Startups

Creating crops that’ll endure climate change — think worse droughts, heat waves and pests — is a time-consuming and costly feat. Avalo is betting its machine learning models can speed that process up and make it a whole lot cheaper too.  The Durham, North Carolina–based startup, which

Meet BioticsAI, a startup that has built an AI-based platform that plugs into an ultrasound machine to prevent fetal malformation misdiagnosis. BioticsAI has been quietly working on its solution for the past two years and is now unveiling its product onstage at technewss Disrupt as part of the Sta

ZayZoon, a fintech firm that got its start charging employees $5 to get paid sooner, has raised $34.5 million in a Series B round co-led by Framework and EDC with participation from ATB Financial. CEO Darcy Tuer says that the funds, which bring ZayZoon’s total raised to $53 million, will be p

The funding environment in 2013, when we at Cailabs were looking for early-stage investment, was a tough one. According to some metrics, it's much like the one we find ourselves in today. Startup founders must persuade investors to part with their money at a time when many investors aren't

Last year's techwide reckoning continues. In 2023, layoffs have yet again cost tens of thousands of tech workers their jobs; this time, the workforce reductions have been driven by the biggest names in tech like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Meta and Zoom. Startups, too, have announced cuts

While working at GitLab, Job van der Voort hired remote workers in about 70 countries. The process was such a challenge that with co-founder Marcelo Lebre, he decided to found Remote in 2019. The platform, which allows companies to hire remote workers and manage payments and compliance, announced t

HiddenLayer, a security startup focused on protecting AI systems from adversarial attacks, today announced that it raised $50 million in a funding round co-led by M12 and Moore Strategic Ventures with participation from Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM, Capital One and TenEleven. Bringing the company’

Two years ago, after Vlad Shipilov, a Russian immigrant, moved to Portugal, his business visa was denied because his lawyer wasn’t aware of certain requirements pertaining to visa applications originating from Russia. It ultimately took $16,000, joining immigration groups on Telegram and Face

Babbel, the popular subscription-based language learning service, today announced that it has acquired Toucan, the well-funded language learning browser extension. Toucan, it turns out, wound down as a company earlier this year, though its service has remained online. None of Toucan’s co-foun

The most recent cohort from Y Combinator features more than 200 startups. More than a record half of the S23 startups focus on AI applications, highlighting a dominant trend we can expect in the coming years. The S23 is remarkable for at least one more reason: Only one firm in the batch hails from

Plan A, a carbon accounting and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) reporting platform for corporations, has raised $27 million in a Series A round of funding led by U.S. VC giant Lightspeed Venture partners. Technically the funding is an extension of a $10 million Series A round it announc

French startup Stoïk offers a cyber insurance product to small and medium companies — a bit like Coalition in the U.S. And things have been working well in France. So the company just announced that it plans to expand to Germany as its second country with Franziska Geier heading the team th

We live in an era rife with the narrative of unicorns, decacorns, and startups that seemingly explode overnight into multi-billion-dollar enterprises, and every budding entrepreneur is seemingly dreaming of being the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. But the truth is, not every

Bird Buddy, the startup behind multiple AI-powered smart bird feeders, including the recently announced smart Hummingbird Feeder and Bird Bath, is today launching its latest product — and it’s not another bird feeder. Instead, the company is debuting a new digital product called Bird Bu