EC News Analysis

Kai Kloepfer started biometric “smart” gun startup Biofire as a science fair project after the Aurora, Colorado, mass shooting in 2012 brought the U.S.’s gun violence problem close to home. Kloepfer began thinking of ways to solve the problem using what he knows: technology. Twelve years later, that project has turned into Biofire, a firearms © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Kai Kloepfer started biometric “smart” gun startup Biofire as a science fair project after…

Fast fashion is an industry ensnared in labor issues and copyright problems, and it has an immense environmental impact due to its wastewater and carbon emissions. It also happens to have the potential to make a lot of money, fast. But despite all these issues, VCs won’t stop loving the sector. On Wednesday, my colleague Manish Singh wrote a scoop about a potential Accel investment into Newme, a fast-fashion startup based in India. Newme is an app-based retailer that produces 500 new items a…

The collapse of Amazon’s proposed deal to buy iRobot highlights just how critical the IPO market is this year. With governments tightening the screws on Big Tech companies trying to buy smaller firms, a key exit avenue could be closed to startups in the near term. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. If mergers and acquisitions are harder to pull off, especially for Big Tech companies that…

Losing stuff sucks. It’s even more frustrating when something isn’t really lost, but rather left behind in a location, like an airport or sports stadium, which makes it hard to get back. My friend Caitlin knows this all too well; she’s yet to be reunited with the phone she lost at Oktoberfest on September 27, despite confirming in November that they have it. While Oktoberfest is a more extreme example, people leave a lot of things behind in hotels, on transportation and at events. For example,…

In 2021, it felt like every startup was able to raise at an inflated valuation no matter its size, sector or underlying business model. Today, things look a lot different. Comparing pre-money valuations, every startup fundraising stage except seed saw median valuations decline last year compared to 2022, according to data from PitchBook. Things were slightly better in 2022, when only the median late-stage and growth-stage valuations were down from 2021, while the median early-stage valuation…

Last week, my colleague Aria Alamalhodaei wrote an exclusive on defense and space tech venture firm Countdown Capital’s plan to shut down. Jai Malik, the founder of Countdown, said in a letter to his LPs that due to how competitive the industrial tech sector has become, he is no longer confident about smaller venture firms’ ability to secure the meaningful stakes in startups they’d need to produce worthwhile returns. As Aria wrote, the letter reads like a cold glass of water to the face. While…

Consolidation can be complicated Earlier this week, European micromobility companies Tier and Dott said they had agreed to merge. The companies, which offer scooters and bikes to rent, also plan to raise €60 million from some of their existing investors and plan to close the deal within two months. The companies hope they can become profitable if they work together, my colleague Romain reported. This seems like a solid outcome for the two startups, since they likely weren’t going to…

It’s been a rough few years for startups looking to exit, but companies, especially late-stage startups, can’t stay private forever. When the exit market didn’t open back up in 2023, as many hoped after a very quiet 2022, investors and founders alike decided that 2024 was the year that the exit market would defrost. Now that 2024 is here, do they still think that? TechCrunch+ recently surveyed more than 40 investors to get their predictions on a variety of topics heading into 2024, including…

In startup land, the life cycle of birth, growth and the inevitable leap of faith happens at a breakneck pace. Still, we occasionally fall into the trap of grieving the demise of these companies. My opinion? That’s a poor move. The whole point of a startup is to build something enduring. A corporate Mount Rushmore, if you will. Yes, but: Dive a bit deeper, and you’ll realize that the very model of startups is dependent on drama — whether that’s dramatic ascent or a rapid crash into the nearest…

Equity crowdfunding, or raising funds from both unaccredited and accredited investors, can be a great alternative to venture capital for startups. The strategy has become significantly more popular in recent years now that venture capital is harder to come by, and changes in regulations allow companies to raise more money at one time. But even though crowdfunding is growing in prominence and offers a whole host of benefits to the startups that choose it, many VCs continue to talk negatively…