Browsing: Startups

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is built around one question: How do you build an enduring company in the AI era? Our programming and speaker lineup reflect that, based on the feedback we’ve gotten from the community and the reality on the ground.

Kevin Mandia, best known as the founder of cybersecurity startup Mandiant, which sold to Google for $5.4 billion in 2022, has raised $255.5 million for his latest startup, Armadin, at a valuation of more than $2.5 billion, the company announced on Thursday. 

The AI startup Photon is so sure that agents will eventually come to replace mobile apps that it held a funeral for the latter — yes, a real funeral in a church, with speeches and everything. Photon, which helps developers build agents that work over iMessage and WhatsApp, now has $4.5 million in seed funding…

Matan Grinberg, co-founder and CEO of the AI coding startup Factory, said in a post on X on Wednesday that he fired VC Chris Degnan from his role as a board adviser. Grinberg alleges that Degnan shared confidential information with Factory’s biggest competitor, Cognition.

Flow Engineering, a startup that offers AI tools for hardware design, has raised a $50 million Series B round at a $750 million valuation from some big-name investors, the company announced on Wednesday.

Voice AI startup ElevenLabs announced today that it’s allowing employees to cash out a portion of their vested equity at a $22 billion valuation, doubling the $11 billion valuation the company hit when it raised $500 million in February.

Two Google alumni have closed an $11.3 million fund to back early-stage AI startups, betting that the era of enterprise AI experimentation is ending and that customers will increasingly pay only for products that prove their worth.

AI startup EliseAI announced on Tuesday that it has raised $350 million at a $4 billion valuation, double what it was worth when it raised its Series E last August.

TechCrunch Disrupt is where the tech community comes together to build, debate, and connect. And during Disrupt Week, that conversation doesn’t stop when the doors to Moscone West close.

Konrad Zieliński lost his voice to cancer years ago while he was a student at the University of Warsaw. People with his condition have traditionally relied on handheld speaking devices that sound flat and robotic, or on surgically implanted voice prostheses, which require ongoing maintenance to prevent complications, Zieliński told TechCrunch.