded by engineers who left Apple’s AR and computer vision […]

Will Smith, Kevin Durant and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs invest in electric boat startup Arc

Arc, a startup that launched 10 months ago with ambitions to electrify everything on the water, starting with a limited-edition $300,000 boat, has captured the attention and capital of some of the entertainment industry’s biggest stars. The startup, which closed a seed round in February led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, has brought on several […]

Zeit secures $2M in seed funding for its stroke-detecting wearable

Zeit Medical, which makes an early warning system for strokes during sleep, has raised $2 million in a seed round just after leaving Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort. The company’s work suggests the brain-monitoring headband could save lives by alerting people to possible strokes hours before they might otherwise be noticed, and the new funding […]

Tiger Global leads $25M investment into Swap, which aims to be ‘LatAm’s fintech factory’

Swap, a São Paulo-based BaaS startup, announced today it has raised $25 million in a Series A led by Tiger Global Management. The financing was “heavily oversubscribed,” according to the company, which has now raised $28 million since its October 2018 inception. Endeavor, Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, partners of DST Global, ONEVC, Global Founders Capital […]

Cover, a modular home builder that’s modeled in ways after Tesla, has raised a $60 million Series B

There are lots of startups now working on modular home design. Among the most interesting is Cover, a seven-year-old, LA-based company that says it manufactures fully complete wall, floor and roof panels in its factory, then transports them on a standard truck and assembles them on site — without a crane. The materials it is […]

Abacus.ai snags $50M Series C as it expands into computer vision use cases

Abacus.ai wants to build an AI platform that simplifies machine learning model creation, while still leaving room for power users. Today the company announced a $50 million Series C. At the same time, it announced that the platform was expanding to include computer vision use cases. Tiger Global led the round with participation from Coatue, […]

Tiger Global leads $3M round in Zambia’s Union54 for its card-issuing API

Union54, the first Zambian startup backed by Y Combinator, has gotten another major venture capital firm on its term sheet: Tiger Global. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that the VC juggernaut led its just-completed $3 million seed round, coming only two months after graduating from Y Combinator’s summer batch. San Francisco-based venture capital firm Runa […]