A strange new battle over valuable startup equity took another step forward late yesterday afternoon. Jeremy Guillory, a Bay Area mechanical engineer, has filed a cross-complaint against 2.5-year-old Cruise Automation and its longtime CEO, Kyle Vogt. At issue: Guillory says that the self-driving car company — which developed an autopilot system for existing cars and is […]
Y Combinator
Y Combinator Tells VCs Not to Worry About Its New $700M Fund
Almost a year-and-a-half after Ali Rowghani resigned as COO of Twitter, he’s been appointed the head of Y Combinator’s growth fund by the organization’s president, Sam Altman. TechCrunch had heard whispers of the move earlier this week, but Altman made the announcement official earlier yesterday, tweeting of Rowghani that he’s a “wonderful partner to help […]
Having Won Over VCs, Y Combinator Turns to LPs
Last week, Y Combinator ran investors through 105 presentations by early-stage startups in a two-day show it calls Demo Day. The pace of deal-making for such events, staged every summer and winter, has grown so feverish that the incubator introduced a new wrinkle: backers could commit to plowing millions into a company by simply clicking […]
With Newest Program, Y Combinator Looks to (Eventually) Fund 1,000 Startups a Year
For better or worse, Y Combinator is putting the pedal to the metal. On the heels of some of its biggest classes to date, the well-known accelerator yesterday introduced yet another new program. That initiative? The YC Fellowship program. The broad strokes are as follows: About 20 teams that are “very, very early” and haven’t […]
Another Hardware Fund Emerges: Meet Root Ventures
You may have noticed: Hardware investing is in vogue. Andy Rubin, creator the mobile operating system Android, recently launched Playground Global to advise device makers in exchange for equity. Formation 8 is raising a $100 million hardware-focused venture fund. That’s saying nothing of the seed-stage fund Bolt, which raised $25 million a few months ago, and the […]
The Muse Raises $10 Million (and Turns Away $10 Million)
The Muse, a 3.5-year-old New York-based career site that offers job opportunities, advice, skill-building courses, and video profiles meant to show what it’s like to work at different companies, has just raised $10 million in Series A funding from Aspect Ventures, DBL Partners and QED Investors. Co-founder and CEO Kathryn Minshew says the platform, which […]
Battery Ventures and Venrock Back 6Sense with $12 Million
A lot of bets are being made these days on the thesis that most enterprise products don’t make users’ lives easier or help them do their jobs better. “I doubt you could find a single sales rep who really enjoys using Salesforce,” says Roger Lee, a general partner of Battery Ventures. “What a [customer-relationship management] […]
In Accelerator Wars, the Teacher Becomes the Student
Dave McClure once followed Y Combinator’s moves closely, looking to emulate parts of its structure. Now, the famed, nine-year-old tech accelerator looks to be playing catch-up with Dave McClure. This week, for example, Y Combinator announced it would start running its Startup School, a one-day networking event, in New York and London. Y Combinator, which will continue […]
The Startup Whisperer, Paul Graham, on Getting Back to Basics
Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham spoke at the Launch conference in San Francisco yesterday afternoon in a “fireside chat” with the event’s founder, Jason Calacanis. While it wasn’t exactly a hard-hitting interview – these things are rarely intended to be – Calacanis managed to surface a lot during their conversation. Graham spoke at length about about Y Combinator’s […]