<p>A familiar problem is facing new entrants in the AI industry: How do you break through when the incumbents are so entrenched? That’s just one of the questions we’re tackling at TechCrunch Sessions: AI, happening June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. We’re not just offering answers — we’re bringing insights from top experts like [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Humain, the state-owned AI company from Saudi Arabia, is reportedly on track to launch a $10 billion venture fund, Humain Ventures.</p>

<p>Mark your calendars: June 18 just became a can&#8217;t-miss event. We&#8217;re thrilled that Ali Partovi and Russell Kaplan will be joining us for what&#8217;s shaping up to be a fantastic night of ideas and conversation in the heart of Silicon Valley at our next StrictlyVC evening, taking place in Menlo Park. Partovi, the longtime investor [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Hours after Sam Altman and Jony Ive announced on Wednesday that OpenAI was buying Ive’s company, io, in an all-stock transaction valued at $6.5 billion, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski posted a surprising message on X.  Siemiatkowski&#8217;s family investment office, Flat Capital, had bought shares in io six months earlier, he said. Since this is an [&hellip;]</p>

<p>There is a new accounting software in town, coming in with a fresh $17.2 million raise and a desire to shake things up. The company, Filed, hopes to automate the grunt work. “The tax industry is facing a genuine crisis,” Leroy Kerry, Filed’s co-founder CEO, told TechCrunch. Many CPAs are approaching retirement while a dwindling [&hellip;]</p>

<p>In an era where hundreds of new venture funds have emerged, only to face a narrowing market as exits prove slippery, Elizabeth Weil&#8217;s Scribble Ventures stands out as a case study in the importance of deep networks. Defying a contraction that is sidelining many newcomers, Weil just secured $80 million for Scribble&#8217;s third fund, its [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Looking to make a splash at TechCrunch All Stage 2025? Our Side Events initiative is a fantastic opportunity to engage with Boston&#8217;s tech community in a dynamic and memorable manner. Plus, we&#8217;ll assist in promoting your event at no cost to you! Submit your event here by June 10. Throw your own Side Event at [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The global assistive technology market was valued at more than $22 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow substantially by 2030. Despite the potential market size, many founders building tech to help people with disabilities struggle to secure the kind of early funding needed to get their companies off the ground in the first [&hellip;]</p>

<p>South Loop Ventures, a Houston-based venture firm, announced a $21 million Fund I, with Rice Management Company and Chevron Technology Ventures serving as anchor investors.&nbsp; The firm, which launched in 2022, focuses on seed and pre-seed companies, with $400,000 as the average check size. It also primarily hopes to focus on backing founders of color.&nbsp; [&hellip;]</p>

<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got a pretty wild story to tell you,&#8221; the early YouTube star Caspar Lee says in a TikTok. He goes on to tell the story of how a startup founder slid into his LinkedIn DMs with a pitch about an eco-friendly deodorant called Wild. He ignored the message at first, but his cousin Sasha [&hellip;]</p>

<p>With the current economic uncertainties and geopolitical challenges, securing funding for startups in Asia has recently become more difficult. Venture capital firms have also been impacted by the downturn, leading to a decrease in the number of funds being closed. The VC market is &#8220;going through [one of its] cyclical winters marked by high interest [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Sonali De Rycker, a general partner at Accel and one of Europe’s most influential venture capitalists, is bullish about the continent’s prospects in AI. But she’s wary of regulatory overreach that could hamstring its momentum. At a TechCrunch StrictlyVC evening earlier this week in London, De Rycker reflected on Europe’s place in the global AI [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Since Donald Trump took office, more than three dozen employees, allies, and investors of Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey have taken roles at federal agencies, helping direct billions in contracts to their companies. </p>

<p>Redpoint Ventures, a San Francisco-based firm that is about a quarter century old, has raised a $650 million 10th early-stage fund, according to a regulatory filing. Redpoint&#8217;s new fund matches the size of its prior fund, which was raised just under three years ago. In a market where many venture firms are decreasing their capital [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At long last, digital consumer bank Chime has moved forward with its IPO by filing its S-1 paperwork Tuesday. Chime had reportedly filed confidential S-1 paperwork back in December. S-1 filings typically reveal all kinds of information, covering financial, legal, and other risk factors. But Chime’s S-1 documents still have a lot of blank spaces. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Work-Bench, whose portfolio includes unicorns Spring Health and Socure, just raised a $160 million Fund IV to quadruple down on backing companies in New York City. The firm announced the raise in a blog post on Monday, saying the latest fund will support seed-stage founders building enterprise software. Checks will range from $2 million to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Buzzwords that are stretched to the point of being meaningless are as old as the tech industry itself. The top current one is &#8220;AI agent&#8221; and its variants, like &#8220;agentic.&#8221; So, unsurprisingly, no one really knows what an AI agent is. Even people with software engineering backgrounds who work for Andreessen Horowitz, one of the premier venture [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Mercury co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund today announced the launch of a $26 million fund to back early-stage startups, a move that formalizes his extensive history of angel investing. Axios first reported this in February. Akhund has been an active angel investor since 2016, backing over 350 startups at their earliest stages. His portfolio includes [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On Monday, Google announced the launch of its AI Futures Fund, a new initiative that seeks to invest in startups that are building with the latest AI tools from Google DeepMind, the company’s AI R&amp;D lab.&nbsp; The fund will back startups from seed to late stage and will offer varying degrees of support, including allowing [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, launched an AI company called Humain to bolster the country&#8217;s artificial intelligence sector. The company plans to build out the country&#8217;s AI infrastructure, including the construction of data centers. This news arrives as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to attend a U.S.-Saudi investment forum on [&hellip;]</p>