Former Sequoia partner’s new startup uses AI to negotiate your calendar for you

Blockit, an AI agent that communicates directly with other calendars, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Sequoia.

Voice AI engine and OpenAI partner LiveKit hits $1B valuation

The five year-old-startup raised a $100 million round led by Index Ventures.

Former CEO of celeb fav gym Dogpound launches $5M fund to back wellness companies

Jenny Liu, is a solo first time GP looking to back underrepresented wellness founders.

Sources: Project SGLang spins out as RadixArk with $400M valuation as inference market explodes

SGLang, which originated as an open source research project at Ion Stoica’s UC Berkeley lab, has raised capital from Accel.

Zipline charts drone delivery expansion with $600M in new funding

The startup plans to expand to at least four new U.S. states in 2026.

OpenAI’s former sales leader joins VC firm Acrew: OpenAI taught her where startups can build a ‘moat’ 

Aliisa Rosenthal has found a new career as a VC. She knows what startups can do to protect themselves from the model makers eating their markets.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 tickets now on sale: Lowest rates all year 

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 tickets are officially on sale. Save up to $680 on your ticket and be among the first 500 registrants to score a +1 pass at 50% off. Don’t miss 10,000 tech leaders, founders, and VCs in San Francisco from Oct 13-15. Register bef…

PraxisPro raises $6M seed from AlleyCorp to coach medical sales reps

PraxisPro, founded by a former pharma sales rep, offers small language model AI training specifically designed for medical product sales.

One-time hot insurance tech Ethos poised to be first tech IPO of the year

Ethos was backed by a who’s who of VCs and celebs through 2021. It is currently profitable, it says.