The ascent of the AI therapist
Paris-based VC Breega hits first close of $75M Africa fund to back pre-seed and seed startups
Paris-based VC firm Breega is launching a $75 million fund to invest in early-stage startups in Africa, with 70% of the capital already committed at the first close, the firm revealed to TechCrunch. Since entering the VC scene in 2015, Breega has fully raised four funds: a first seed fund (€45 million), a second seed […]
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PQShield secures $37M more for ‘quantum resistant’ cryptography
Malicious hacking is getting increasingly sophisticated, and that’s leading to a very clear trend in security technology. To keep people and organizations safe, security also has to continue advancing its own complexity. Security startup PQShield has gotten an early start on that concept with a focus on “post-quantum” cryptography: software and hardware solutions that, in […]
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Hero wants to save the day for companies facing a working capital crunch
Hero, a new fintech startup based in Paris, is announcing an €11.3 million all-equity funding round led by Valar Ventures ($12.2 million at today’s exchange rate). For the past couple of years, the company has been quietly building an ambitious banking product for small companies that can essentially replace everything you’d expect from a traditional […]
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‘Lawyer-in-the-loop’ startup Wordsmith wants to bring AI paralegals to all employees
Wordsmith, a fledgling Scottish legal tech startup, has somehow managed to attract the backing of two well-known venture capital firms. The startup targets in-house legal teams and law firms with an AI platform that they can configure to help other workers in the company. This way, anyone in the company can solicit help with legal […]
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General Catalyst makes India push with Venture Highway merger
General Catalyst, a Silicon Valley venture capital group, is expanding its presence in India by joining forces with a local venture firm and earmarking more than $500 million for investments in the world’s most populous nation. The U.S. venture capital group is merging with Venture Highway, an India-based firm whose investments include social commerce startup […]
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France leads the pack for Generative AI funding in Europe, London has 3X the number of GenAI startups
Like it or hate it, artificial intelligence – especially generative AI – is the technology story of 2024. OpenAI, with its rollouts of viral services like ChatGPT and billions in funding, may have gobbled up the lion’s share of attention and money so far. But according to a new report out from top VC Accel […]
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C12, the French quantum computing startup founded by two twin brothers, raises $19.4 million
C12 is announcing that it recently raised an €18 million funding round ($19.4 million at today’s exchange rate). Originally founded in 2020 as a spin-off from the Physics Laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure, the company has been working on a unique process to create quantum computers based on carbon nanotubes. While the concept of […]
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Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s former chief scientist, launches new AI company
Ilya Sutskever, one of OpenAI’s co-founders, launches Safe Superintelligence (SSI), just a month after leaving OpenAI.
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Internal SpaceX documents show the sweet stock deals offered to investors like a16z, Gigafund
Like many highly valued startups, SpaceX sometimes allows its employees to cash out some of their shares by selling to company-authorized outside investors. TechCrunch has gotten a peek at an internal SpaceX document about such a tender offer from May 2022. Musk posted on X last month that SpaceX holds such sales for employees about […]
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