Alex Wilhelm

Building a startup is hard. Building a company that helps startups is similarly difficult. That’s the takeaway from TechCrunch reporting on Techstars and Newchip. In the case of Newchip, the accelerator appeared to promise a bit more than it could deliver. Mix in a culture that appeared to be turbulent at best, and you have a situation in which an accelerator is in bankruptcy and startups are closing over the potential sale of share warrants.

Razer is in trouble with the FTC over masks it made and sold during the COVID pandemic. The matter is going to cost it around $1.1 million, and some bad press. Yeah, masks. Not what comes to mind when you think of the word “Razer,” right? You probably associate the brand with gaming keyboards and mice. Heck, I have a Razer mouse plugged into my work computer right now. It’s great. But the company’s masks

News that the former founder of HeadSpin is headed to prison for fraud was further evidence that the last boom in the paired worlds of startup and venture capital led to more than just a little bit of fraud. Manish Lachwani, founder in question, is getting prison time and a massive fine for lying to investors, lies that allowed his company to raise nine-figures’ worth of funding. The company persists, and would likely prefer to

Ibotta began its path as a public company on Thursday by opening at $117 per share, a big increase from its IPO price of $88, itself an increase from its proposed range of $76 to $84 per share. And this pop is despite boosting the size of its offering earlier in the week, with existing shareholders expanding their sale by just under 1 million shares. Shares are not continuing to climb in early trading, but are

NASA’s decision to scrap its $11 billion, 15-year mission to Mars to bring back samples could create a startup feeding frenzy, TechCrunch reports. Describing its plans as too slow, and too expensive, NASA is going back to the drawing board, with an eye on getting the space industry to help. Sure, you might worry that NASA can’t manage its own mission on a timeline and budget that it deems acceptable, but the chance for a

This week Boston Dynamics retired its well-known Atlas robot that was powered by hydraulics. Then today it unveiled its new Atlas robot, which is powered by electricity. The change might not seem like much, but TechCrunch’s Brian Heater told the TechCrunch Minute that the now-deprecated hydraulics system was out of date. It’s not hard to spot why Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai, wanted to go electric. Its new Atlas robot is leaner, and appears to

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Monday show, where we dig into the weekend and take a peek at the week that is to come. Now that we are finally past Y Combinator’s demo day — though our Friday show is worth listening to if you haven’t had a chance yet — we can dive into

Well-known startup accelerator Y Combinator held one of its two yearly Demo Day events this week, showcasing hundreds of startups that recently went through its program. Judging from our coverage of the two-day event, TechCrunch found lots to like in the presenting companies. Though, if you are a bit tired of the AI chatter, you aren’t going to have too much fun looking at the rundown. There was a lot more than just AI on

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Monday show, where we dig into the weekend and take a peek at the week that is to come. We’ll talk more about it Wednesday, but this is Y Combinator Demo Day week, so expect a deluge of startup news. On the podcast today we dug into the latest news