Browsing: Startups

Last month, advertising company Infillion acquired location-data platform Foursquare, a once popular social network, at an undisclosed value. Now, in a new blog post, Foursquare co-founder and former CEO Dennis Crowley said that investors didn’t see any returns from the sale.

Inspired Capital has closed a $450 million Fund IV, bringing the New York venture firm’s total committed capital to more than $1.3 billion. The fund will continue Inspired’s strategy of leading pre-seed, seed, and Series A investments in technology-driven companies across sectors including AI infrastructure, healthcare, defense, fintech, robotics, and consumer technology.

TechCrunch Founder Summit is a full-day gathering in Boston on November 4 where founders across all stages connect with top VCs and experienced entrepreneurs to gain tactical insights on building and scaling their companies. It’s the latest in our long line of founder-centric events, which are smaller and more hands-on than Disrupt.

Ky. — Mark Haertzen, a Lexington native and University of Kentucky graduate, has released an audiobook edition ofStay Thirsty: A Serial Entrepreneur’s Tale of Success & Failurefollowing strong sales of the memoir’s print and eBook editions

Year-old startup Flapping Airplanes has wowed Silicon Valley with an impressive founding team and a mission to find ways to train large models with less data. On Wednesday, the company announced it had raised a $1 billion Series A round, co-led by Index and Lux, reportedly at a $6 billion valuation.

Arctic Therapeutics has raised an oversubscribed $21.5 million financing round to advance two additional pipeline programs toward clinical development while continuing partnering and out-licensing efforts for its lead clinical-stage assets. The financing was led by investment firm Pekron, Investcorp-backed Sanos Group, Icelandic investment company Kaldbakur, and Landvættir, an Icelandic venture capital fund managed by AxUM…

Shelflife (Techstars 2026) took home the Groceryshop 2026 Startup Pitch Competition win for Technologies Boosting Revenue and Conversion with its real-time expiration-date tracking for grocers.

The City of Cedar Rapids has been selected as the host city of ENTREFest, an Iowa-centered annual entrepreneurship conference, between June 9 and June 11, 2027.

IBM Ventures, IBM’s venture capital arm, has made a strategic investment in Leena AI as the enterprise software company expands autonomous AI agents for human resources, IT, and finance operations. The investment adds IBM Ventures to a group of existing backers, including Greycroft and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Arda Industries has emerged from stealth with $232 million in total funding to develop AI software that helps manufacturers turn new product designs into working assembly lines and update those lines as designs change. The company is targeting a long-term vision of robotic assembly lines that can adapt at software speed.