Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups.
Despite this general downturn, certain segments like generative AI continue to attract significant funding, indicating a selective yet substantial interest in specific AI applications.
AI investment is slowing down for a few reasons, like the crowded market and the steep costs of building big AI models.
Investors are getting pickier and want to see real, solid returns instead of just throwing money at hopeful growth.
(That isn’t stopping them from raising billion-dollar funds focusing on AI, of course.)
Some call it the “commercial valley of death,” and it’s the point at which many climate tech startups struggle.
Climate nonprofit Prime Coalition is hoping to bridge the valley with a new program, Trellis Climate.
Trellis Climate follows the latter model with a focus on middle stages, where capital has grown scarce.
“There are more and more philanthropists that are really interested in solving the climate problem,” Lara Pierpoint, director of Trellis Climate, told TechCrunch.
“It is the most flexible and potentially risk-forward set of dollars that are out there.”For founders in climate tech, that sort of funding is likely welcome news.
Moonlight is a free online tarot platform, where you can draw tarot cards on your own, do a reading in a multiplayer room or even book a session with a vetted tarot professional (that’s where the SaaS part comes in).
It was at one of these lessons that Baskin first imagined what an online tarot platform could look like.
As she was building out the idea for Moonlight, Baskin teamed up with Caroline Hermans, a game designer and former UX engineer at Google.
“I was worried that investors might think I’m a prankster — will that hurt me in actually making a business?
We’re all using technology, and I think they’re excited that someone’s making a platform who’s a tarot person, too.”
Checkr, a 10-year-old startup that offers employee background checks and was last valued at $5 billion in April 2022, has laid off 382 employees as companies are not significantly hiring talent.
TechCrunch exclusively learned that Checkr conducted the layoffs across all departments and different levels on Tuesday.
“In response to economic conditions that have impacted companies’ hiring, we made the difficult and painful decision to reduce the size of our team.
This will allow us to operate more efficiently and ensure the long-term health of our business,” a Checkr spokesperson said in the statement.
The job cuts — which affected 32% of the company’s workforce — came nearly two years after Checkr announced the acquisition of Inflection, the startup behind GoodHire, a background-checking platform for small- and mid-sized businesses.
Farm work is tough on the body and requires long hours in sometimes extreme environments.
It can also be difficult to hire and retain staff in a category that frequently relies on migrant workers.
We’ve seen a number of startups attempt to automate field work over the past decade.
The company’s first system, Amiga, is modular, allowing it to be deployed for a broad range of tasks.
In this study we saw the number of weekly labor hours reduced by 50% – 80%.
Ask Sophie: What visas could work to come to Silicon Valley for customer discovery?
Sophie Alcorn, attorney, author and founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley, California, is an award-winning Certified Specialist Attorney in Immigration and Nationality Law by the State Bar Board of Legal Specialization.
But before you do, I recommend you consult a U.S. immigration attorney to devise a strategy for you based on your short-term and long-term goals.
For example, the current filing fee for E, H, L, and O visa petitions is $460.
The USCIS proposal called for increasing the filing fee for E visa petitions to $1,015, H visa petitions to $780, L-1 visa petitions to $1,385, and O visa petitions to $1,055.
Venture debt has its merits.
That’s why it’s interesting that startup finance company Arc Technologies is choosing now to take on the $30 billion venture debt industry with a venture debt marketplace for Silicon Valley.
There’s a larger pool of debt capital that’s now available to these companies because they’re stronger and more resilient.
That’s what Arc is solving with its Arc Capital Markets debt marketplace.
“We want to help founders and CFOs weather the ongoing storm in the venture capital funding route and ensure that they’re continuing to grow efficiently with minimal dilution.”
In the fight against Methane, a key GHG, Valley investors have hit upon an unusual target: Cow burpsWhat do iconic Valley investors Zachary Bogue and Chris Sacca have in common?
And one of the bigger issues at the most recent COP meeting was a pledge to reduce methane emissions, which are growing rapidly.
And a major UN report said “urgent steps” are necessary to reduce methane if global warming is to be kept within a manageable limit.
Mootral says its current Ruminant supplement can reduce methane emissions from dairy cows by up to 38 percent on commercial farms.
CH4 Global — which is backed by the aforementiioned Zachary Bogue of DCVC — employs seaweed in cow feed to reduce their methane emissions.
Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse was not imminent before its chief risk officer left, but the appearance of a belated disclosure only heightened the chaos. The bank spent most of last…
Evan Buhler had no Idea he was living in the middle of a movement. Three months ago, he moved to San Francisco’s Hayes Valley to start a company that would…
