Connie Loizos
Silicon Valley Editor
The Latest from Connie Loizos
Fontinalis Partners, the early mobility-focused VC firm, rolls out a third fund
Fontinalis Partners, a 12-year-old, Detroit-based venture firm that was among the earliest early-stage venture outfits to focus squarely on mobility, has collected $104 million in capital commitments
MobileCoin closes on $66 million in equity in Series B round
MobileCoin, a cryptocurrency startup that counts founder Moxie Marlinspike of the encrypted messaging app Signal as its earliest technical advisor, has raised $66 million in Series B funding from a lo
Felicis Ventures grows along with its returns, gathering up $900 million across two new funds
Fifteen years ago, Aydin Senkut, a former Google exec, was an outsider in venture circles that didn’t take seriously his ambitions to become a top VC. Now, his firm, Felicis Ventures, is announc
Carta says it just used its own product to establish a new — and far higher — valuation for itself
Carta, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based cap table management and valuation software company, just raised $500 million in its eighth round of funding, at a $7.4 billion valuation. That’s mo
Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital has raised $800 million to “keep unf*cking the planet”
Lowercarbon Capital, a climate-tech focused fund founded by longtime investor Chris Sacca and his wife Crystal Sacca, has closed on $800 million in capital, Sacca announced today in a post on the firm
Facebook’s vaccine stance is part of a familiar pattern, says author and NY Times journalist
Today, in a new report about “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on its platform, Facebook states that it last month removed hundreds of accounts across its Facebook and Instagram platforms
Latent AI, which says it can compress common AI models by 10x, lands some key backing
Roughly a year ago, Latent AI, a now three-year-old, Menlo Park, California-based startup, pitched a handful of investors during TechCrunch’s Battlefield competition. It didn’t win that co
Michael Arrington’s next act
As longtime TechCrunch readers know well, Michael Arrington co-founded TechCrunch and Crunchbase, as well as the venture fund CrunchFund, which was later renamed Tuesday Capital. But In 2017, Arringto
The head of Citi Ventures on how, and why, to leverage corporate venture arms like his
We have not had to wait for a second close or we've not had to request the company to do a second close. We've been able to close along with the rest of the the syndicate."
Crypto investors like Terraform Labs so much, they’re committing $150 million to its ‘ecosystem’
There are many blockchain platforms competing for investors’ and developers’ attention right now, from the big daddy of them all, Ethereum, to so-called “Ethereum Killers” like
Traditional VCs turn to emerging managers for deal flow and, in some cases, new partners
Nasir Qadree, a Washington-based investor who just raised $62.1 million for his debut venture fund, recently told us that as his fundraising gained momentum, he was approached by established firms tha
Nasir Qadree just announced one of the largest debut funds for a solo VC
Nasir Qadree entered the world of venture capital six years ago, beginning with a role at Village Capital in Washington, then as an associate director of social investments at AT&T. Qadree encount
Beyond ‘Netflix Party’: Startups and their VCs bet we’ll browse more of the web together
Last year, during the pandemic, a free browser extension called Netflix Party gained traction because it enabled people trapped in their homes to connect with far-flung friends and family by watching
Citi Ventures head honcho Arvind Purushotham is coming to TC Early Stage
Corporate venture capital used to get a bad rap. The money flowed from corporations into startups when times were good, and quickly disappeared when the market turned. But startups and corporations di
Renegade Partners rolls out its much-anticipated debut fund with $100 million
Renegade Partners — a Bay Area-based venture firm co-founded by veteran VCs Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek — is taking the wraps off a $100 million debut venture fund that’s bee
Hear top VCs Albert Wegner, Jenny Rooke, and Shilpi Kumar talk green bets at the Extreme Tech Challenge finals
This year, TechCrunch is proudly hosting the Extreme Tech Challenge Global Finals on July 22. The event is among the world’s largest purpose-driven startup competitions that are aiming to solve
Meet Mighty, an e-commerce platform where kids are operating their own storefronts
Until children reach a certain age, enrichment programs are somewhat limited to school, sports, and camps, while money-making opportunities are largely non-existent. Now, a year-old, L.A.-based startu
Uber’s first head of data science just raised a new venture fund to back nascent AI startups
Kevin Novak joined Uber as its seventh engineer in 2011, and by 2014, he was the company’s head of data science. He talks proudly of that time, but like all good things, it ran its course and by
Toca Football raises $40 million to fuel its budding chain of giant soccer and entertainment facilities
Toca Football, a nine-year-old, Costa Mesa, Ca.-based company that operates 14 sports centers across the U.S. that are focused on soccer training, has raised $40 million in Series E funding to roughly
Harness Wealth raises $15 million to democratize the power of family offices
Family offices have existed since the 1800s, but they’ve never been so manifold as in recent years. According to a 2019 Global Family Office Report by UBS and Campden Wealth, 68% of the 360 fami