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AI sales rep startups are booming. So why are VCs wary?

When you really probe venture capitalists about investing in AI startups, they’ll tell you that businesses are experimenting wildly but are very slow to add AI solutions into their ongoing business processes.  But there are some exceptions. And one of them appears to be an area known as AI sales development representatives, or AI SDRs. […]

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In just 4 months, AI coding assistant Cursor raised another $100M at a $2.5B valuation led by Thrive, sources say

Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, raised $100 million Series B at a post-money valuation of $2.6 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. The round is being led by returning investor Thrive Capital, the person said.  This new funding comes just four months after Anysphere raised its $60 million Series […]

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AI boom masks fundraising struggles for non-AI startups

Earlier this year, IVP general partner Tom Loverro proclaimed that the post-pandemic downturn is over, and companies that made it this far should prioritize growth over cost-cutting. Yet, the companies still struggling to raise their next round of financing at a higher valuation or survive altogether could still be in the thousands, according to Brian […]

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Kalshi CEO admits enlisting influencers to dis Polymarket in a now-deleted podcast segment

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour confirmed on a podcast interview that his employees asked social media influencers to promote memes about the FBI’s raid on the home of his archrival, the CEO of Polymarket.  Both companies offer competing events-betting markets, a new kind of betting industry where people wager about the outcomes of events ranging from […]

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The 51 most disruptive startups of 2024

These startups have fascinating new technologies, business models, founder stories or are pushing an industry forward in exciting ways.

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Microsoft’s M12 invests another $22.5M into NeuBird, months after its $22M seed round

Late last year, Gou Rao and Vinod Jayaraman founded NeuBird to automate IT site reliability operations tasks with generative AI. Having sold their previous cloud-native storage startup, Portworx, to PureStorage for $370 million, the pair was well-versed in the IT challenges faced by today’s enterprises. “It’s very hard to find good site reliability engineers. There’s […]

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A new disclosure shows, again, how badly Tiger’s ‘spray and pray’ fund performed

Tiger Global famously fueled the pandemic-era venture capital boom, investing heavily in a wide range of startups, setting up bidding wars for even the most unproven startup that led to sky-high valuations. In 2021 alone, the hedge fund backed 315 startups, according to PitchBook data. And much of the VC industry was not happy about […]

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Dimension raises $500M second fund for investing at the intersection of tech and life sciences

Many VCs, particularly newer firms, readily admit that 2024 has been a challenging year for raising fresh capital. Dimension Capital, a two-year-old venture outfit, had a different experience when raising its second fund.   “Every investor from fund one came back very quickly,” said Zavian Dar (pictured center), one of the firm’s three founders and managing […]

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Cleerly raises $106M from Insight Partners for AI heart health early detection

Although heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, a significant portion of people who experience heart attacks are unaware that they have the underlying condition. Cleerly, a cardiovascular imaging startup, hopes to fix this. By analyzing CT scans of the heart, the company’s AI software aims to identify early-stage coronary […]

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Roon raises $15M to replace ‘Dr. Google’ with real doctors sharing videos about illness treatments

Vikram Bhaskaran was leading creator partnerships at Pinterest when his father started showing early symptoms of ALS, a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disease. “It turned my world upside down,” Bhaskaran said. He worked during the day, and spent his evenings Googling the illness and treatment options and in Facebook groups. But Bhaskaran discovered that finding clear, […]

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Gilroy, former Coatue fintech head, and angel investor Rajaram launch VC firm

Michael Gilroy, a former head of fintech investments at Coatue, and Gokul Rajaram, a longtime tech executive and prolific angel investor, are forming a yet-to-be-named venture firm and plan to begin fundraising toward a $400 million to $500 million debut fund early next year, Bloomberg reported. The firm will invest in U.S.-based early-stage fintech and […]

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AI chip startup MatX, founded by Google alums, raises Series A at $300M+ valuation, sources say

MatX, a startup designing chips that support large language models, has raised a Series A of approximately $80 million, three sources say, less than a year after raising its $25 million seed round.  Spark Capital led the investment, valuing the company at a pre-money valuation in the mid-$200 million range and a post-money valuation in […]

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Benchmark invests $19M in New Lantern, a smarter way for radiologists to use AI

Shiva Suri gained a unique perspective into how radiologists work when he quarantined and shared a home office with his mom, a well-regarded radiologist. “I watched her work day in and day out, and she was wasting about seven to eight hours on boring workflow tasks,” Suri said. “Only 5% of her time, she had […]

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