Theo Baker spent four years investigating Stanford. Before he leaves, here’s what he found.

“There’s a common refrain among [young] people in this world that it’s easier to raise money for a startup right now than to get an internship. Which is remarkable, right?”

For Eclipse, the $2.5B Cerebras win is just the start of realizing its physical-world thesis

Investing in the real world was lonely for Lior Susan 10 years ago. Now his firm finds itself at the center of the tech world’s action.

Marketing operating system Nectar Social raises $30M Series A led by Menlo

AI-powered marketing platform Nectar Social announced Thursday that it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Menlo Ventures and its Anthology Fund, which was created alongside Anthropic.

$60B AI chip darling Cerebras almost died early on, burning $8M a month

Cerebras Systems was 2026’s biggest tech IPO so far. But years ago, it burned through hundreds of millions working on a chip many believed impossible.

General Catalyst posted VC rage bait and it worked, especially on a16z

Compulsive X user Andreessen himself couldn’t resist responding, many, many times.

Meridian Ventures launched $35M fund to back MBA-deferred founders

Meridian Ventures, the venture firm founded by Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney, announced on Friday the raise of a $35 million second fund to back pre-seed and seed-stage companies founded by those who have deferred MBAs.

Cerebras IPO makes billions for Benchmark but VC Eric Vishria almost didn’t take the meeting

Benchmark almost never backs hardware startups. So Eric Vishria dragged his feet ten years ago before agreeing to hear Cerebras’ pitch.

Khosla Ventures is betting $10M on Ian Crosby, whose last startup, Bench, imploded

Crosby is building Synthetic, a fully autonomous AI bookkeeping service for other startups.

Two weeks left: Startup Battlefield 200 applications close May 27

Your shot at VC access, global visibility, TechCrunch coverage, and $100K equity-free funding is running out. Deadline to apply is May 27. Apply now.

Introducing the 6 stages at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 — built for today’s tougher startup market

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