Founders

Traditionally, U.S. private market investors who adopted environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) frameworks — the very few thus far — did so to evaluate a potential company or investment on how it approached areas like sustainability or diversity. But now, in the post-Roe era, as controversial conservative legislation sweeps the nation, some VC investors and founders believe the social definition of ESG investing should expand to incorporate pressing human rights issues such as reproductive healthcare.…

Blockchain has the potential to completely change how people do business, and innovative startups are taking notice. A well-known use of blockchain technology is a cryptocurrency, and people often use the terms interchangeably. However, blockchain and cryptocurrency are not the same. Blockchain is the technology that enables cryptocurrency, and it has other uses as well. Cryptocurrencies use a distributed ledger, but they are based on a digital store of value and exist primarily as a source of electronic currency.…

Unlike most things in the world of consumer hardware and software, new graphics processing units are not released according to an annual upgrade cycle. Several years sometimes pass between major generation refreshes, and so each new series tends to introduce significant changes and improvements in performance. It's now been almost exactly two years since Nvidia launched its GeForce RTX 20 lineup, and we've only just seen the launch of its successors, the GeForce RTX 3090, the GeForce RTX 3080, and the GeForce RTX 3070. As…

Advocates and organizers had been preparing for Roe v. Wade to be overturned since the U.S. Supreme Court draft decision leaked in early May. But Nadya Okamoto, co-founder of period care company August, still felt heartbroken when the decision became official in late June. “One of the things that always made me passionate about policy and legislative action was that it always felt so permanent,” she told TechCrunch. “For Roe to be rolled back went against many of the beliefs I had about change and social progress.”…

Maxwell Strachan / VICE: Interview with MetaMask founders who say “we can't stop people from making Ponzis on blockchains” and “putting your money in cryptocurrencies is gambling” — Co-founder Aaron Davis says in his first joint interview with Dan Finlay that “it feels too little too late … Maxwell Strachan / VICE: Interview with MetaMask founders who say “we can't stop people from making Ponzis on blockchains” and “putting your money in…

Where in the world are Su Zhu and Kyle Davies? The founders of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) are nowhere to be found, according to officials charged with liquidating the bankrupt company (via Reuters). According to a court document filed Friday, Zhu and Davies’ whereabouts are currently unknown, and its liquidators say they have not received “any meaningful cooperation” from the two. The Singapore-based 3AC filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy earlier this month, a move designed to protect foreign…

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. With down rounds looming, startup founders have a lot less dealmaking leverage than they did in 2021. If new to the fundraising game, the changing market will require an accelerated class on less-favorable term sheet provisions like liquidation preferences. The information may have been forgotten…

A venture run by the founder of Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding said on Monday it will look to break uniformity in the smartphone industry, as it completed a purchase of a majority stake in handset brand Meizu. The deal by Hubei Xingji Shidai Technology Co Ltd, which was launched by Geely's chairman Eric Li last year as part of a push by the automaker into premium smartphones, was first revealed to the public in June via a statement from China's market regulator. The purchase brings Geely, an established Chinese…

The news that funding for Black founders is falling was no shock to the Black community, much of which was raised with the aphorism, “when white America catches a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.” U.S. startups received VC funding of around $75 billion in Q1 and about $50 billion so far in Q2, despite investors pulling back and valuations decreasing as the markets trend downward. But as funding in the wider private market plummets, Black founders are seeing an even sharper decline: They received $1.2 billion in Q1…

Founders Fund has made its first investment in the Middle East by backing UAE-based proptech startup Huspy. The $37 million Series A round, one of the largest at this stage in MENA, was led by Sequoia Capital India.  The round also welcomed participation from Fifth Wall, the largest VC firm backing real estate and proptech startups. Chimera Capital invested in the company as well as existing investors from its undisclosed seed round last April, such as Breyer Capital, VentureFriends, COTU, BY Venture Partners, and…