<p>Supply chains have had a tumultuous few years, beginning in 2020, when COVID-19 upended legacy global supply chains. More recently, the &#8220;TikTok-ification&#8221; of retail has companies like Shein and Temu creating new products constantly as consumer demands change at the same rapid pace. Pendulum aims to help companies better plan for supply and demand in [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Presto is helping connect fleets and charging networks so drivers can find working chargers quickly.</p>

<p>The race is on to build a new generation of healthcare software to replace legacy hospital systems that in some cases may not have been updated in decades. A startup out of Munich, Germany, called Avelios has ambitions to build a new kind of end-to-end operating system, leaning into more modern tooling using AI and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Modern product engineering requires the production of highly accurate digital simulations, allowing engineers to create prototypes and understand the real-world performance of materials. Currently, legacy software platforms from companies like IBM and Dassault are generally deployed, but now startups are joining the arena, powered by generative AI. One such is Trace.Space, coming out of Riga, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting &#8220;the job site.&#8221; One of the players in that space, XOi&nbsp; [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Founders and investors, it’s time! TechCrunch Early Stage has evolved into TechCrunch All Stage 2025, returning to Boston on July 17. Get your tickets now and save up to $310 on select ticket types, securing your spot at the best rates. Register here for your All Stage ticket at unbeatable prices. All Stage covers all [&hellip;]</p>

<p>It’s sometimes said that European VC doesn’t have the firepower to compete with VCs in the U.S., which regularly raise billion-dollar+ funds these days. Perhaps further evidence of this view persists in the news that Berlin-based Cherry Ventures has closed its latest fund at $500 million, to be split between early-stage rounds and follow-on rounds [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Modern Synthesis’s fibers can be manipulated in ways that simple plant fibers cannot.</p>

<p>The size of the new fund is a vote of confidence in a range of deep tech verticals.</p>

<p>Cashfree, an Indian payments startup that facilitates and processes more than $80 billion for its customers each year, has raised $53 million in a new round of funding as it gears up to deepen its presence in some international markets. Krafton, maker of sleeper hit titles such as PUBG and BGMI, led Cashfree&#8217;s Series C [&hellip;]</p>

<p>As a university student, Dalton Signor was troubled by how many people around him smoked or vaped, including his grandmother and 14-year-old sister. Signor (pictured center) felt that existing smoking-cessation medicines, whether patches, gums, or lozenges, are not very effective because they take too long to start working. &#8220;They take about 30 minutes to provide [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Fintech-turned-HR outfit Deel is trying to lay the groundwork for an IPO. On Tuesday, it said its annual revenue run rate climbed to $800 million in 2024 after growing by 70%. The startup, which helps businesses globally hire, manage and pay employees remotely, also said it has sold $300 million in secondary shares to General [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The fashion industry has concerned Emily Gittins since adolescence.&nbsp; The sector is, after all, one of the most polluting in the world. According to some sources, it is responsible for nearly 10% of the earth’s CO2 emissions and more than 20% of all water waste.&nbsp; Yet people still want more, fast.&nbsp; “The way we consume [&hellip;]</p>

<p>&#8220;Tabular data&#8221; is a broad term that encompasses structured data that generally fits into a specific row and column. It can be an SQL database, a spreadsheet, a .CSV file, etc. While there has been tremendous progress on artificial intelligence applied to unstructured and sequential data, these large language models (LLMs) are fuzzy by design. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>When in mid-2022 Sarah Guo left Greylock to launch her own AI-focused fund, Conviction Partners, she indicated that she was tagging the word “Partners” to the firm’s name because she would eventually bring on other GPs. Now, more than two years later, Guo is being joined by Mike Vernal, who was a partner at Sequoia [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Stress isn’t just bad for you — it’s also bad for your employer. Factoring in absenteeism, diminished productivity, turnover, medical costs, and accidents, the nonprofit American Institute of Stress estimates that workplace stress costs U.S. businesses over $300 billion annually. One way to measure stress is by monitoring cortisol levels. Even influencers know this, with [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. The aftermath of DeepSeek’s launch was arguably the biggest tech story of the week, especially for anyone keeping a close eye on public markets. But private companies, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>OpenAI may have billions of dollars in the bank. But it&#8217;s gearing up to raise billions more, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Per The WSJ, OpenAI is in talks to secure up to $40 billion in a funding round that would value the startup at $340 billion. SoftBank would lead the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>ElevenLabs, one of the more popular startups working in the field of AI audio, said Thursday that it has raised a Series C round of $180 million, valuing the company at $3.3 billion post-money. a16z and ICONIQ Growth are co-leading the investment. Rumors of the fundraise were first reported by TechCrunch. The final numbers confirm [&hellip;]</p>

<p>French startup Swan has raised another €42 million (around $44 million at current exchange rates). The company considers this round as the second part of the Series B that was originally announced in September 2023. Swan helps other companies offer financial products at scale. The company can generate both virtual and physical cards that work [&hellip;]</p>