Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher

Editor At Large

Mike Butcher (M.B.E.) is Editor-at-large of TechCrunch. He has written for UK national newspapers and magazines and been named one of the most influential people in European technology by Wired UK. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Web Summit, and DLD. He has interviewed Tony Blair, Dmitry Medvedev, Kevin Spacey, Lily Cole, Pavel Durov, Jimmy Wales, and many other tech leaders and celebrities. Mike is a regular broadcaster, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg. He has also advised UK Prime Ministers and the Mayor of London on tech startup policy, as well as being a judge on The Apprentice UK. GQ magazine named him one of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK. He is the co-founder ThePathfounder.com newsletter; TheEuropas.com (the Annual European Tech Startup Conference & Awards for 12 years); and the non-profits Techfugees.com, TechVets.co, and Coadec.com. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2016 for services to the UK technology industry and journalism.

The Latest from Mike Butcher

Two large equity funds launched this week. What gives?

Two large equity funds came out of the gate this week. So, what gives? Earlier this year we covered how Liquidity Group, a growth-stage debt financier, raised $40 million and launched a $250 million d

New research: Vast majority of VC-backed UK startups do *nothing* on climate emissions

Some 76% of the top 500 VC-backed U.K. startups have done nothing to either measure or offset their carbon emissions, according to new research shared exclusively with TechCrunch. In total, these comp

Defense AI startup Helsing breaks the record for European AI, raising a $223M Series B

Helsing, a “Defense AI” startup backed by Spotify founder Daniel Ek which had previously raised €102.5 million, has today pulled in another €209 million ($223 million) in a Series B fu

UK deep tech gets another boost with new $100M SCVC fund out of Bristol

Europe has far too few VCs created by former founders, or “operators” as the industry often likes to call them. Yes, Atomico has Niklas Zennström. Firstminute Capital has Brent Hoberman. More rec

Connect Ventures hits $80M for its next fund, says the Bear market means ‘Product is back, baby!’

Tempus fugit, as Virgil once put it. It was a full 11 years ago that I first noted the appearance of Connect Ventures, one of the early “new kids on the block” amongst the nascent clutch o

Nordic-based Unconventional Ventures nears €30M fund close to back diverse European teams

As has been pointed out many, many times, lack of diversity is an ongoing problem in the tech startup and VC landscape. It’s a fact that’s long been recognised in the U.S., and it’s of equal con

Communication using thought alone? Unbabel unveils AI project to give us superhuman capabilities

Sitting in a meeting room in a startup office in Lisbon, I silently typed a question only the person opposite would know the answer to. What kind of coffee had I asked for when I’d arrived at the of

‘Smart bus’ startup Zeelo, aimed at employers and schools, secures $14M to scale in the US

Zeelo — a ‘smart buses’ platform providing bus operators, employers and schools with private bus and shuttle transport programs — has secured $14 million in a fresh Series A ‘extension’ ro

VLGE opens SDK for its no-code virtual world builder aimed at fashion, beauty and art industries

We’ve seen the rise of no-code and low-code platforms being applied to any number of applications and use cases. What would happen if this thinking were applied to metaverse-style virtual worlds? Wh

Messina joins Ride Home Fund’s new $15M AI vehicle, backed by Andreessen, Dixon, Crowley

Tech veteran Chris Messina and writer/podcaster Brian McCullough are launching a new $15 million fund aimed at AI startups. The backers include tech luminary investors and founders such as Marc Andree

Pretiosum Ventures hits first close on its second fund to back infrastructure startups

London-based Pretiosum Ventures has reached the first close of what TechCrunch understands could eventually be a $20 million second fund. Founded in London in 2019 by Yana Abramova, the solo GP fund i

EdgeIn hopes to be a faster, community-driven, ‘CrunchBase for web3’

As we saw with the collapse of FTX, the web3 space leaves a lot to be desired in terms of transparent information about companies, fundings, management and a slew of other data that really is commonpl

GoStudent adds another $95M to its war chest to go after VR and AI-enhanced tutoring

GoStudent — the late-stage tutor marketplace that has raised $686.3 million so far — has now raised another $95 million in what it calls a strategic fundraise from Deutsche Bank and other inve

Dial up a therapist like an Uber? Wangie aims at Gen Zers and the time-poor

It would be fair to say there’s no global solution for instant 24/7 access to mental health support. Yes, there are a few “marketplaces” where you can schedule a call with a therapist in

Akhetonics raises capital for its all-optical processor prototype

Traditional processors from the likes of Intel, AMD, or Nvidia have well-known limitations around speed, energy efficiency, and electromagnetic interference. For instance, foundational chip makers lik

Whither Israel? Israeli tech players comment on the impact of the country’s convulsions

As we covered in April, Israel has become convulsed by “reforms” to the judiciary, proposed by the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, which passed yesterday. There is now deep concern that the jud

What happened when Nous.co hooked up generative AI to its users’ household bills

With the cost of living ever more painful, and generative AI supposedly gunning for your job, at least — for the moment — it might be here to save you some money on your household bills. U.K.-base

Can dltHub solve the Python library problem for AI? Dig Ventures thinks so

Python is the preferred programming language in AI. However, most organizations can’t incorporate their Python developers into legacy data infrastructure. That means they miss out on pulling the ben

Sources: Lensa AI backer exits Servers.com for $200M

A backer of the Lensa AI app, which sent AI-generated images from Stable Diffusion rocketing into mainstream social media, has just exited a company for a substantial amount of money, say well-placed

From VanMoof to VanPoof! How did the e-bike pioneer go bankrupt, even as the market boomed?

Troubled e-bike maker VanMoof — which had raised a total of $189.1 million from the likes of Balderton Capital and Felix Capital, among other investors — has now officially gone bankrupt in the Ne
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