cofounder

Creating a Climate for Success: Casper’s Co-Founder Aids in Launching Incubator for Tech Startups Focused on Sustainability

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One path, which is particularly well trodden, is to start a venture fund. Instead of launching a VC fund, they’re starting with an incubator called Montauk Climate, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Montauk Climate is one of the latter. Montauk Climate will remain shareholders in its spinout companies and have seats on their boards. As the number of incubated companies expands, Montauk Climate expects to raise its own venture fund to help support them.

Artificial Intelligence: Inscribe.ai Reduces Workforce by 40% Due to Fraud Detection Software Production

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Yet another AI-powered fraud detection software provider is laying off staff. Inscribe, whose platform works to detect fraud in areas like business underwriting, tenant screening, and onboarding, has cut just under 40% of its staff, which equates to dozens of employees. San Francisco-based Inscribe.ai confirmed the headcount reduction to TechCrunch, noting that the AI advances in the financial services industry necessitated a pivot to a new product and direction for the company. “2023 was a year of change for our customers and Inscribe,” explained Inscribe CEO and co-founder, Ronan Burke. At the time, the company forecast it would double its then 50-person workforce over the coming 12 to 18 months.

Hurry Now! Last Chance to Save with Disrupt’s 2-for-1 Sale – Ends Today

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The clock is ticking on your chance to seize a scorching deal: TechCrunch Disrupt is returning to San Francisco from October 28–30, and the 2-for-1 ticket offer ends tonight at midnight! What’s in store at TechCrunch Disrupt? Prepare for three electrifying days packed with the latest startup breakthroughs, trends, and products, tailored for every step of your entrepreneurial journey. From startup founders to venture capitalists, Disrupt attracts a diverse crowd eager to explore trends in SaaS, fintech, AI, and space. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024?

Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, departs from board position

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Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal has resigned from the e-commerce group’s board, the two said Saturday. Sachin Bansal, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup’s other co-founder, left the board in 2018 after scuffle with the investors. Binny Bansal, who reserved the rights to stay on Flipkart’s board for as long as he preferred, cited conflict of interest with his new venture as the reason for the move. “I am proud of the Flipkart Group’s achievements over the past 16 years. After leaving Flipkart, Sachin Bansal founded Navi, a financial services firm that is looking to go public.

Mirantis Reinstates Old CEO as New Chief Executive

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Mirantis, the enterprise infrastructure startup that has gone through its share of evolutionary cycles since it launched back in 1999. That has included a number of leadership changes, including a CEO swap in 2018 which saw co-founder and CEO Alex Freedland step down and co-founder Adrian Ionel taking on the CEO role (after Ionel and Freedland had first swapped CEO roles back in 2015). But now, in another twist to this story, Freeland is coming back as CEO while Ionel is stepping down effective January 11. “Once again, we are in the middle of one of the most exciting periods in the history of computing, more than ever led by open source innovation. Ionel will transition to an advisor role.

“Anticipated Success: Valkyrie’s Co-Founder Predicts $10B in Spot Bitcoin ETF Investments by Year’s End”

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The SEC might finally approve spot bitcoin ETFs on Wednesday after denying applications for more than a decade. Counting market movements, it could be $20 billion total AUM in spot bitcoin ETFs.” Valkyrie is one of 11 applicants for a U.S. spot bitcoin ETF; the other firms are BlackRock, Grayscale and Fidelity, among others. But it was back in the end of September, beginning of October, when we’re launching our ETH futures ETF. When we got an inclination that [the] spot bitcoin ETF was coming soon, we said OK, well, bitcoin futures ETFs are basically going to go away when a spot bitcoin ETF launches. So we converted our bitcoin futures ETF into a strategy to invest in both ETH and bitcoin.

“Insights from 20 Years in the Language Learning Industry: Lessons from Babbel’s Co-Founder”

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What Babbel co-founder has learned over 20 years in the language learning industryWelcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Markus Witte, the co-founder of the language learning platform Babbel. Witte spoke to the duo about being early to the online language industry and how the company has survived these past 20 years of market disruption. Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each week. Connect with us:On Twitter On Instagram Via email: found@techcrunch.comOr check out one of our sister podcasts:

Begin Your Journey to Launching a Startup with OpenAI

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This is a popular topic on TechCrunch+, where columnists spend considerable time discussing how startups can take advantage of OpenAI. The following subscriber-only articles should serve as a foundation for founders building an AI startup on or off OpenAI’s platform. Chris Ackerson, formerly on the IBM Watson team and now VP of Product at AlphaSense, explains the best ways for a startup to develop a generative AI copilot. Read more here…Startups must add AI value beyond ChatGPT integrationThe AI hype train is going full swing. From internal efficiency and productivity to external products and services, companies are racing to implement generative AI technologies across every sector of the economy.

Maintaining an Agile Startup: The Key to Fostering a Dynamic Developer Community

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Most tech startups are born from a few early engineers building the company’s initial product. As those first builders work together, they begin to establish a developer culture — sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. At Web Summit in Lisbon in November, two founders discussed the importance of building a developer culture that’s distinct from a company’s overall culture. And we really wanted to instill that in the developer culture early on,” she said. Ludmila Pontremolez, CTO and co-founder at Zippi, a Brazilian fintech startup, spent time as an engineer at Square prior to launching Zippi.

Open Door’s Co-Founder, Eric Wu, is Returning to his Startup Origins

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Opendoor co-founder Eric Wu is stepping down to return to his startup rootsOpendoor co-founder Eric Wu is stepping down from the real estate tech company, according to an SEC filing. In a statement, Wu said: “After ten years, I am called to get back to my startup roots and create and build again. Last December, Wu announced he was stepping down from his role as CEO to serve as Opendoor’s president of marketplace. In November 2022, Opendoor announced it was letting go of about 550 people, or 18% of the company, across all functions. Jack Altman also announced he would be stepping down from Lattice, a software startup he founded in 2015.